Baseball games
I love baseball. There are certainly some fair criticisms of the game, but overall watching it fills me with joy. In my area I have access to a developmental league and an AAA team, so seeing affordable live games is pretty easy. And with 30 teams playing 162+ games in a season, there's always a game on to watch. Below are a few baseball video games that brought me some joy.
Baseball Stars - NES (play here)
The first baseball video game I ever played was on the Atari, but it wasn't anything special. It was an impressive game, but the limited system resources led to a game that didn't engage me. The first real game that did was Baseball Stars on the NES. The graphics in this game were great, especially after moving from the 2600. Animations were fluid and the sound was captivating. Perhaps the best part of the game was the ability to create your own team of players and upgrade their skills throughout the season. Notably, this game would keep statistics as you played, and you could follow a player's career as it developed. I spent days creating and leveling up my teams, making them unstoppable. Then, a few months later, I'd do the same thing again. To me, Baseball Stars is the perfect arcade baseball game.
Hardball Sega Genesis (play here)
I played the heck out of Baseball Stars, so it was only natural my aunt would get me Hardball for the Genesis once it was released. We had an old 8086 (maybe 8088, memory is hard), so I wasn't playing the DOS version of the game, which meant this port was the first time I experienced it. The series started for the C64 in 1985 and this version was released six years later. There was a lot of history with this series, but I was ignorant to it. Also, the cover art was something else. I'm honestly not sure why it looked the way it did, but some choices were certainly made by the marketing department.
The gameplay itself was very impressive. There was another huge graphical jump and the sound was even more life-like. The only problem I had with it was the camera position. It most games the camera is behind the batter, like you're looking from behind the umpire. In Hardball they moved the camera near where the shortstop would stand. There was something about that angle that made it very difficult for me to time my hits. Fielding was also more difficult that it should have been, but I believe that was addressed in later entries into the series. I played the game a lot, but I rarely won a game.
Front Page Sports Baseball '96 (watch here)
This was it. The baseball game I had been waiting 14 years for. It was beautiful, the sounds were very realistic (hecklers from the stands would let you know how they felt), each stadium was faithfully represented, and there were accurate players and stats from the 1995 season. It was everything I wanted in a baseball game.
It was an early windowed game as well. Each window in the screenshot above could be resized and moved to wherever the player wanted. Batting was much improved in this game, and fielding was easier too. I played it on my computer keyboard (num pad required), which was a bit harder than using a modern controller, but I made it work. You could have the computer control certain gameplay elements if you wanted, like having it handle all defense so all you had to do was bat. There was GM mode as well that let you buy and sell players to develop your own dream team. In my mind this is still the best example of a realistic baseball game that's ever been made.
I still play baseball games now, like Super Mega Baseball and the WBSC Power Pros from Konami (it's .99c on Switch right now so pick it up), but it's harder to find a really solid entry. Each game seems to do one thing really well at the expense of others, or they're too complex for my liking. The Show is a beautiful game and my wife will often think I'm watching a real game instead of playing on the PS5, but it's hard to pick up and play and running a season takes some time commitment. Maybe one day someone will release a AA baseball game again that is the perfect mix of simulation and arcade for my liking (I know I'm being Goldilocks), but for now I've got Baseball Stars to keep me occupied. And maybe I'll fire up a virtual machine this summer so Tino Martinez can dominate in FPS Baseball '96 again.