jbn566

This is a series of blogs based on my own personal game collection. I will attempt to go through them in a chronological order according to their release date. I will also attempt to play then on their original platform using the original controllers the game was designed for. If I am unable to get the system or the game working then I will use PC emulation or another platform emulation like the Intellivision Lives! game for the gamecube

Previous entries

1. Videocart 12 - Baseball (1977)

2. Astrocade's Tornado Baseball (1977)

3. Atari 2600's Home Run (1978)

4. Intellivision's Major League Baseball (1980)

Baseball for Microvision (1980)

For those that are unaware, The Microvision was the first cartridge based handheld video game system. During this time there were handheld dedicated units that played one game. Microvision had an LCD screen with a resolution of 16 x 16. There are reports that the system over time becomes unplayable because of the controls and old tech of LCD. I dug through my junk drawer and found an 9-volt battery and placed it in system. I feared the worst when I put the cartridge in but luckily it powered up and a 16x16 baseball game was in the palm of my hands.

Graphics

Lets be real honest with 16x16 there isn't much to work with. The game's cartridge comes with a screen overlay that has a the baseball field printed on it. This method of graphic rendering, freed up the ROM to handle all the dynamic parts. When I say dynamic parts I am referring to the dot that is the baseball, the dot that is the batter and the dots that are the base runners all moving around in a 16x16 dot box. The score nor the batter's count is displayed while you play. The cartridge includes buttons for those; when pressed, pauses the game and displays the information on the bottom of the screen. The label for these 'stats' are printed directly on the screen overlay. The LCD manages to form recognizable numbers.

Players

The LCD screen produces no fielders. The defensemen are small red reference points printed on the overlay. The batter is a LCD dot with the bat the same size dot. The batter is the pivot point and the bat rotates around 180 degrees. If you manage to get a hit, an LCD dot is placed on the base.

Field

The field is displayed on the overlay. The bases are not displayed but the foul lines, running lanes and pitcher mound are. It does form a simple yet effective baseball diamond.

Fans

No fans or crowds, besides maybe the people around you watching you play the very first handheld cartridge based baseball game

Home Run Celebration

This game supports home runs, and that is all I can expect. The celebration is simple, the bases light up as if running the bases and the score increases. The feeling of hitting a home run and watching the ball leave the field is quite a thrill even if it was just one pixel moving.

Camera/Screen

There is no other screen. The field is printed on the screen overlay in a bird's eye view. When you press the "Count" and "Score" numbers appear on the bottom; I consider this the 'pause' screen but a little weird in that the score and numbers are displayed underneath the foul lines on the overlay.

Sound

The system doesn't have a volume control, or at least I couldn't find it. But I didn't really look to hard because I loved the sound effects. I felt like I was listening to the little train that could. The game contained a little 3 beep melody when you start the game and a two tone beeps for every out that sounded like it was laughing at you; single beep for a every hit. It might be a handheld but the sound effects were on par with home consoles around this time.

Gameplay - Modes

There is two different skill levels, 1 an 2. From my play through I found skill level 2 involved the pitcher pitching crazier curves than level one. Besides the skill levels there is an option for one or two players. If playing in two players mode, you pass the system around when your team is up to bat.

Gameplay - Defense

This game is unique in that the gamer has no control of the defense. This game is offense only. The fielders are printed on the overlay so they don't move at all. If the ball is hit and lands in these fielder 'zones' it is was an out.

Gameplay - Offense

Not only is this the first handheld baseball game but one of the first where it is 100% offensive game. You only control the batter and you turn the controller's dial to do the swing. The timing of the hit controls the speed and direction of the ball. There is no control of the base runners. If you want the player on first to score you need to continue to make hits. I found this simple form of baseball really enjoyable. There is something to be said about quick gameplay fits perfect on handheld's. I wish this game was on my Nintendo 3DS just to play between traffic stops.

Rules of Baseball

This is the simplest form of baseball so far in the history of video games. It manages to take the bare bones of what makes baseball a game and runs with it. There is only a baseball that is pitched to you over and over and you have to hit the ball and have it land away from the fielders. You have the batter's count. 4 balls, 3 strikes. you play nine innings and because there is no defense only your score is actually tallied so no chance of extra innings. The game ends after nine innings. You can hit a single,double,triple and home run. There is no advanced base running or advanced fielding.

Video Game Innovations

• Handheld Cartridge
• 100% offense style game
• Screen overlay

This is a series of blogs based on my own personal game collection. I will attempt to go through them in a chronological order according to their release date. I will also attempt to play then on their original platform using the original controllers the game was designed for. If I am unable to get the system or the game working then I will use PC emulation or another platform emulation like the Intellivision Lives! game for the gamecube

Previous entries

1. Videocart 12 - Baseball (1977)

2. Astrocade's Tornado Baseball (1977)

3. Atari 2600's Home Run (1978)

Major League Baseball for Intellivision (1980)

I do not own the original Intellivision but rather the Intellivision II as well as the Intellivoice. My copy of Major League Baseball was in pretty bad shape the game was practically unplayable. Half hour later of removing 20 years of dirt and dust from the cartridge connectors, The screen finally improved to the point where I could play again. Viewing the title screen glowing from the TV was enough to bring me back to the 80's. Hooked up the controllers and pressed a button on the keypad and America's favorite past time was about to be played right in my living room.

Graphics

The game starts with the typical Intillivision title screen, using the keypad and controller you determine the speed of gameplay; button 1,2 and 3 for slower speed, directional pad for 'Major League Speed'. I am playing Major League Baseball why play the game at any other speed besides 'Major League Speed'? I pressed the controller expecting the screen to go plaid due to of the amazing speed I just selected, instead a nice looking baseball game glowed onto the screen. The graphics are a nice step up from Atari 2600's Home Run as well as Astrocade's Baseball game but the foul lines a little more jagged then the later. This game is pretty colorful and the game info while still a little boring is readable. I couldn't get over how weird some of their abbreviations were. 'Ing' for 'Inning', 'Strk' for Strike? Does the letter 'i' and 'e' take up so much room that they had to be removed? I will admit I might sound like an interface snob but what drove me crazy about the game play info text was how it was organized on the screen. The count should be grouped together. The ball and strikes count should be close together and not separated by the distance of the field. When I go the Orioles game this summer and look at the scoreboard, they don't have the number of balls on the left and the number of strikes on the other side. I guess I am weird like that. One final note regarding the text, a common theme I have noticed is these systems don't really have a font or text engine, text is displayed as graphical lines, which makes them really huge and ugly.

Players

Atari's Home Run (1978)	Intellivision's Major League Baseball (1980)

The last game in this blog series introduced the world to video game baseball hats. This game continues this trend and hopefully we never go back to playing baseball without this important part of the uniform again. Sadily we haven't gotten out of the era where the players are all the same color though. Maybe the early 80's will get us there. Even though the player model is the same color from head to hat, This game does advance the graphical rendering of positions and movement. It is the first game to have a different look for different positions. The pitcher was more defined then the other fielders; the batter had a completly different render. In previous games the batter was often the same character model just a different color. What I enjoyed about the batter so much is attributed to two simple things. 1) The bat was part of the charcter, previous games the batter just stood there next to the bat seperated by a few pixals. 2) When you took a swing the batter was animated. The animation in this game was really out of this ball park. The batter swings his body around; the pictcher had a wind up; the fielders has running strides that match the distance they are traveling. The animation is just one of the game's crowning achievement and made this game the most popular game for the system.

Field

The field was very easy on the eyes, even back when we only knew of 480 lines of resolution and the curves we knew were jagged ones. The foul lines are displayed, The bases are nicely done and the home plate is displayed correctly. One of the things that advances the baseball concept is the fact that the ball bounces off the walls. Yes there are actual walls in the outfield, even though they didn't bother rendering the walls, for this game they are invisible. Not sure if this was lack of technology or just lazy programming. The size of the cartridge was only 4k after all. Another aspect of the field that is unique and new to video games is the dirt path between the pitcher's mound and home plate. This was common in ball parks in the mid 20th century and has been since phased out, It is a nice throw back to the roots of baseball. This 'keyhole', common baseball term for this dirt path, provided a nice camera perspective.

Fans

Once again we have a game where no fans are displayed but we get to hear them through the nice sound effects of the game. This isn't the first time we hear the fans but in this game we hear them more then any game prior

Home Run Celebration

The Home Run celebration is nothing to write home about. You hear the roar of the crowd and watch your player round the bases with the words 'Home Run' in the center of the field. In my play through I was able to hit a home run twice and not really sure how I hit it. With the invisible outfield wall and the fact that in the manual it states all hits are grounders, I am not sure how home runs are even possible but I am glad they were.

Camera/Screen

By adding the 'keyhole' to the field, it gave the whole field a different perspective. It made it less of a bird's eye view of the field and more of a angled look with depth. The size of the pitchers mound was based on how far away it was with the camera. This maybe something we start to see more of as baseball games advance as developers move the camera around to provide the gamer with a new fresh perspective. This game only has the one camera and doesn't move an inch or change screens between innings or game over. In fact in my first play through I thought the game froze it wasn't till later that I looked and the game was over and I played all nine innings. A 'Game Over' screen would have been nice.

Sound

'Yer Out!' should be displayed in the video game hall of fame somewhere, not just the words but rather an mp3 file of the sound. This game had umpire voices! how crazy is that? I don't know a better way to start the voice revolution then by starting with one of the classic, most popular sport phrases in the history of spoken English. Sure it wasn't really clear what the voice was actually saying but everyone knew, everyone knew and it was awesome. Intellivision did have an add on module for the system to include more voices in their games, Intellivoice, but this game was so great it didn't need it. Forget the voice for a second, the other sounds of game were just as great. The crowd noise was improved from previous games, even though it still sounded as if someone was trying to find 106.7 on their transistor radio . When the ball left the end of the bat, it included a sound effect to tune of a slide whistle, the pitch of the beeps increased as it approached the outfield. The crowd noise was included during every half inning and big offensive plays such as a home run.

Gameplay - Modes

There is only one mode for this cartridge and that is one single game of baseball for two players only. Hopefully the next game in this series we can start to get into games that require only one controller and you can play against a computer or the CPU. For those who are keeping score at home, only 1/4 of the games so far has a single player mode.

Gameplay - Defense

Now we are getting somewhere, now we are getting to the point where we the gamer need more control of the game. With the Intellivision's keypad controller, we have the buttons to do just that. Using the intellivision's controller and overlay we can select any fielder and control them. The fielder you select using the keypad changes to black. Once the fielder collects the ball you can run with the ball in hand using the joystick or you can select another fielder and you throw the ball to the fielder and you then become that fielder. In terms of pitching, you predetermine the type of pitch to perform based on the direction of the joystick. Up for fast ball, inside curve by pressing left for example. This pitching mechanic is new and feels fresh. Gone are the days of moving the paddle,joystick wildly to produce curve balls that Tim Wakefield couldn't produce. The pitcher was also able to throw to the bases to pick off the runner. Another added 'feature' of the gameplay was after every pitch you have to manually throw the ball to the pitcher in order to start the next play. For me, I found this play mechanic to be boring and not really important; I wouldn't miss it .

Gameplay - Offense

Much like the new ways to play defense, with this game we get new advancements in base running. One of the advancements is the ability to run the bases. Pushing the joystick right advances the lead runner; pushing the joystick left makes the runner go back a base. This simple concept opened the doors for the offense to steal bases if the pitcher wasn't paying attention and to attempt to stretch a base hit into a double if you felt like Ricky Henderson. In fact when playing when you make contact with the ball it is up to you to run to first. There is no automatic base running unless you were walked. In terms of batting you now have two options. The first is to swing away and the other is to bunt. This game has a bunt button! All these options allowed the offense to add baseball strategy into the video game.

Rules of Baseball

This game just might be the first video game to incorporate majority of the baseball rules into the game. The big thing that it is missing is the concept of pop flys, and balls batted in the air and caught for an out, all the batted balls are grounders in the game it is up to the defense to get the ball and throw it to the base fast enough. We have stolen bases, pick offs, lead offs, bunts, home runs, triples and double plays. Any game that spends time to voice the umpire calling the outs is pretty solid baseball game.

Video Game Innovations

• Voice effect
• Umpire part of the the game
• Control any fielder
• Control lead base runner
• Physics with ball hitting outfield wall
• Preassigned pitch types
• Batter animated with swing
• Butting
• Different sprite of the players depending on position
• Licensed by Major League Baseball (only name and logo allowed)

Sorry I guess I should have said 'trademark'. Intellivision bought the right to use the phrase 'Major League Baseball' and the MLB logo in their game. When Intellivision folded, Another company ported some of the Intellivision games to the Atari 2600; Major League Baseball being one of those games. This new company didn't want to pay to renew the use of the MLB logo and name so when they released the Atari 2600 version, they renamed it Super Challenge Baseball.

This topic is a request to delete Super Challenge Baseball as a separate game entry and combine all content with the 'Major League Baseball' game entry. I am to believe the wiki doesn't create game entry's of ports of games do they? If so this site would have 50 million 'Pac-Man' game entries for every time it was ported to a platform.

If you look at the GiantBomb's Major League Baseball wiki, it lists Super Challenge Baseball as aliases as well as Atari 2600 as one of the platforms.

References

http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?SoftwareID=1374

http://baseball.wikia.com/wiki/Super_Challenge_Baseball

http://www.intellivisionlives.com/bluesky/games/credits/sports.html#baseball

Major League Baseball - http://www.giantbomb.com/major-league-baseball/61-30535/

Super Challenge Baseball - http://www.giantbomb.com/super-challenge-baseball/61-34526/

Please keep Major League Baseball for it is the original game and Super Challenge Baseball is an Atari 2600 port of the Intellivision game just renamed to avoid copyright

Thanks for your feedback. I am struggling to find balance between straight up facts about the games and how they impact the genre and my personal enjoyment of playing the game or lack there off if the case maybe. I am not going to stop these blogs but maybe won't add them to general consumption until I find more balance.

Thanks @Winternet It is something I will try to do for sure. The first time I tried editing a wiki It was denied because it contained personal opinions and not just facts. This series of blog posts I feel is more of a 'review' which will include my personal view on things. Maybe during this process I can copy just the facts out and insert them into the wiki as well. I do that for the images I use in the blog. I add them to the game's images first and reference them that way.

This is a series of blogs based on my own personal game collection. I will attempt to go through them in a chronological order according to their release date. I will also attempt to play then on their original platform using the original controllers the game was designed for. If I am unable to get the system or the game working then I will use PC emulation or another platform emulation like the Intellivision Lives! game for the gamecube

Previous entries

1. Videocart 12 - Baseball (1977)

2. Astrocade's Tornado Baseball (1977)

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Home Runfor Atari 2600, released 1978

I am a little ashamed to admit I am missing the AC adaptor for two of my Atari 2600 systems. How can I call myself a collector of video games and not even own a fully working Atari 2600? With that said having 5 joysticks,2 pairs of paddle controllers, keypad controllers as well as a worn out Atari 2600 system retail box helps me sleep at night. In order to play any of the 2600 games I just dust off my working Atari 7800. The 7800 was able to play all 2600 games. Don't think Nintendo was the first to do this sort of thing with the Wii and Gamecube. This was occurring in the late 70's. Once I hooked everything up, my TV screen became my own personal baseball stadium. Now let’s hit a home run.

Graphics

After you select one of the modes of play in typical Atari 2600 fashion pressing the reset button starts the game. The background is green and two baseball players are displayed. This game is a one on one baseball game and compared to other baseball games released during this time is by far the basic in terms of number of graphical elements. I started the game by pitching the ball from the center to the top of the screen. This 'up' direction of the baseball pitch is different from all previous baseball games. The batter does not move when swinging; only the bat, the bat is a vertical line. There are no other fielders besides the pitcher. The bases are just small lines and the game info text is so big that it is hard to determine what it is and takes up 1/3 of the top of the screen. There is also no graphical transition during the half innings. After every out the screen is reset with the pitcher in the center, after the third out the colors of players change. I found this to be confusing while playing, I guess I only have myself to blame for not knowing how many outs there were at all times. One second I was pitching and the next second a pitch was coming towards me.

Players

This is the first game that I recall where the players are wearing baseball hats, so hats off to Atari for adding that level of detail. With the addition of baseball bat this is the first time in a baseball video game that we know which way the players are facing. It is amazing what a difference a little line on the top of a pixel body adds to the player. All this new details on the players come at a cost. There is very little in terms of animation on the screen. The player only has two different looks; one facing left and the other one facing right. We still get the 'sliding' effect but now the heads are facing the direction they are moving. There is still no separation in terms of the player model. The players are still in one solid color but now this includes their hat; red for defense; blue for offense.

Field

What field? There is no excuse for not having a field, even in 1978 when games from last year included them. The game takes a step back in this area and we all know with video games, never take a step back in graphics. I guess this game either proves how weak the Atari 2600 is in terms of technology or how rushed developers were in bringing a baseball game to the system. The field in this game consists of four small rectangles; home plate looks like all the other bases. There are no foul lines or batter boxes. The game info is just there on the top and sort of gets in the way of the game play. I look forward to a more standard way to display game time information . Home Run uses single capital letters for their stats; "I" is for innings, "O" is for out, "B" is for balls and "S" is for strikes. Yes "S" does look like a 5.

Fans

There isn't a field… There aren’t even nine players on the field. Rendering fans on the screen was probably not even discussed in planning meetings. Back then there weren’t many meetings to begin with as the developers only consisted of one or two people. Of all the graphical aspects of the game I wasn't going to put money on Atari revolutionizing the crowd/fans aspect of the game.

Home Run Celebration

When I first starting to play this game and thinking about this blog, I was to trying to determine how to write it. I thought for sure this was more of a home run derby game and less of a full game of baseball. You can’t really blame me can you? The title of the game was 'Home Run’ and the first screen was just a pitcher and a batter. As much as the graphics were underwhelming for a full baseball game I don’t think I would have felt this sad about it if it was a home run derby game. I make this point to drive home how truly underwhelming the home runs were in this game. Not only were they hard to come by but the action on the screen was no different than a double or single. A home run is only recorded as such if the ball travels directly through the center of the baseball diamond, past second base without the defense touching the ball. If it does not this; if it travels a little off center it is recorded as a double. During the home run you do see the base runner touch all the bases but with Atari 2600 flickering it is not very exciting to watch or perform.

Camera/Screen

There is only one screen in this game which besides the fairchild baseball game’s inning screen, This is turning out to be pretty standard way of producing baseball games in the late 1970’s. Also like previous games in the late 70's, The perspective is not the same for all the aspects. The field is rendered from a bird's eye view as well as the ball and bat but the players are not shown from the top but rather from the front. What makes it odder is because the batter only faces right when batting it and appears as though he is looking away from the ball. I never was good enough to make it out of little league I did learn that if you don't keep your eye on the ball as you swing you will never hit it.

Sound

If you never played an Atari 2600 system, you have no idea what you are missing. This game adheres to the grand Atari 2600 tradition of using computer beeps as sound. There are slightly different pitches to the beep but that is pretty minor. When the players move, the beep is used for each foot; each step the player takes. This might be the first baseball to attempt to do sound for the player movement, but I might prefer the silent smooth animation of the Astrocade baseball game to a beeping flickering animation of my player in Atari’s Home Run. There is no overall background sound or intro sound. There is also no sound effect when the inning ends or when the game is over.

Gameplay Modes

This is the first baseball game for the home consoles that have more than just one mode. To be honest that is a little stretch to call these play modes. Yes there are a total of 8 modes but each mode only changes the number of fielders you have in the game. This game only supports single games.

Mode 5 through 8 are two player modes 1 through 4.

Gameplay – Defense

One of the great innovations of this game has to be the ability of the player to have full control of the defense during the complete process of the putout. Prior games you controlled only the outfielders and anytime the ball touches the outfielder the ball is considered out. In Home Run, there is no outfield and all batted balls are more or less considered grounders and it is your job as the player to get the ball and run to the base for the force out or tag a base runner. We will hopefully start to see this game play mechanic in future baseball games. Some would say it is too easy to tag players out in this game. Luckily the Atari 2600 has a difficulty switch which in the game slows down the speed of the fielder compared to the base runner.

Gameplay – Offense

Once again in grand 1970 tradition, baseball video games don’t offer much control on the offense side of things. Home Run does stand out for adding one additional control besides swinging the bat and that is stopping your base runner from not advancing. Because of the new mechanic of every play is a ‘rundown’ It is only far if you can have control if you want to go for extra bases on a past ball. This is handled by pressing the one button found on the controller before your base runner reaches the next base.

Rules of Baseball

Home Run fails to put nine players on the field. It does play nine innings and batter’s count is correct. It even adheres to the rule of if batter is hit by pitch a free base is taken. When involved in a rundown the fielder only needs to touch the base for the force out or tag the player. This is a new element of the rules they nicly managed to include. The one aspect that is missing is the ability to throw the ball to base for the force out. It is missing because you only have one fielder and no other person to throw the ball to. You are able to perform a double play and I see no reason why a triple play cannot be preformed but chances of you managing to pull that off are very rare; only slightly more rare then witnessing a triple play in actual baseball.

Video Game Innovations

• One player mode,can play against the CPU
• Ability to control a fielder after catching the ball
• Fielder can perform a rundown and tag base runners out
• Baseball played with home plate near top of the screen and outfield towards the bottom
• Sound effect for fielder movements
• Baseball hats on players, first step in rendering baseball uniforms

This is a series of blogs based on my own personal game collection. I will attempt to go through them in a chronological order according to their release date. I will also attempt to play then on their original platform using the original controllers the game was designed for. If I am unable to get the system or the game working then I will use PC emulation or another platform emulation like the Intellivision Lives! game for the gamecube

Previous entry... Videocart 12 - Baseball

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Tornado Baseball for Bally Astrocade system, released in 1978

Setting up the system was pretty easy, except for finding the controllers. I remember someone stealing a box of controllers from my car years ago and having to search ebay for replacements. I had a memory of purchasing 4 Astrocade controllers and spent the past two hours in my basement attempting to prove that I my memory was real and I didn't dream about making an ebay purchase. I finally found them in a box along with my Odyssey 200 system. I didn't have this issue with the Fairchild system in my last post because those controllers were hardwired to the system.

Once everything was setup and connections were made I was finally able to play the game. Like the videocart 12 - baseball before, this game is two players only. Good thing I purchased more then one controller. Let's play ball.

Graphics

From the start, I was generally impressed with the look of the game. There is no question this is a baseball game. There is an actual baseball field not just men floating in space. The background screen is green with the infield being sort of a tan to light brown color. I found it a little confusing that the baserunners and the defense players were the same color but the position of defense were as such that there was no confusing even when the bases were loaded. The one odd thing about this game is the batter is not actually rendered instead it is just a bat.

In game text is large and readable. In the center of the screen displays text of what the play was, foul,single,double, out, strike...etc

Players

You can see an incremental increase in quality of the rendering of players. The players have arms now, but they are all the same color and no hint of a uniform. You could view them as being naked if you want to play that way. All the players on the screen including the baserunners are the same white color. There is a nice animation to the players and overall very smooth with little to no screen flicker. The base runners run along the base path instead of just flicker to each base. The animations isn't just for the offense, the infield includes animations as well. If the shortshop gets the ball you see him throw the ball to first base. The infield generally feels and act like a real baseball game. The infield adjusts and moves based on where the ball is hit. Pitches runs towards first if the first baseball has to come off the base. I have yet come across an instance where the batter beats the throw to first but it is really nice small touch that makes the game feel more real. At the top and bottom of each inning all the players on the field run towards the bottom of the screen as if they are exiting and entering their respected dugouts. This subtle addition will be copied and used in multiple baseball games in the future, Baseball for the Nintendo system is a great example.

Field

This appears to be the first game where the standard baseball diamond field is displayed in a home console. The foul lines and pitcher's mound is also rendered. The bases are green like the background and the infield appears to be a light brown color to match the typical dirt found on real baseball fields. For a sub 1980 video game this field is rather impressive. Home plate is also rendered nicely. Home plate as you know is not the same shape as the other bases and this game displays this correctly.

Fans

The game does not render any fans in the stadium. We won't start seeing spectors in the game until the early 80's. Even though the fans are not displayed are heard. If there is a big play such as a double or a home run, You can hear the crowd go crazy in all there 8-bit glory. Once again a very nice subtle touch and another aspect of this game that will be copied and improved upon as technology of the systems increase.

Home Run Celebration

There is no cut scene for home runs. We do get to put the controller down for a second or two as we watch the base runner round all the bases. One thing I felt was a little odd was the text on the screen for a home run. It displayed the word 'Homer'. From my experience this is the only word they opted to use the slang or abbrievated version of a baseball term. I was hoping that when I hit a single the word 'Baseknock' whould have appeared but that didn't happen. I was born in in 1980 so this game came out before me. Maybe 'Homer' was a very popular term while you were at the game in the late 70's? If that was the case then why was Atari 2600's first baseball game called 'Home Run' and not 'Homer', which came out around the same time of this game and next game to play.

Camera/Screen

This game only has one camera view. All the text and game play information are displayed along with the baseball field. Both teams score is always displayed as well the current inning and batter's count. If I had to be picky I would say all this text is sort of boring. I liked the X and O graphics as symbols for the batter count in VideoCart 12 - Baseball. This game it is just numbers with one letters as the label for each category. Common in this first generation of video games, the field is in one perspective while the players are in another. The field is displayed top-down/bird's eye perspective but the players are in first person. We see the front the players and not the top of the heads. Because of this, we are to assume that all the hits are gounders as there is no depth perception.

Sound

There is no background music nor is their much in terms of sequence of sounds. A low pitch beep for a foul ball and a higher pitch deep for any sort of hit. A buzz sound for a strike and outs. The best sound effect is reserved for the crowd noise when a big scoring play is made such a triple or home run. It really is great an enjoyed the crowd noise a lot for some reason.

Gameplay - Modes

There is only one mode on this cartridge. One 9 inning two player baseball game. After you played the game you can press the 'Reset' button on the system and play all over again.

Gameplay - Defense

Standard game play for this era of baseball video games is the player controlling the defense as a unit, group of players moving together. This game is no expection and doesn't try anything new. This game you control the three outfielders. If an outfielder touches the ball then it results in an out. This is a tried and true method in video games. The infield is controlled by the computer and does a pretty good job at it. The AI in the infield is no idiot. They were even able to do a double play for me. The outfielders are controlled by twisting the joystick knob on top. As little control you have on actual fielding you have total control on the pitching. twist the joystick to add english to the ball, and pull it forward to pitch.

Gameplay - Offense

There is nothing really exciting to the offense side of the ball. The batter isn't even rendered. You just control the bat. Using the controller's trigger button you swing the bat. You seem to have control of the direction of where the ball is hit based on swinging early or late. It took awhile for me to get the timing but I eventually could hit the ball fairly well. It was common for me to recieve 5 foul balls with one batter though. I was unable to control the base runners once I reached base. I am unsure how or if I can control a hit being a single,double,triple or home run.

Rules of Baseball

A very solid game that adheres to the basic rules of baseball. There are 9 innings, 3 strikes, 4 balls. The scores can go double digits and all types of hits exists. It is so solid and I enjoyed this game so much I felt sad to learn that it fails to follow one of the golden rule of baseball. There is no ties nor crying in baseball. One of my play throughs the score was tied 10-10 and after I struck out in the bottom of the ninth inning, the game just ended and displayed a 'Game Over' text. A pretty big disapointment for me. It makes me wonder why. It is not like the system is not powerful enough to go extra innings. The previous game on the fairchild system was able to this a year before this game released. You can see that the border of the scoreboard there is only room for one digit inning.

The lack of extra inning hurts but there are some advanced mechanics of baseball that do exist in this game. For example, the computer controlled infield can preform a double play. Because there is no visible batter, the ability to hit the batter is just not there. With the lack of controlling the base running we are unable to perform any advanced plays like base stealing, being stuck in a run down or throwing an out at home. This is a technical limitation of the controller more then anything else. This generation of controllers only had one button and a joystick. Maybe with a system like Intellivsion with multiple buttons and various developers becoming more creative, we can begin to see more aspects of the game of baseball included in the video games ...Stay tuned

Video Game Innovations

• One of the first games to display the actual baseball field
• Basic AI for the infield, The infield knew which base to throw the ball, pitches covers first base if needed.
• Sound effects of the crowd during 'big' plays such as Home Runs
• Animated players, the players just didn't slide into position...there feet moved.
• One of the first to animate the players exiting and entering the field of play.

This is a series of blogs based on my own personal game collection. I will attempt to go through them in a chronological order according to their release date. I will also attempt to play then on their original platform using the original controllers the game was designed for. If I am unable to get the system or the game working then I will use PC emulation or another platform emulation like the Intellivision Lives! game for the gamecube

VideoCart 12 - Baseball for the Fairchild VES system, released in 1977

I managed to connect everything and boot up this game. I didn't know what to do at first there was just a red 1 in the center of the screen. I took the game out and read the label. What a nice concept having a quick 'how to play' guide right there on the actual cart. To start each inning both players had to press down on the controller. So I guess this game is two players only.

Graphics

The screen looks pretty good. There is color, the teams are blue and green and the game info such as the baseball,innings,outs and score is in red. There are a total of 9 players on defense and each of the bases are displayed as blue rectangles. The base players are right next to the base and as such because there is no separation the bases look like a giant left foot. They probably should have gone with red for the bases. The players look human, there are no curves in the game so the players are blocky and the baseball itself is a square. When the ball passes home plate there remains a ghost trail as though the ball cuts through the plate. When the strike is recorded, the screen refreshes. I am not sure if this is an actual bug or a genius way for the computer to show that the ball actually crossed the plate for the strike. The batter can't really argue ball and strikes. Bud Selig should invent something like this.

Players

All the players look the same, while this era is before the concept of graphic sprites, if it was I would say this game only has one sprite for the players. The players are all the same color from head to toe, either blue or green, no face and no real uniform. There are no animations in terms of the base running. The players don't run to each base, instead you just see them jump to base to base after a screen refresh. The batter does not move while swinging, Only the bat. The animation of the bat reminds me of the old Golf game for the Atari 2600

Field

There is no baseball diamond graphic, the background is slightly grey, maybe with a green tint to it? The difference between the infield and outfield doesn't exist. Just the background, players and bases are on the screen.

Fans

There is no fans, we should be lucky there are 9 players out on the field and look sort of human.

Home Run Celebration

There is no cut scene or alternate camera angle for a home run. You do see the player touch all the bases and the score increase.

Camera/Screen

There are two seperate screens. One is the actual game play and the other is displayed between innings. In the later the number of the innings is diplayed in the center of the screen with each team's score on the bottom left or right. Once the game is over instead of an inning number, the letter 'G' is displayed. I am going to assume that stands for 'Game'

Game Play	Inning Screen	Game over Screen

Sound

I have the orginal Fairchild VES system which the speaker is built into the system itself and does not go through the TV screen. However I was unable to hear anything at all. I looked over the system and couldn't find a volume control. It would be nice to hear sound but I am going to assume it would sound like R2-D2 but less 'wordy'

Game play - Defense

The player controls the three outfielders and shortstop all as one unit. If you move left the entire unit moves left...etc. If one of your fielders touches the ball it is considered an out. As the pitcher you don't move the actual pitcher, you just press on the joystick to start the pitch. However with the controller you have ultimate control of the ball. Twist the joystick to put english on it. Press forward to speed it up, press down to slow it down. This control of the baseball laid the ground work of all future baseball games.

Game play - Offense

I can tell right away that this game is a defense minded baseball game. There is really nothing the offense can do besides swing the bat by pressing down on the joystick. I was unable to control the base runners. It does appear as though the speed of the ball once it leaves the bat determines if it is a single, double, triple or a home run. It is a theory I have established while playing. I managed to hit the ball at the same spot multiple times with different results. Who knows maybe it is completely random.

Rules of Baseball

This game manages to follow the general basic rules of Baseball. There is 9 innings,3 outs per half innings, 3 strikes and 4 passed balls. The batter can hit a single,double,triple and home run.

It does not perform any 'advanced' baseball concepts besides the basic rules stated above. There is no such thing as a double play, base stealing, or a infield hit, wild pitch...etc with one exception.. In this game, if you hit the batter with the ball it is an automate walk to first base. For me that is an advanced baseball concept and nice to see they included that in this game. There doesn't appear to be any charging of the mound though. If this game had a sequel I have no doubt they would include something like that and dethrone Bases Loaded as the first game to do so.

Video Game Innovations

• players displayed on screen
• color separation between each team on screen
• baseball was played vertically. pitch from center to the bottom, a hit ball travels from the bottom towards the top. previous baseball games used the standard pong paddles and ball moving left to right.

Primary : /lets-golf-3d/61-36026/ (Let's Golf! 3D)

Secondary: /lets-golf-3d/61-36041/ (Let's Golf 3D)