Here we have the final, and worst of the Bases Loaded games for the NES. Bases Loaded 4 is a surprise in many respects, but mainly because they released it in the first place. At this point the market for baseball games was already saturated, so it’s no surprise this one is slightly hard to find and wasn’t very widely purchased. Good thing, because if you got this one for a present you’d probably kill yourself.

Graphically, Bases Loaded 4 is essentially the same damn thing as Bases Loaded 3. Seriously, they lifted the majority of the graphics from the latter and put this together. You have a few bells and whistles added (like a moving crowd behind the batter), but really there’s nothing new. And for the love of god really, they actually kept the horrid fielding view from Bases Loaded 3? Anyway, there isn’t much to say, if you saw Bases Loaded 3 you pretty much saw Bases Loaded 4. Shameless, but, still, it does look alright.

In terms of the sound, Bases Loaded 4 brings some better tunes, but the sound effects are largely the same as found in Bases Loaded 3. Actually, wait, no, really, the only difference in the music is the actual gameplay music, everything else is, in fact, the same as Bases Loaded 3. The title screen, the team selection screen, pretty much everything else. They barely tried in this department too.

The gameplay in Bases Loaded 4 does differ from Bases Loaded 3 in one important area, they’ve gone back to the tournament style of play from the first two games. So, you can do a pennant race, start where you left off later, and so forth. It’s basically what Bases Loaded 3 should have been. The controls are generally the same, though you’ll notice immediately the batting seems a lot easier. That, and they removed the computer’s stupid tendency to hit pathetic grounders for easy outs when you pitch. Bummer, that makes this blasted thing last longer than it should. The controls are smooth and easy to learn, so no problem there. Check it out real quick:

Big problem is, however, still the freaking fielding. Didn’t they play test this? There’s just no way anyone actually thought this worked. Clearly, they simply wanted to cash in on the Bases Loaded 3 code. The only thing they’ve changed in Bases Loaded 4 is that a small, abstract field has been overlayed in the upper right. This, theoretically, lets you know where the ball is going so you can move your fielder in time, something that made Bases Loaded 3 near impossible. However, for some reason, it doesn’t work properly. You still have trouble getting to the ball and it seems the scrolling has actually been doubled so many times the screen moves way too fast to even have a chance of adjusting. I also noticed it glitched and skipped occasionally, causing me to lose the ball in the process. I followed the little field religiously, but it still didn’t make a difference. How is that possible? So that pretty much sums it up. Bases Loaded 3, with a tournament and worse fielding.

Can’t give Bases Loaded 4 too many creativity points either. They’re just lifted the majority of the Bases Loaded 3 code, added a few things, and turned it backwards to the older format of the previous Bases Loaded games, meaning that now you can actually play baseball instead of trying to get a perfect score. Not really anything new, they brought nothing creative to the table for this one and just tried to milk us for a few more bucks. Luckily, I got this for free.

Really, it’s doubtful you’ll play Bases Loaded 4 more than a few times. The fielding is so horrible it will irritate the piss out of you, and if you’re looking for realism and a cool tournament mode, well, just play one of the first two, preferably the second one in my opinion. Bases Loaded 4 gives you the ability to come back and play it again, but who cares? Already seen this kind of thing before. If the gameplay were better, yeah, maybe, but why would you want to come back to something that pretty much fails in that department?

Bases Loaded 4 is a sad ending to the NES series, but it certainly wasn’t the end of the series as a whole. Due to the popularity of the name, they kept it going well after this. Can’t say if that’s a bad thing, because personally I haven’t played the later titles, but if Bases Loaded 4 is any indication of the direction they were taking (i.e. ripping off the previous ones with just a smidgen of alteration), don’t bother. I seem to think it’s not that way at all, but this one certainly lowered my opinion of the series. Approach with caution.