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Title Earl Weaver Baseball
Game Type Sport
Players 1-2
Company Electronic Arts
Compatibility WB 1.2 and up*
Submission Gregory Hayes

Review
While an ancient game (1987), EWB still commands a certain following among
gamers as one of the more playable baseball sims. The graphics are crude
by modern standards, but player motion remains quite adequate. Several
levels of engagement are possible: player, player-manager, and manager.
There are also four levels of difficulty: major league, minor league,
semi-pro, and sandlot. While the latter three are relatively easy, the
major league level is almost impossible, providing the gamer a real
challenge.

One of the neatest parts of the game is its configurability. One can
create the perfect player who always delivers or a stadium of unbelievable
proportions. League and non-league play are also possible. Seasons can
be of any length, although gamers looking for automatic playoff modes will
be disappointed. Players from different eras can compete on the same
field, helping inveterate baseball fans argue about who was the best
center fielder of all time, etc. Fields from different eras are also
available and factor in such variables as wind and astroturf. Helpful
advice from the great manager Earl Weaver is easily accessible.

What is truly amazing about the game is that all this runs on any 512K+
Amiga equipped with Workbench 1.2 and up. The opening demo gets a little
strange on an accelerated WB 2+ machine, but the game remains playable.
Unfortunately, EWB is not hard drive installable: I once found a hack that
claimed to do the trick, but I couldn't get it to work. While the player
can create a play disk for different seasons or leagues, the original disk
is used as a dongle. Since the game is small, that is not too great a
disadvantage.

Electronic Arts made a number of scenario (World Series opponent, season)
data disks available, but they petered out around 1991 or so. Anyone with
a grasp of the basics of the game, correct statistics, and some extra time
can create new data disks without too much trouble.

Outside of the outmoded form of copy protection and the creaky graphics,
EWB is still worth buying for its sheer playability, use of native Amiga
speech, and advanced-for-its-time crowd noises.