Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball is a multiplatform baseball simulation game that was licensed by the Major League Baseball Players Association, featuring the likeness, motion captured movements, and “Big Hurt” branding of player Frank Thomas.
All the teams, statistics, and players are meant to simulate the 1995 Major League Baseball season.[3] Acclaim released a successor to the game also featuring Thomas and actual major league teams, All-Star Baseball ’97 featuring Frank Thomas.
Gameplay – Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball
Featuring realistic pitching, realistic batting, and a realistic likeness of Frank Thomas himself for the game’s era, there are also regular season and exhibition modes.[2]
Pitching and batting can be done either in a high, medium, or low direction (in addition to slow, medium, or fast pitching) for greater realism.[2] Greater emphasis was placed on defense and pitching, as opposed to more offense-oriented baseball video games like World Series Baseball ’95. Games often take place at night; especially at Wrigley Field.[4]
Games can be played to a minimum of two innings and a maximum of nine innings (plus any extra innings that occur in a tied game). All the teams in the game can be edited through a special edit screen; this allows players to replace teams that they do not like with their home towns that do not have Major League Baseball teams.[5]
More than 700 players with Major League Baseball contracts appeared in the game.
Development – Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball
Frank Thomas’s animations in the game were created from several days of motion capture filming Thomas at Acclaim’s in-house studio during Spring 1995.[6]
Ports – Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball
A conversion of the game was in development for the Atari Jaguar CD after Atari Corporation and Acclaim announced their partnership in March 1995 that included plans to release three titles for the system, including Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball.[7][8][9][10][11][12] The port was originally slated to be released around the fourth quarter of 1995 and was later slated for an April/Q2 1996 release,[7][13][14][15] but work on the port was discontinued sometime in 1995 and was never released.[16]
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