Baseball Superstars 2011 is the Android Baseball game for players who want to customize how they play, you can play season by season as a single batter or pitcher, play only the cleanup batter, no matter who it is, only the closing or starting pitcher, play everyone! let the computer handle base running, pick your favorite team members and only play them, how ever you want to set it up, you can do it in Baseball Stars 2011.

One of the games best settings is a speed setting that allows you to speed up or slow down the game, having a hard time hitting 100mph fastballs? slow it down, feel like the game is taking too long, or have less time to play? speed things up! The Graphics are cartoony, but good (the new version Baseball Superstars II has Anime graphics, but seems to only be on iOS right now), It looks good on a 10.1″ Notion Ink Adam tablet display as well as my 4.3″ HTC Evo screen.

I do have a few issues, but none prevent me from playing the game, and what game has ever been absolutely perfect for every person? I play mostly in the “My League” mode, which allows you to create a batter or pitcher and follow their career.

1. You can hit a pop fly to the batter’s box – something which the catcher will never miss, until your batting score gets over 920.
2. The fielders all play like all stars when your batting score is low – 40′ long dives to catch a line drive, never dropping a catch…
3. I’ve noticed that the opposing teams actually get worse the more you play – the better your character’s skills the worse your opponents play against you.
4. Many games seem rigged – depending on how well you play, the computer will do everything it can to make the team it wants win, if you are batting, all of your teammates will never score, unless you hit the hit that brings them home, or the computer will keep the game close (like 2-2) but in the 7th, 8th, or 9th inning will score 5-10 runs! after you hit a 2 or 3 run homer to take the lead! even if you are ranked #1 and playing the 10th place team. The only real way to control every game is to be the pitcher and pitch the whole game without a sub (in My League, in season play, just play all the pitchers!).
5. It is very easy (when you first install the game) to make a new batter and do the HR mode and score Gpoints until you’re swimming in them, and then upgrade your player to max stats before even playing their first game. (between 60k and 70k Gpoints should do it).
6. If you swing before the pitcher releases the ball (the swing window starts right before the ball is let loose), you cannot swing again, you are stuck in the swing position until the ump calls it a strike.
7. Unless you have perfect timing and hit a homerun, it seems to be impossible to hit pitches in the corners of the strike zone, or any pitch outside the strike zone, even if you move in the batters box so you are closer (outside pitches)/farther (inside pitches) from the pitch.
8. Also the game does not take into account when you have maxed a stat out and still awards you points that just disappear. (fame included, once you hit 999 fame, you’ll get another 999 fame before long but the counter never goes over 999…).
9. You are the team, in every mode. Don’t expect your team to play good, ever, unless you are controlling them. I tried playing an entire season as just the batters, all of the batters, and finished in 4th for the season and lost in the second round of the finals (top 4 teams play first to 4 wins moves on to the next team, so 4th place would have to beat 3, 2, and 1st place to win all of it (12 wins!)). Again this goes back to fixed games, I lost one game while playing all the batters in Season mode, made me really upset, I was up 8 – 0 in the 4th inning, the computer got 20 runs between the 5th inning and the 8th inning, I actually caught up and took the lead at 24-23 in the 9th (I scored a few in the 4th-8th too, not all of those were in the 9th!), then they still beat me 28-24 in the bottom of the 9th, this was one of those times where my team was more than 4 positions above in the rankings.
10. Even with a 900+ running skill, I still cannot steal home after a sacrifice fly to the wall, I cannot beat a bunt to first most times (10-15% success rate on the bunt), and I cannot steal 2nd base more than once every 15-20 attempts.
11. The coach keeps asking me to bunt when I hit 50 homers per season and have an 800+ batting average and bat in the cleanup position (even in the 9th inning when we are losing by one and the runner is on first with 1 or 0 outs).
12. All of the walls are the exact same distance (324′ will get you a homer anywhere in the park and all teams play in the same stadium).
13. If you hit the foul pole you can get a homer, but the distance the ball traveled is shorter the higher up you hit the pole… The shortest homer I’ve gotten was 276′ at the top of the pole and 304 at the bottom of the pole…
14. All of the computer controlled players know if the ball will be caught for an out, none of the base runners move, not even to go halfway. So later in the game when your stats are really high, the fielders may start to drop the ball, then throw to the base where the runner never tried to go to and get him out instead of you.
15. Not a lot of information in game, I mean it tells you how to hit a ball, and how to pitch a ball, but not a lot else on how the unique Baseball Stars system works. So I went to the Dev website for more info, nothing there. So I tried to join their forums and post a question, there is NO SIGN UP/REGISTRATION LINK!
16. It would have be nice to see you “total” stats, ie. battering average cumulative over all your seasons, total HR’s and so on, but it does not seem to be an option in game.
17. Also, something I did (a skill I earned maybe) gave me the ability to increase my defense score by tapping up while batting!?!? I still cannot find any info on exactly what those skill mods do…
18. Last thing! The on screen D-pad is at least twice the size it needs to be, taking up almost half the screen. Not too annoying on a phone, but on a Tablet it can make it awkward to play to game.

All in all, I have spent a good 100 hours playing this game and I still suck, although I’ve learned how to win, a lot. My batter consistently gets a .800+ batting average, and my pitcher can pitch perfect games about 1 out of every 3 times and the other games only allow 1 or 2 hits the entire game. I still enjoy playing, I have achieved 4 girlfriends for 1 batter, that was fun, but nothing happens after you “win” the girls… you cannot even go see them again.

Marketplace direct DL links

Free Version		Paid Version