The best video game of all-time: Baseball Stars

Editor’s Note: For those of you bored by video games, my Monday sports preview is below this post.

I recently had a discussion with a friend about the video games we played when we were younger. Classics like Tecmo Bowl, NBA Jam, Goldeneye, and Mario Kart came up.

For me, my favorite was Baseball Stars on NES. I spent several summers as a kid making my own teams, my own leagues, creating players and earning money to make them better. You can still play Baseball Stars today on your computer if you download an NES emulator and the rom for Baseball Stars.

Keep in mind . It was one of the first games that saved memory. (Baseball Stars not only saved wins and losses, but player stats and user-created teams and players.) The game play was incredibly simple (and addicting), and for that time, the gameplay and graphics were great. The best part of the game was making your own team and watching it grow. Baseball stars comes with eight teams they created, none of which are real-life MLB teams. All of them have their charm.

American Dreams — The players are all named after U.S. greats. Pete, Babe, Joe, Hank and Willie, and on the mound they have Sandie and Cy. You baseball fans can all figure out who they are named after. This is by far the best team in the game.

Ninja Blacksox — The players themselves aren’t noteworthy for the most part, but any team name that combines Ninjas and the Blacksox scandal has to be interesting. Weirdly, this team has one woman player (Kuno) and the rest are men (more on gender in Baseball Stars later).

Brave Warriors — Boring, but a strong name and another cool team name.

Japan Robins — Several players named after Japan’s best. Oh (probably named after Saddaru Oh) bats third for this team.

World Powers — A team with players named after random famous historical people. Wilbur, Orville, Hulk, Plato, Caesar, Brutus, Zeus, Gengis and Watson. Nice touch having Caesar and Brutus on the same team. Somehow, this team isn’t very good.

Ghastly Monsters — A team whose players are named after, well, monsters. Cyclop, Lenny, Medusa, Jekyl, Zombie, Mummy, Freddy, Hacker and Creepy.

Lovely Ladies — A team of all women! And they all wear pink! This team is actually quite good at pitching and defense, but can’t hit at all.

SNK Crushers — A team probably made up of the employees who made the game (the company who made it is SNK). And they’re all horrible. You would think the makers of the game would make themselves good, like they do in EA Sports games. Not here.

There were only eight different computer-made teams to play, but like I said earlier, you get to make your own teams. And that’s what keeps you playing the game forever. You can make up to six user-created teams and mold them in your liking. You can make a team loaded with superstars, a pitching-heavy team, a power-heavy team, or whatever your heart desires.

You can name all of your players whatever you want pick your team’s logo. As you beat teams, your team gets money, which you can spend on to improve your team’s players. So what usually ends up happening when you create a team is you play against the SNK Crushers and Lovely Ladies first, and work your way up to good teams, eventually beating the American Dreams.

And best of all — the memory was saved (usually). This is the NES era, remember, not like today’s games. Being able to save progress on a team back then was incredible.

Other random things that made Baseball Stars the best game ever:

The gameplay was ridiculously easy to learn, but took time to master — Pitching was just pressing ‘A’ and holding down for a fastball, up for a slowball, left for a ball that curves to the left, and right for a ball that curves to the right. Not complicated. Hitting was just pressing ‘A’ at the right time, or tapping ‘A’ for a bunt. Again, not complicated.

The pace of the game — You could easily play nine-inning games in 10-20 minutes. For video gamers (people with small attention spans) this was great.

Home runs — Whenever a home run was hit, the crowd would go into a massive celebration, the same traditional music would play, and the scoreboard would say “HOME RUN” with a shot of the pitcher pounding the dirt and hitter rounding the bases, pumping his fist in the air. That never got old.

This game did have a lot of details that didn’t happen often but could make the game great.

* There was mercy rule, meaning if you were up by 10 runs at the end of an inning, it’s over. No use in making a slaughter take forever.

* When trying to rob a home run, you could make an 0utfielder fall over the wall. Again, that never got old.

* When you pitched a ball that hit a female batter, she’d fall to the ground and cry. Very sexist, but funny, especially at a younger age.

Don’t just take my word for it. Here’s some other great reviews about Baseball Stars from around the Web:

Wikipedia
Video Game Reviews
I-Mockery
Mobygames
GameFAQs