SportsBlahg

I finally got a chance to play MLB 2K8 (that’s right I said 2k, as the silly commercial says). The game is great, graphics are sweet, player movements are near identical and the best part was, when my girlfriend walked by, she asked, “What game are you watching?”. Nothing gives more props to a game than someone not being able to tell the difference between the two (granted if you sit down and watch it, you can tell the difference, but they’re working on it). Not to mention I got real time updates of MLB and other sports news on the scroll button at the bottom of my screen (when I’m connected to Xbox Live).

What bummed me out most about this game was how complicated the controls on it were. I mean to throw a pitch you have to move the control stick one direction and then move it another direction to throw it (sometimes spinning clockwise/counter clockwise). Maybe at the age of 24, I am officially starting to get old to newer video games, but they don’t even allow you to play retro style anymore, which I think is ridiculous. So in protest, I decided to scour my collection of baseball games that I’ve played over the past 20 years (and believe me there are many) to find my favorites and they are listed below:

• Major League Baseball (1988) - This was the game that really started all things managerial within the video game of baseball. The game allowed folks to pinch hit, bring in relievers, choose your DH before the game starts (depending on the pitching match up) and my absolute personal favorite, the creation of switch hitters, and allowing them to switch between batting lefty & righty (sometimes in the same at bat!). Not to mention it featured superstar Hall Of Famers like Ozzie Guillen, Ricky Henderson and a young Roger Clemens (shortly after that 20 strike out season) AND you get to play the All-Star game (woot!) with All-Star players. This game paved the way for games to become more complicated and situational (which I like), while keeping things like hitting, bunting, base running and fielding simple (A, B, Directional Pad).
• High Heat Baseball (2002) - This was one of the shortest lived franchises in baseball creation history (2002 to 2004) but it was great for what it was, a statisticians baseball video game. This game had more stats than most people knew what to do with, which was great. To top it off, they kept the game play simple (again I like). However, the graphics, sound, and players were pretty horrible (as the obvious Yankee fan below will tell you). However this game certainly made light of the fact that certain fans of video baseball games like statistics and to have a successful game, you need to have stats in there. But you also need to have good graphics, semi-realistic players (my favorite was Brian Schneider, a white guy from Jacksonville Florida was blacker than night. Seriously High Heat, do some research!).
• Tecmo Baseball (1989) - Oh man, this was the mother load of fun game play. I spent HOURS playing my older cousin in this game, mostly because the umpires were so ridiculously short with their calls (OUT! SAFE!), I remember just walking off the base and walking back on it repeatedly just to hear him yell “SAFE”, since the play doesn’t end until both teams stop moving (not throwing the ball, but moving all together). I also loved the fact that you could dive, but just one kind of dive and it could only be in a diagonal direction, which is funny because you could only run horizontally or vertically in the game (and there was one speed). But you COULD move your pitcher around the mound (left to right) to get a better “angle”. The ultimate though is after you hit a home run, you get to watch your player run by his teammates waiving his arms at his player like he has two stubs instead of two arms, priceless. Oh, and the music is also top-notch (Baseball Tonight took notes).
• ESPN Baseball Tonight (1994) - My favorite version of this franchise was on the SEGA Genesis and boy was it awesome! I was a huge fan of Sportscenter even back in ‘94 (yes, I was 10, shut up). This game was great, it featured actually personalities I knew like Chris Berman (this is pre-Karl Ravich, Jon Kruk, Steve Phillips days). This was also one of the first gaming titles to feature a home run derby, which for my friends and I was much more exciting than playing an entire game. Not to mention it was a major step for ESPN in their growth by aligning themselves with Sony to create this game. Now Jon Miller and Joe Morgan (along with Jeanne Zelasko) are staples in the 2K franchise every year. Despite the fact that in 1994, Major League Baseball stabbed me (and my Expos) in the heart by canceling the season, this game at least kept me occupied in September and October (I believe my created Expos team finished a strong 116-46 that year). It was fine, because while I hated the real owners of baseball, Chris Berman kept me smiling with his, “It could…… GO…… ALL…. THE…… WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY… Home Run”. Thank you Boomer, you saved me in ‘94.
• MLB Slugfest (2006) - And just when we thought that all that would be made were nice, clean titles about baseball players, Midway games goes and throws us a fastball inside at chin level with MLB Slugfest 2006. This title played heavily on the fact that MLB players were “larger than life” and juiced that way. The hitters could hit balls 600 feet, the pitchers could throw balls so fast that flames would appear on them, and my personal favorite of course was the fact that instead of sliding, you just punched your way into the base you were going for. (Isn’t that the only way?) What other game can you have drama and action like this?
• Little League Baseball (1990) - Easily the GREATEST baseball game ever created, because where else can you play Illinois for Japan? This game, like “Ice Hockey” was comprised of three players: Short and Fast, Tall Skinny and Average, and my personal favorite, Fat Slow and Powerful (because stereotypes are fair). The single coolest feature in this game was deciding who would be home and who would be away. It was determined by a bat toss (see below if confused) where the home and away team can almost be completely random each time (talk about fairness). If you want hints for this game, the team to be is Hawaii, they have like ALL fat kids, because apparently that’s where all fat kids come from, and they can hit better than the Yankees (the early 2000 teams with Shef, A-Rod, Giambi, Soriano, etc). If there is any time when I feel like I need a pick me up from baseball, I turn to the game that doesn’t have all the drama of the MLB, nor the age issues of that little Danny Almonte kid. I turn to Little League World Series on a modded PC (or redone NES) near you!

I’ll now sit back and wait for these games to start appearing on Xbox Live Arcade, that would make me very happy

This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 12:58 pm and is filed under Baseball. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.