Backyard Sports series

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Backyard Sports logo

Backyard Sports is a series of video games that play on both consoles and computers. The series is best known for starring kid-sized versions of popular professional sports stars, such as Albert Pujols, Paul Pierce, Barry Bonds, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Tom Brady, Alex Rodriguez, Joe Thornton and Andy Macdonald. The Backyard Sports series is the only game brand licensed by all the leading professional US sports leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLS).

The series includes Backyard Baseball, Backyard Basketball, Backyard Football (American football), Backyard Soccer, Backyard Hockey (Ice hockey), and Backyard Skateboarding. In the games, players form a team consisting of Backyard Kids and pro players, which they take through a "Backyard League" season, attempting to become the champions.

The games evoke or supplant childhood memories for its players by recreating the types of sports fields seen in suburban parks and recreational areas.

Players can create their own athletes, starting in Backyard Football (1999). Players choose from silly nicknames such as "Fancy Pants" or "Noodles," customize physical attributes such as hair color and height, and then distribute skill points as desired. However, since the game cannot pronounce the names of the player, the player's crazy nickname will instead be said.

Another aspect of the games is the imaginative use of Power-Ups, allowing players to gain wacky "super-abilities." For instance, "Super Dunk" allows a basketball player to make an incredible dunk from nearly anywhere on the court, "Leap Frog" allows a football player to jump over the entire defensive line, and "Ice Cream Truck" causes the other team to be completely distracted for a brief period of time.

All of the Backyard Sports games take place in the Junior Sports Neighborhood, with the exception of Backyard Football 2006 (which takes place on an unnamed island) and parts of Backyard Skateboarding, Backyard Hockey 2005, and Backyard Skateboarding: Game of the Year Edition.

Backyard Sports games are produced by Humongous Entertainment.

Some of these games are playable with ScummVM emulator.

History (Specific games)

In 1997, the first game in the series, Backyard Baseball, was released. Backyard Soccer was released in 1998. Each one was quite popular with children between 5 and 12, which is the target audience. The first of the franchise to be licensed by a major sports league was 1999's Backyard Football, which featured Jerry Rice, Dan Marino, Drew Bledsoe, Barry Sanders, Brett Favre, John Elway, Randall Cunningham, and Steve Young.

The year 2000 saw Backyard Baseball 2001, which had licenses from Major League Baseball and Major League Baseball Players Association, followed that fall by Backyard Soccer MLS Edition, which was licensed by Major League Soccer.

The first two Backyard Football games, along with Backyard Baseball 2001, were notable as they were the only games in the series to feature online play.

Following the buyout of Humongous Entertainment by Infogrames, Backyard Football 2002 and the first Backyard Basketball game were made. The latter had no NBA licenses, but it featured Kevin Garnett and Lisa Leslie. Each one was released in the fall of 2001. Backyard Baseball 2003 followed in the spring of 2002, with updated rosters (e.g. Cal Ripken Jr. was no longer in the game, but Ichiro Suzuki was). Later that year, Backyard Hockey, a game licensed by the NHL and the NHLPA, was released. Backyard Hockey introduced new character designs for each of the Backyard Kids (e.g. Pablo Sanchez now wears a purple baseball cap backwards, but his shirt remains the same) along with announcer Sunny Day.

Following the buyout by Infogrames various games from the Backyard Sports series have been released in 1998 for game consoles, including: Nintendo GameCube, Game Boy Advance, and the PlayStation 2.

The year 2003 saw updated versions of the most recent Backyard Soccer (with original character designs), Backyard Basketball, and Backyard Football. In 2004, a new game, Backyard Skateboarding, was released, and it featured Andy MacDonald.

With the release of Backyard Baseball 2007, the "next generation" of character designs for each of the Backyard Kids was introduced, with older and edgier kids along with improved graphics. The series has changed radically over time, which evokes resentment from the people who grew up with the series, as the art design has become drastically different and some of the key characters are no longer in the series.

Early in 2010 Atari announced that HB Studios was creating a fresh new look and gameplay experience for the franchise with the release of Backyard Sports: Sandlot Sluggers on Nintendo Wii, XBox 360 and PC. They stated that it is a completely new take on a longtime favorite franchise with all-new features, updated graphics, enhanced gameplay, and extensive options that will keep players and gamers alike enthusiastically entertained. The game was released at the end of May 2010 and received favourable reviews on family oriented websites. Common Sense Media gave the game five stars and GeekDad on the Wired website called it a lot of fun.

In July 2010 Atari announced Backyard Sports: Rookie Rush, an all-new football videogame developed by HB Studios for PC, Xbox 360 and Wii and by Powerhead Games for DS, will launch in October 2010. The sequel to Backyard Sports: Sandlot Sluggers features hard hitting power-ups, imaginative new fields, stylized graphics, a new array of super-charged gameplay options and a compelling story mode.

Trivia

• The Backyard Sports theme song (debuting in 2006) was performed by the band The Presidents of the United States of America.
• Brenda Arellano and Dex Manley are the only 2 voices who have provided at least one voice in each of the six Backyard sports. Manley is known for providing the voices of Barry DeJay and Buddy Cheque. Arellano has only provided additional voices.
• Klem Daniels has provided the voice of Chuck Downfield since 1999.
• Jen Taylor, Lani Minella and Samantha Kelly have all provided the voice of Sunny Day over the course of the Backyard Sports games.
• Several Backyard Sports voice actors have also starred in well-known video games. Ryan Drummond, Corey Bringas, Lani Minella, Marc Biagi, and Emily Corkery have lent their voices in the Sonic the Hedgehog series from 1999-2004 and Jen Taylor, Samantha Kelly, Lani Minella, Dolores Rogers, and Dex Manley have lent their voices to the Mario series.
• Mark Lund originally voiced both Amir and Achmed Khan and now voices Arthur "A.C." Chen. He has also voiced a number of the pro athletes including Steve West, Reggie Bush and Alfonso Soriano.
• Many of the Backyard Kids bios and stories are taken from friends and families of the original designers of the first game in the series.
• Barry DeJay is an unlockable player in Backyard Basketball, Backyard Baseball 2005, Backyard Baseball 2006, Backyard Football 2006.
• The fictional "Tech Sate University" appears in many games starting with Backyard Football 1999. It usually is host to playoff games. The school's sports team is called the "Fighting T-Squares".

List of games

Some games, notably console versions have completely distinct gameplay than Windows/Mac version with same title, thus they're listed separately.

• Backyard Baseball series
  • Backyard Baseball 1997 Apple Macintosh, Windows
  • Backyard Baseball 2001 Macintosh, Windows
  • Backyard Baseball 2002 Game Boy Advance
  • Backyard Baseball 2003 Macintosh, Windows
  • Backyard Baseball 2004 GameCube
  • Backyard Baseball 2005 PlayStation 2, Windows
  • Backyard Baseball 2006 Game Boy Advance
  • Backyard Baseball 2007 Game Boy Advance, GameCube, PlayStation 2, Windows
  • Backyard Baseball '09 Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, Wii, Windows
  • Backyard Baseball '10 Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, Wii
  • Backyard Sports: Sandlot Sluggers Xbox 360, Wii, PC, Nintendo DS
• Backyard Basketball series
  • Backyard Basketball 2002 Macintosh, Windows
  • Backyard Basketball 2003 PlayStation 2
  • Backyard Basketball 2004 Game Boy Advance, Windows, PlayStation 2
  • Backyard Basketball 2007 Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, Windows
• Backyard Soccer series
  • Backyard Soccer 1998 Macintosh, PlayStation, Windows
  • Backyard Soccer MLS Edition Macintosh, Windows
  • Backyard Soccer 2004 Macintosh Windows
• Backyard Football series
  • Backyard Football 1999 Macintosh, Windows
  • Backyard Football 2002 Macintosh, Windows
  • Backyard Football 2003 Game Boy Advance, GameCube
  • Backyard Football 2004 Windows
  • Backyard Football 2005 PlayStation 2
  • Backyard Football 2006 Game Boy Advance, Windows
  • Backyard Football 2007 Game Boy Advance
  • Backyard Football '08 Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, Wii, Windows
  • Backyard Football '09 Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, Wii, Windows
  • Backyard Football '10 PlayStation 2, Wii, Xbox 360
  • Backyard Sports: Rookie Rush Nintendo DS, Wii, Xbox 360, PC
• Backyard Hockey series
  • Backyard Hockey 2003 Windows
  • Backyard Hockey 2004 Game Boy Advance
  • Backyard Hockey 2005 Windows
  • Backyard Hockey 2007 Nintendo DS
• Backyard Skateboarding series
  • Backyard Skateboarding 2004 Windows
  • Backyard Skateboarding 2006 PC, Game Boy Advance, Windows

See also

• List of Backyard Kids
• Humongous Entertainment

External links

• http://www.backyardsports.com/ - Hosts the NFL Kids Backyard Awards and gives updates on upcoming games.
• Humongous Releases Backyard Baseball 2007