Backyard Sports Baseball, a Chick-Fil-A Kid’s Meal game?
I love finding oddball baseball PC games on eBay. The latest is a PC/Mac game that came with Chick-Fil-A kid’s meals in 2012. The game is called Backyard Sports Baseball, and it has Humongous Entertainment and Atari logos on it, consistent with the ownership of the Backyard Baseball and Backyard Sports brands from about 2004 onwards.
The last actual Backyard Baseball game from Atari came out in 2010 with Backyard Sports: Sandlot Sluggers, so it’s a little surprising to see a promotional item from a few years later. The disc includes a trailer for the Backyard Sports series of games, all of which came out in 2010.
The game on the disc opens in an Adobe Flash window, and it sure is that old stand-by of baseball-themed flash games: A point-and-click home run derby. A pitching machine shoots balls towards the player, and all ya gotta do is click ’em. The exit angle varies based on where you click the ball, but it doesn’t matter. A grounder is worth just as much as a home run, the only difference is visual.
The art inside the game looks like it may have been based on Sandlot Sluggers assets (I don’t own that game yet and don’t know much about it), so it’s a little funny that the disc cover is clearly not. I would guess the disc cover art was done by a Chick-Fil-A team rather than an Atari team, though I can’t say for sure.
The back of the disc cover includes some very simple games like you’d find on the back of a cereal box or a kid’s mat at a restaurant. I got number 3 okay, but question 1 took me about a minute to find (maybe I’m tired today) and question 2, well, I mean it could have been “thricep” too, right?
Here’s footage from this rip-roaring baseball videojuego:
A Perfect Likeness
YouTube Viewing Guide
- Japanese commercials for the U.S.-made baseball games All-Star Baseball 2002 and MLB 2003
- Gameplay of VR Baseball ’97 for PS1
- Gameplay of the Arcade Archives port of ancient Nintendo arcade game Vs. Baseball
- Gameplay of Bases Loaded ’96: Double Header for PS1