We bought Backyard Baseball by Humongous Entertainment as a Christmas present for our then 7 year old son. It's been 3 1/2 years now, and we've added Backyard Soccer and Backyard Football to our collection.

My sons, now ages 10 and 7, love this game. When you start, you are given several choices of things to do: play a "season", play a one-time "pick-up" game, look at your records or trophies from prior games, or check-out player stats. Assuming you choose to play a game, you first choose your team logo and color. The logos are not from Pro. Baseball, but have Hornets, Bombers, All-Stars, to name a few. You can choose from all major colors for your uniforms. Then you choose your team. On the screen in front of you are about 30 kids you might expect to see around any given neighborhood. Girls and boys, short, tall, different nationalities, and one child in a wheelchair. When you choose one kid, you're told their stats, and given strengths, so you can decide whether or not to "draft" him or her. Once you have your team, if you're playing a "season", you play 12 "regular season" games vs. 7 other teams. If you've made it into the post-season, you play for trophies in a Best of Three series. If you win THAT series, you go on to play 2 more series for trophies. If you've chosen to play a pick-up game, after you draft your team, you can choose where you play... a backyard, a street, a sandlot, a playground, and my sons' favorite, outside a vacant warehouse. Players can choose "easy", "medium", or "hard" levels, and can also choose to have 2 kid commentators providing a play-by-play.

My sons enjoy the competitive aspect of this game. They can each have a team, and while they don't play each other, they can compete via their team's records. They have fun choosing different players and finding different combinations that work well together. The graphics are very good, and the game has realistic sound effects. Even my almost 2 year old daughter plays around with this game, and shouts "BALL" when she wants to play with it.

We paid around $20. for this game, and have seen it at ZanyBrainy, Toys R Us, and in Scholastic Book Orders. The price is well worth it, as we have gotten many many hours of enjoyment. Backyard Football and Backyard Soccer are very similar, and I would recommend any of these for children as young as 5, and as old as... well, I asked my 10 year old if it was getting too "young" for him, and he said "No way!"



Recommended: Yes