Baseball Riot review for PS Vita, PS4, Xbox One

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Baseball Riot isn’t a particularly original game. After all, its creator, 10tons, isn’t exactly known for making those: both King Oddball and Tennis in the Face were pretty standard Angry Birds-style physics-based puzzlers, while all three of their Sparkle games were essentially Zuma in all but name. It would probably be much more shocking if Baseball Riot were a wholly original game.

Still, even by those standards, Baseball Riot seems particularly blatant in its thievery — it’s basically a reskinned version of Tennis in the Face. There are a few vague nods in the direction of baseball rather than (you guessed it) tennis, but apart from those minor differences, the two games are virtually identical in every respect.

That’s not the worst thing in the world, I should emphasize. While Tennis in the Face didn’t break any new ground, it was still enjoyable for what it was. And so it is, too, with Baseball Riot: if you just accept that it’s your typical physics-based puzzle game without many bells and whistles, you should have a certain amount of fun.

In fact, to some extent, one of its features may make it slightly more enjoyable than most of its ilk. You know how Angry Birds (and nearly every other game like it) have that annoying three-star rating on each level, where you’re usually left to guess how to get all three stars? Baseball Riot doesn’t have that. Instead, it makes it totally obvious how you get all three stars: you have to collect them, amidst all the other havoc you have to wreak. While it occasionally adds a level of frustration as you go back and try to figure out how to obtain all the stars while also taking out all the enemies, but, if nothing else, it adds a level of transparency that’s not usually present in these games.

As innovations go, I admit, that’s not a major thing. In fact, it’s barely a minor thing. But considering we’re talking about an inexpensive casual game, all that really matters is whether Baseball Riot constitutes an enjoyable way to pass the time — and, thankfully, it does.