The name Humongous Entertainment is best known as the company founded by Ron Gilbert (of Monkey Island fame) which developed and published all of those educational point-and-click adventures we used to love back in our childhood. Games such as Pajama Sam, Spy Fox and Putt-Putt were all staples of our preschool years. Humongous was also known for an easygoing series of sports titles better known as Backyard Sports, with Backyard Baseball being the most famous of the bunch.

All you need to use is the mouse. It’s a super intuitive control scheme, even if too shallow.

They were entry-level sports games aimed at a younger audience, meant to teach them about their respective sports’ rules, and provided some carefree, easygoing fun, with simple controls and not exactly a lot of challenge, or even substance. With gaming preservation being all the rage nowadays, I will always be down to revisit a re-release of an older title, even if said title isn’t exactly a classic. I wouldn’t Backyard Baseball ’97 a must-have, but it did provide me with some oddly nostalgic fun, just by looking at those exaggerated, cartoonish animations, the 4:3 presentation, and the overall “preschool PC gaming” vibes.

If you are over the age of 30, you know the kind of vibe I’m talking about. Those overly animated, sprite-based games, with long animation cycles, a lot of meandering, neverending lines of dialogue, all meant to showcase how much content a developer was able to shove into a CD back in the 90s. It’s silly, but it’s also oddly heartwarming. Backyard Baseball ’97 is a beyond basic sports game, but nothing about it feels broken or even cheap. The voice acting is actually quite decent, the amount of elements you can customize on your team is impressive, and the gameplay, whilst shallow, works quite well.

Bro. I just found the next Babe Ruth.

The game only requires you to use your mouse. Aim and click to either pitch or bat. Let the game do the running for you. I never felt like I was being hindered by the AI in this case, so I didn’t bother the lack of input in this regard. You don’t need to worry at all about physics, air resistance, or wind velocty: more often than not, the ball will simply go wherever you tell it to go with the mouse. Aiming and batting becomes quite trivial as a result, but let’s face it, you’re not exactly playing freaking Backyard Baseball for the challenge.

Backyard Baseball ’97 features a ton of voice acting, as was the style at the time.

I’m not going to say that the re-release of Backyard Baseball ’97 is a game-changing moment for baseball titles, with MLB The Show still being equally accessible and enjoyable, but I’m glad this exists, and it’s so readily available on Steam. It’s a charming and nostalgic reminder to specific era of kid-centric PC gaming, when titles featured long and high-quality spritework and animations, and were filled to the brim with fun dialogue and simple controls. I guess you had to be there, but well… I was. So I’m glad I’m now able to revisit some of Humongous’ more “gamey” games in an easier manner.

Backyard Baseball ’97 is available now on PC.

Reviewed on Intel i7-12700H, 16GB RAM, RTX 3060 6GB.

A copy of Backyard Baseball ’97 was provided by the publisher.