Play Ball!

I really had a hankering to play some video game baseball this weekend, but didn’t feel like plunking down money $50 for a new one or even going through the hassle of renting one. So I did the logical thing and downloaded some old Nintendo baseball games to play on my computer.

First was RBI Baseball, a game very fondly remembered, but let me tell you, it doesn’t hold up well. Yeah, it had the major league players, and who wouldn’t want to play as Marty Barrett? But the fielding really stinks (how many dribblers have gotten by the infield and ended up being triple?). Plus the field seems much too small. OK for nostalgia purposes but I got bored really quick.

I found a copy of Baseball Stars, still one of my favorite Nes games ever. It pretty much stole RBI’s control scheme, but also improved by letting your fielders dive and jump for line drives (something you dearly want in RBI). Plus the field is just the right size, meaning you can cover a decent amount of ground in the field but the ball can still find the gap. Honestly, the controls are so easy I even got my Dad to play some games with me years ago.

It doesn’t have the MLB players, but you could create your own team and re-name the players, and win games to boost their stats (hitting, throwing, etc.) This was revolutionary stuff in the late 80’s/early 90’s. I had one team that got so jacked I played a 100+ game season against several other computer teams, and I think my worst hitter ended up hitting .600. I forgot, the game had the mercy rule, where if you were leading by 10 runs you automatically won. Great fun.

Just for curiosity’s sake I downloaded Baseball Stars II, only to find it’s pretty much the exact same game as Baseball Stars I. I mean, besides some different parks and new teams, everything’s exactly the same. Except you can’t rename your players, which was a hideous idea by SNK. Half the fun was naming players after your friends or giving them a name like “Buttcheek.”

It’s weird, because for the NES, there was usually one dominant game for each sport:

Football: The Tecmo Bowl series, easy. No one pines for 10 Yard Fight or John Elway Football.
Hockey: Blades of Steel, of course, with maybe some sympathy votes for Ice Hockey.
Basketball: Double Dribble, naturally. I know Tecmo made a basketball game a la Tecmo Super Bowl, but I didn’t like it when I rented it. Besides that, not a lot, except maybe Hoops.

But for the National Pastime you’ve got Baseball (very early NES game, truly terrible), Bases Loaded (never cared for it), Dusty Diamond’s All Star Softball (never played, though some people swear by it—maybe I’ll track down a rom), and Bad News Baseball (Tecmo doing baseball—also never played). I’m definitely going to try and track down the latter two tonight if I get a chance.