I honestly think RBI is the best baseball simulated game because as far as pitching is concerned, it's played on a two-dimensional type plane (left-right.) Simplicity at its finest.
I agree, other NES games had similar pitching styles, but when you combined it with having real MLB players, it made it the best. I've tried some of the baseball games on the newer systems and could not get into them.
I love RBI due to its simplicity, but it is in no way realistic. Certainly you can have a pitcher-hitter duel, but it is more like a heated game of paper rock scissors. Anticipation is the key.
How can you say not realistic when Tim Burks is one of the best pinch hitters in the game?
I never understood why guys with the most homeruns didn't always hit the most homeruns (specifically, why don't the number of HRs match up with a guys power number).
Also, I THINK the same is true for average - I don't think they had a consistent system.
A lot of the numbers repeat themself, so maybe they ranked players in their opinion of power and gave the highest number to their favorites.
Another half-assed theory of mine is that doubles/triples or something else is considered in the power number assignments.
With the pitcher-batter match-up, it's constantly a 50/50 guess. I suppose that's why 2-player games are so darn engaging.
Unrealistic? Al Pedrique had every right to make the all-star squad that year! I hear George Brett would bring mirrors to the batters box to trick the pitcher into believing he was a lefty in his heyday.
I've played a little bases loaded and like that game too. Over the Xmas holiday I hit a few stores and picked up a bunch of baseball games for the NES including : Roger Clemens baseball, RBI II and RBI III, Bases loaded second seasons, baseball stars, baseball simulator 1.000. I hope to play them all over the next month and maybe write some comparisons.... unless someone has already done this and wants to save me some time.
I suppose I can save you some time. All those games such serious donkey balls except for...RBI.
I like RBI 2 and 3, although they're unpopular here. The main differences are more teams, different graphics and sound, the ability to dive and jump for balls, and (most importantly) far fewer homers.
I have Baseball Simulator 1.000 on my NES at home. It has some cool things RBI doesn't - a season mode, stat tracking, diving/leaping, multiple stadiums - and plays a lot like RBI (the players are similarly built, all move at once, and the pitcher/batter interface is pretty much identical), but it doesn't have real players (unless you create them yourself), and it isn't quite as fun overall. I also don't care much for the "ultra plays", super powers that you can give your hitters.
I've only played Bases Loaded 1 and 3 (not Second Season). The original was interesting but not very fun to play, and 3 was hard as hell but cool once you got the hang of it. The pitcher/batter interface was a neat foray into realism, but I prefer the simplicity of RBI's.
Baseball Stars is awesome. I loved the concept of buying skill points for players, and the American Dreams were a nasty opponent even for a high-powered custom team (whilc the Lovely Ladies were a nice pushover for easy money). The gameplay was pretty good, although not RBI by any means.
I played Roger Clemens Baseball once on the SNES, and I quickly went back to Griffey (no NES handy at the time). I liked the fact that you could try to avoid tags on close plays, but the rest of the game wasn't that great.
FYI, I've also played Bo Jackson Baseball on the NES - it was the first game I played where you pick the type of pitch you want before throwing it, like in modern baseball games. The only cool part of that game was that sometimes on close plays the manager would come out and argue with the ump.
Vegas (or Beef) - If you guys want to do a NES baseball writeup, feel free to take some webspace or I can put it directly on Dee-Nee.com
As for me, I really enjoyed Baseball Stars but hated Major League Baseball. Rather neutral on Bases Loaded, ok but not great. Loses its luster quickly. RBI 2&3 are growing on me, but still far below the original. NES Baseball blows. Can't remember if I've played any of the others. I think I played a Tecmo Baseball and didn't like it...
Probably off topic but a story I love to tell. One of my college roomates was dating this girl (now his wife) and they would play Ken Griffey for SNES like every day and she would almost always beat him. They were ultracompetitive at everything and (she especially) hated to lose. Well obviously I knew he was a pussy for losing this game to a girl but she thought she was unstoppable. After about a month of her trash talk I stepped into the fray and pounded her ass 122-0 in one game. I refused to call it and just poured on the misery for like 1.5 hours. Then I made her cook me dinner. The moral of this story, if you can pound your buddies girlfriend and then get her to cook for you, you make him a stronger man. I think we've all learned something here.
Quote from: jaylums on 12/30/03, 01:35:20 AM
I honestly think RBI is the best baseball simulated game because as far as pitching is concerned, it's played on a two-dimensional type plane (left-right.) Simplicity at its finest.
Less is More.
doveRBI, that is perhaps the greatest story in the history of civilization.
Gantry, as for a NES baseball writeup, I could maybe throw together a comparison writeup of some sort, if that's something you'd like to put somewhere on the site. I've also been throwing around the idea of putting together a RBI 2 and/or 3 site, but I currently have the web design knowledge of trout. If I do get something together, though, I'll let you know, if you'd have space for it on RBI Central or something.
"if you can pound your buddies girlfriend and then get her to cook for you, you make him a stronger man."
I think I'd feel like a weaker man if this happened to me. :)
Absolutely beef, I think a lot of people would like to see an RBI-2/3 site online. THere's a void there, give it a whirl and I'll put you on RBICentral...
PS - Hand-editing HTML is extremely overrated. Plenty of easy to use HTML editors out there, most people think it's for wussies but if I started over I wouldn't be doing it by hand. Mozilla Composer should be easy and free...
Quote from: Gantry on 01/06/04, 01:41:37 PM
PS - Hand-editing HTML is extremely overrated. Plenty of easy to use HTML editors out there, most people think it's for wussies but if I started over I wouldn't be doing it by hand. Mozilla Composer should be easy and free...
It's 100% for wussies. ;)
vi > all
Nightwulf
vi gets tedious, especially if I want to do something that isn't an exact template of another page. Spending 30 minutes to line up a table ain't too fun...
I can't tell you how many times I edited something in word(pad) and hit Esc-Z-Z to get out of a file. Needless to say (unless I'm using WinVI, which is hardly ever) it only adds a couple Z's to my file...
RBI is teh best game ever of all baseball games.