Tony LaRussa Baseball II

by SSI

Product Features

• Easy Customization
• Play old teams against modern teams

Product Details

• ASIN: B000853216
• Media: CD-ROM
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #36,762 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Baseball Game EXTRAORDINAIRE. Check out the comments and reviews.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Baseball Game for Baseball Buffs, September 28, 2005

By 

kone "kone" (USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Tony LaRussa Baseball II (CD-ROM)

While dated, this game is still a fun game to play. Yes, the graphics cannot begin to compare to today's EA Sports versions, but still this is an intriguing game mostly because of the player and team options available. Tony 2 allows one to combine players from all sorts of different teams (it has a data base of players going back to the early 1900's!), and it allows you to create players too. Ever wanted to see how all the great AL players would do against the greatest NL players? With Tony 2 you can easily do this and have a single game or a season's worth of games. The options are what makes this game a great buy. I bought it for my son, and we had so many fun nights playing Tony 2. We also learned a lot about the players from their statistics.

I rate this an A+ game for pure fans of the game of baseball.

Jim "Konedog" Koenig

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Greatest Baseball game ever, June 29, 2008

By 

Al Stinkfoot Bundy (long island) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Tony LaRussa Baseball II (CD-ROM)

I loved this game so much that I saved the printouts for all the seasons I played...and I still have the game even though the disks don't work.
Therer were over 15 w/ all the updates..I even had to send away for a disk for the Colorado and Florida stadiums. Ahh..I miss the old days.
Sure there were a few glitches in the game but you could import your own play by play sound clips. I was able to record Phil Rizzuto and Bob Uecker and I downloaded this horrid Padres announcer from Aol (Who's batting..haha) The graphics were amazing for their time and I spend endless hours playing w/ my friends. I never played anything like it at the time and I feel the games today cant' compare. Why do we need all these fancy pitching controls. Just hit a button. it was so much easier to play.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Holy Grail For Baseball Stat-Heads, October 23, 2009

By 

Zachary Koenig "K-Dawg" (Forest Lake, MN) - See all my reviews

= Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Tony LaRussa Baseball II (CD-ROM)

For the past decade, video game baseball simulations have (by and large, with few exceptions) failed miserably on whatever platform they are introduced. Either the game presentation is choppy, the graphics are terrible, or the difficulty level is just plain too difficulty for average gamers. However, Tony LaRussa Baseball II (made for the old DOS-based PC's, if that dates it pretty well!) is the absolute perfect combination of statistical customizability and fun gameplay.

The stand-out quality of the game, of course, is in its giving the player almost limitless control over how to customize both players and teams. Want to see how the 1927 Yankees would do against the 1991 Twins? Sure. Have you ever wondered whether batters like Albert Pujols, Manny Ramirez, or Alex Rodriguez would hit against Walter Johnson, Cy Young, and Addie Joss? No problem. This game allows you to create a player from scratch (even filling in his real-life statistics) and customize him in every aspect of diamond skills, from batting to pitching to fielding and even intangibles like awareness and home/road, day/night splits.

I have used this game in so many different ways that I bet even the creators would be astounded! As a young child, this game taught me an incredible amount about the history of many players (the in-game database goes back to 1900!), and challenged me to put together what I would consider to be the greatest of all-time. My Dad (also an avid fan!) and I also created certain teams to see which style of player would beat all others. For example, would a "Speed Team" of guys like Ty Cobb, Oscar Charleston, and Lou Brock out-run the "Sluggers" of Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, and Lou Gehrig, or would the "Hitters Team" with Rogers Hornsby, Nap Lajoie, and Ted Williams take them both? Over the course of the nearly two decades I have enjoyed this game, I have run countless numbers of simulated seasons, crunching numbers just for the pure fun of being a baseball fan. Heck, I even charted the progress of the Little League teams I coached by putting their stats into this program!

Of course, the gameplay (at least by mid-1990s standards) is very well-done and fun as well. The only major flaw is that playing defense is nearly impossible, so just letting the computer ratings take over is the preferred option, although this really doesn't diminish the experience much (in fact, it actually enhances it by letting your hard-earned studying of statistics pay off!). Even announcer Ron Barr is a joy to listen to after all these years ("Fouled back to the screen").

Thus, when considering all the facets in which this game can be used, I still (in this era of XBOX and PC's built specifically for gaming) consider "Tony II" to be the best overall baseball sim I've ever played. I truly hope that computers in the next decade or so do not advance so far as to render these games completely obsolete, as in this case we would be losing a true gem.