If you are the type that thinks baseball games are just way too boring, Midway has made just the game for you. How could you expect anything less from the makers of NFL Blitz? MLB Slugfest 20-03 delivers awesome action in Midway's first baseball game.

I was actually pleasantly surprised with the graphics in this game, knowing that NFL Blitz usually doesn't put that much into making the graphics look believable. The players and stadiums have realism that rivals Triple Play and other simulation baseball games. For instance, in Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, you can see the worn down outline of the football field from Eagles games! The players look almost like the real players. Even for a game that is meant to be 'extreme,' its graphics contend with the mainstay titles in baseball.

The announcers for Slugfest are up to par with most sports games. As with all sports commentary on video games, they get very repetitive after you've played the game for longer than an hour. The commentary on Slugfest is very funny at times, however. I didn't see any issues with the commentary not matching up with the play on the field, which is more than I can say for some other games. They do tend to say things like, 'When this guy first came up, everyone talked about the power in his legs,' for everyone from the clean up hitter to the pitcher. The problem comes with the lack of depth of sound bites. The game's music is not outstanding, but the DVD does feature an extra music video from Dry Kill Logic.

What sets Slugfest apart from other baseball games is the 'extreme' factor. In case you don't believe me, after you select what type of pitch to throw, you then decide whether to pitch, pick-off, or BEAN the hitter! Hitting batters can bring stat decreases, or cause them to erupt and rush the mound. Any 'hit' into the outfield (even left field) can end up with you being thrown out at first. If you think you are safe once you get to base, think again. There are 'hard tags' that can knock you off the base for an out. Defense doesn't get all the fun, though. You can slide hard into base, knocking away the ball (not to mention the shortstop) and allowing you to advance to the next base.

MLB Slugfest 20-03 gives you several ways to play the game. If you just want to jump right in and play, there is a Quickplay mode. You don't get to keep track of your progress in this mode, however. If you are looking for more depth, Slugfest offers a few options for you: Challenge, Season, and Tournament. In Challenge mode, you have the staple of Midway sports games, having to beat every team in the Majors. You enter your name and a pin number, and that is your profile to track your progress through the game. You start with the Kansas City Royals and slowly move up in quality of opponents until you defeat the Seattle Mariners. In Challenge mode, you can change the team you play with between any game. In Season mode, you take one team and play a 56-game season. Stats and standings are tracked for you throughout the season. Tournament mode allows you to take on up to 7 friends in a single elimination tournament.

MLB Slugfest 20-03 has 5 difficulty settings: Trainee, Rookie, Pro, Veteran, and All-Star. The default setting is Pro. When you first start, any setting can be challenging. I played Pro and lost my first 4 games, then 6 of 8. After getting the hang of the controls, however, I started beating up on teams by scores like 11-2, 13-0, and 10-3. Moving up to Veteran didn't seem to increase the A.I. much. I won all 4 games at that difficulty by high scores. All-Star difficulty seems to have a significant increase in A.I. Plays that worked in Veteran didn't work as well anymore. For example, in Veteran I could always send a runner from second to third while when an outfielder was just picking up a shot to the wall. In All-Star, however, the ball got there quicker and the computer used 'hard tags' a lot more often.

MLB Slugfest 20-03's loading times are not bad for anything other than loading an actual game, but even that is made cool by adding some very interesting commentary while the rest of it loads. Memory card space is very trivial in this game in comparison to most sports games. It only takes 160KB of space on a PS2 memory card to save your game. Controls are a bit of an issue with this game, but not more than any other baseball game. This is mostly in the base running. It's hard remembering to use the shoulder buttons for advancing to the next base or retreating. It gets even more complex when you have multiple people on base and don't want them all to advance. After practice, this can be very effective, however. The direction buttons didn't always seem to pick up what base I was trying to throw to. Many times I tried to throw it to first base only to watch it go to the plate, or throw to the plate and have it go to first base instead. Another issue was their confusing menu system in the Memory section of the game. They have the labels Clear, Update, Cards, and View. Common sense tells me that Update would be the one to go to save the game, but you have to go to View and then select the player to save. I overwrote my game twice before I realized which was for which.

Slugfest lives up to the Midway theme of outrageous sports games. It has enough depth to be great as a regular baseball game as well. If you like your baseball with a dash of wrestling, I would definitely recommend MLB Slugfest 20-03 to you.