In the next couple of weeks we will be in the Sports category for Atari 2600 games from Atari Greatest Hits Volume 1 on the Nintendo DS. This is the last genre of games and also the one that had the most games crammed into it with 11 different titles. This first week, I decided to feature four games from two sports that I self-categorized as American classics and it also made sense because we have two baseball games and two football games. So let us get to it and play ball!
(groan)
What the ever-loving hell was that!?
I get that games should not be easy, but that 10 minutes was a slog on so many levels. First, this is the barest bones version of baseball I have ever played and in the worst possible way. It is essentially one-on-one baseball with the pitcher being the only defenseman. If the ball gets past the pitcher, it is likely going to be a home run. Maybe? I could not tell because there only seemed to be a few feet passed second base before the screen stopped and oftentimes any ball that left the screen, regardless of its existing speed, would be a home run. Second, I never seemed to be able to control my runners. If I had a runner on first, and that runner got tagged out going into second base, then my hitter would then round first base and get tagged out going to second. The computer would rarely if ever be in this position, so I do not know what I was doing wrong if anything. Lastly, there should have been a mercy rule, because being down 12 - 0 at the end of the first inning was not a fun way to start the game.
I will be honest, it did take me a while to figure out the game, and even by the end of the ninth inning, I was still trying to figure out the hitting mechanic. I think it was something to do with the direction of the joystick when you came into contact with the ball. But even after hitting the ball, the computer pitcher would be all over the infield and I never seemed to be able to get anyone beyond second base.
This was just not a fun game with a stupidly difficult computer opponent, even on the B difficulty (being the easy one).
Verdict: No.
Game 1: (1 Player, Field #1) 28 - 0
Okay, I did not actually play the entire game, only making it to the bottom of the second inning, losing 8 - 0. I have a number of issues with this game, probably related to my inability to actually play the game.
My first problem is that the ball is very small, maybe a single pixel in size. On the screen on the 3DS (even the New 3DS screen is slightly larger than the original 3DS screen), the ball is very difficult to see. So hitting a pitch is incredibly difficult when you have a hard time even seeing the ball. Layer on top of that that I was unable to make contact with any of the pitches, which made me feel like I was doing something drastically wrong (even after reading the manual twice). For whatever reason, I just could not figure out the timing. I also thought that the pitching mechanic was overly complicated, having to press the joystick in a direction to select the type of pitch, then release the joystick, press the Button, then "flick" the joystick down to actually pitch the ball. I get that there has to be a way for the game to know that you want to throw the ball to a 1/2/3rd baseman, but even that was needlessly difficult. Of the four times I tried to throw out a baserunner, all of my throws were not caught even when the baseman had been selected and was flashing red (which is how you know which character you are then controlling.
Just no, all around.
Verdict: No.
Game 1: (1- Player, Player Starts at Bat, Batter Can Miss) Bottom of 2nd Inning, 8 - 0.
Oh god. Did I really need to play this for 10 minutes!?
I apparently did not realize that this is essentially a two-player game and when you play this as a single-player game, you control both teams of three-on-three at the same time, which is ridiculous and stupid. There are three modes in Football. There is "Action" where you control everyone at all times, Strategy where you supposedly pick what play you are going to run and then watch the game play that out, and Hybrid which allows you to 'control' during pass and punt plays. The problem with the last two modes is that you can still control everyone any time you use the directional pad. In Hybrid, every time I picked the play, the quarterback would run to the left side of the screen/field and just stay there. In Hybrid, I honestly could not tell you what was going on, except that I watched the White Team get two safety tackles.
I could not finish any of the games I started because playing Football against yourself while controlling both teams (still confused on that) is just a bad idea all around, especially since the game itself does not say that you need two players to play, only that you are "Controlling all players. Use Wireless Communications for head-to-head play."
Verdict: No
Well, I had higher hopes for this game than I did for Football. My two options here were either a single-player or two-player game, so naturally, I went with a one-player game. I had hoped that it was going to play like an Atari version of Tecmo Bowl, but oddly enough, the game played too quickly, with plays lasting anywhere from 2-3 seconds. The players moved that quickly, often without time to actually get any plays off as I was either always choosing the wrong play, or the computer opponent was just that good at evading my offensive line and sacking my quarterback. I also just realized that I never figured out how to hand off the ball to a running back, let alone had much time to be able to throw a complete pass. Also punting the ball was a bad mechanic too, as there was no shotgun hike to the kicker instead the kicker was right up against the line of scrimmage.
The one thing though that impressed me to the detriment of actually being able to finish the game, was that like real football, RealSports Football has real-time 15-minute quarters. So I only played, in-game time, 3 minutes 56 seconds with 11:04 still left on the clock. Yeah.
Verdict: No
Game 1: 0 -17
I think the one positive thing I can take away from these first four games is seeing how each of the respective games evolved from the original game, which was four years between Home Run (1978) and RealSports Baseball (1982), and four years between Football (1978) and RealSports Football (1982). The comparison between the two titles is visually impressive, especially between the baseball games going from a field with only bases to actually having nine defencemen out in a discernible field. I still did not enjoy any of the games from this group, but I can appreciate seeing where Atari started with each of these sports and where they were able to bring the games to four years later.
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
The World Outside Is Like A Severed Head
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