Midway's rough 'n tumble baseball series makes its Game Boy Advance debut with MLB Slugfest 20-04.

Turbo-Charged Action

Following up the success of its arcade Blitz, Hitz and Hoopz series, Midway has taken the normally slow-paced national game and infused it with turbo-charged hits, pitches, jumps and dives. One-off matches take place in Exhibition mode.

Instead of opting for a standard season mode, Challenge mode allows you to choose any major league team and defeat all 30 major league teams until you are world champion. You can also simulate your own World Series by choosing Series mode. Simply take your own team and any other for a seven-game World Series.

Field of Options

Before each game, players can customize the CPU difficulty, number of innings and player roster. You can also turn on or off balls for a faster paced game. Once the options have been set, select one of six real major league fields to play in: Pacific Bell Park, Wrigley Field, Fenway Park, Safeco Field, Coors Stadium and Yankee Stadium.

Staying with the arcade theme, the batter/pitcher interface is fairly streamlined. The pitcher begins by choosing one of four available pitches. Pitch variety includes fastball, changeup, slider and screwball.

Each of the pitches is a highly exaggerated version of its real-life counterpart. Pitches twist, zoom and feature flame trails to confuse and confound most batters. Once your pitch is selected, you can either have your pitcher throw the pitch, bean the batter or attempt to pick off base stealers.

Batters need only time their swing to hit the pitch properly. If a hitter gets on a hot streak, his performance improves dramatically. While batting, you can command any of your base runners to steal.

Fielding is made easy thanks to field markers that show where the ball will land. Fielders can turbo boost to make super-human defensive plays. With a well-timed jump, you can even swipe a seemingly sure home-run.