Complete Baseball Slugger FAQ

I was a big fan of Flight Control for the iPhone and at one point declared it to be my all-time favorite game. However this has changed since I've downloaded Baseball Slugger. This guide will tell you everything you will need to know from the game. A lot of it can be found in the "Help" section in the game, but knowing most people (like me), we just completely ignore it. In fact, I didn't even look at the Help section until I started writing this guide. So, after you buy the game read on on how to master it!

As seen from the image above, Baseball Sluggers offers four main modes of play:

Match up

This mode connects you to the internet via 3G or wireless and matches you up with other human players to compete against. During a match up with another person, the first slugger who completely fills his/her homerun gauge wins the match. The winner then receives win points and gold balls. As you win more points, you gain rank in the following order:

1. Rookie
2. Slugger
3. Star
4. Legend

When you rank high enough, you can participate in more challenging "channels" against other players where the pitchers in these channels throw harder to hit balls at you. This mode is by far the most fun and addicting and probably where you'll be spending most of your time (if you have internet connection). You can also add friends to match up against here.

Arcade

This mode has you trying to get the best score through homeruns and hits. Like with other modes, each home run gives you a certain amount of distance points (at least 100) along with 100 extra for each consecutive homerun count you are on - for instance, if you have made 3 homeruns in a row, the third one would give you the distance score + 300 bonus homerun points.

Any strikes or fouls are counted as "outs" and the game ends when you reach 10 outs. During that time, the goal is to try to get as high as score as possible before you reach the 10 outs.

Classic

This mode is similar to the arcade mode except any hit that is not a homerun is counted as an out. Therefore it is a mode to try to score the highest homerun score you can get. To help you in this, all balls by the pitcher will be straight fast balls. The round ends when you receive 10 outs. Keep in mind though that at 9 outs, the pitcher will be throwing continuous gold balls (see Special Ball section below)/

Training

A basic training mode where you can set different pitchers, types of balls, and speeds of balls. Use this mode to help train yourself to hit better and more accurately.

In all modes (especially match up) it is important to maximize your score as much as possible for each homerun that you hit. Here is a list of different ways you can score:

Scoring notes:

1. For cycling, you can keep track of where you have hit your past home runs in the main board in the center of the back of the stadium. There are three spaces indicating right/left/center and each will be filled as you hit homeruns into them.

2. Called shots can only occur after you score a cycle. It will then tell you where to hit the ball (homerun only) and if you are successful in hitting it to where it asks you, you get the bonus points plus another chance to do another called shot.

Special balls or item balls are pitched to you during the match up and arcade modes. If you are able to hit a homerun with a special ball, they will give you special bonuses or benefits depending on the ball. You'll know when you get a special ball as its icon will appear in the center of the screen right before the pitch (and the actual ball will be glowing after it has been pitched to you).

1. Easy Money - you get an automatic 500 gold balls just for adding 20 people to your friends list (through the "Celebrity" achievement). In fact...

2. Use achievements to earn gold balls - it will take you forever to gain them through the game. Just aim to get as many achievements as possible and you'll have uber gear in no time.

3. Control > Power - The hardest part of each pitch is actually hitting the ball to make it a homerun, not getting the longest distance. So while having lots of monster hits may sound nice, you can't really get them unless you hit a homerun. Getting items with CON will help with the accuracy of hitting homeruns so focus on those before PWR.

It's also important to note that once you get too much power, it becomes impossible to hit crashes and poles simply because your balls will fly so high and far it goes over both.

4. Timing is everything - The aiming cursor doesn't affect much the power of the hit or where in the field you hit it. Like with real life baseball, it's all about the timing. If you hit it too soon, you'll foul left, too late, you'll foul right. If you hit it perfectly, it'll go straight down the center. Practice your timing a lot and you'll soon get a hang of how the game plays!

There has been a lot of questions on how exactly win points work in multiplayer matches. I'm still in the process of figuring it out myself but here are some observations:

• You start out with 1000 win points which equates to one star Rookie.
• If you fall below 1000 win points you will always be a one star Rookie.
• In order to get to Slugger, you must win matches until you reach 1100 win points. During this process you will see the stars go up.
• When you win or lose a match, the amount of points gained or lost depends on the difference in win points between you and your opponent. Thus losing against higher win point opponents will not have as big of penalty than losing to someone with smaller win points than you.
  

Most of the gold balls you will earn will most likely come through accomplishing the game's various achievements (the gold ball rewards are much higher than what you can earn during games). You can access the achievement list through hitting the little blue player button on the bottom left of the screen in the main menu of the game and then hitting the button with the green exclamation mark. Here are a list of all achievements in the game:

So what do you do with all these gold balls that you earn while you play the game? The answer is to buy items to enhance both the look and "stats" of your batter. You can change your face/head to a number of different options and also buy equipment and outfits that actually enhance the power and accuracy of your hits. I'll let you decide what kind of face your slugger should have and only list stuff that actually enhance the stats:

I hope this guide helps you maximize your Baseball Slugger experience. If there is anything I'm missing in the guide, leave a comment and I'll add it in and give you credit!

This guide is copyright by ME and only PlayHaven is allowed to host it.