Archive for Gaming

Generation X is so often pilloried — rightly at times — for being too self-absorbed, too indolent, too prone to calculated ennui, off-brand cigarettes, liberal-arts degrees, and bouts of longing for Winona Ryder. I will argue with none of this.

But sometimes we’re capable of greatness. For evidence — evidence that not even Hollywood attorneys could assail — please take time to watch the video below. It’s the iconic 10th inning of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series re-imagined through the constraints of RBI Baseball. I just checked, and I’ve never used the phrase “profoundly beautiful” in my life. But I’m using it now to describe this. Highlights? See pixelated Marty Barrett win the Miller Lite Player of the Game, and then look on in mounting horror as the John McNamara of the NES keypad toggles desperately between foredoomed relievers. The dulcet tones on Vin Scully are but a welcome flourish.

Come with me, won’t you?

Hello, my name is Eno Sarris, and I’m addicted to Sega’s new MLB Manager Online game.

As a fantasy addict, I’m familiar with the sort of addiction that Sega’s MLB Manager Online has spawned in me. Constant screen-refreshing, lineup-parsing, and strategy-pondering may not look like the two-feet-from-the-television glazed-over stare of the average gamer, but it fits right into the regular day of a fantasy addict. This isn’t to say that the game doesn’t have flaws, but it is to say that it has considerable upside.

Basic game play follows more of the approach a general manager might have. Compared to fantasy baseball, MMO asks you to think about your team as a whole. Defense, ‘clutch,’ and lineup order matter. Take a look at the roster home page and you’ll see that you’ve got players with certain costs, a budget for your lineup, and the ability to move players around the diamond to take advantage of their defense. You can play Pat Burrell in center field, if you want, but you’ll get some defensive penalties considering that he’s a “D”-rated outfielder with a ’44’ run tool out of 80.

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Were the countdown clock you see here mercilessly discarding the days, hours, and minutes till the end of the world as we know it, that would be horrible. Though it could do wonderful things for the availability of parking in the city, this hypothetical apocalypse would seem to offer few other advantages.

Anyway, as it stands, we needn’t worry quite yet about the End of Days. In fact, this clock is merely designed to alert bespectacled Americans to an event where they can be amongst their own.

Regard this blockquote:

On Saturday, February 12th, make your way to the heart of New York City to celebrate Strat-O-Matic’s 50th Anniversary/Opening Day 2011. For the first time ever, we will be celebrating the release of our new baseball season and other awesome products in the Big Apple, along with a special event in honor of the past 50 years. The day will feature seminars, panels with our research team, guest speakers and of course the opportunity to meet Hal Richman, creator and founder of Strat-O-Matic, as well as plenty of time to check out the new cards and play against other fanatics.

Dates, times:

Location:
Community Church of New York
40 East 35th St, New York, NY 10016

Date and Time:
Saturday February 12th
7:30am to 6:00pm
(Registration is 7:30am to 8:30am

Finally, I would be be remiss not to include this — about how you can get discounts in the sexiest way possible.

Restaurant/Lunch Information for Day of the Event:
• Austin’s Café (deli). 10 Park Avenue, corner of 34th Street. 15% off everything when you mention Strat-O-Matic.
• Gigi Café (deli). 64 East 34th Street, between Madison and Park Avenues. 10% off everything when you mention Strat-O-Matic.

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Fantasy Baseball 2.0?

Sega has a new baseball game coming out this March – MLB Manager™ Online – which will allow players to select and then trade players in order to accrue points and win championships (there’s even a WBC it looks like). Fantasy baseball veterans may have heard of such a game – but they might also admit that the game could use a facelift. Could a console-style user interface add a little spice to fantasy baseball? It’s possible.

The ‘news’ here, though, is that you, esteemed reader of NotGraphs, might be able to help them shape this game in time for its March 2011 launch. Through this link here, you are invited to apply for a beta test for MLB Manager Online. Applications are open to anybody with a computer that supports Flash 10 (not just PCs), and will remain open until December 27th. The test will begin January 7th. Good luck!

Here’s the early trailer for MLB 11: The Show (which game was treated in these pages yesterday, too).

I don’t know if we learn much about the game here. On the other hand, it’s nice to know that Carl Orff is still composing music some 30 years after his death.

H/T: 7 Train to Shea

The image you see above these very words is the computer-generated likeness of Minnesota catcher Joe Mauer, and it (i.e. the image) is relevant to these pages not merely because Mauer has redefined the use of sideburns in American culture, nor for the fact that he’s served admirably as a spokesman of MLB: The Show, but because Mauer himself has just today (maybe) been announced as the poster boy for the 2011 edition of The Show, as well.

If you want a review of the game, you’ll have to read every last one of Jon Robinson’s words on the matter. In the meantime, though, here are some of those words, regarding one of the game’s biggest changes — i.e. analog controls for almost errything.

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Given today’s earlier post regarding the pending release of Baseball Stars Professional for PS3 and PSP, this seems like an appropriate time to announce a project that should appeal to the readership.

The project is called the NotGraphs Baseball Stars Challenge, and it presents an opportunity for NotGraphs readers to participate in two pastimes simultaneously — i.e. those of (a) gaming and (b) roster-construction nerdery.

“What’s the challenge?” perhaps you’re asking. Well, further down in this post, you’ll find, among other things, a link to a savestate I’ve created for the Baseball Stars NES ROM. Modifying said ROM slightly, I’ve been able to produce a team in which the user begins with $1 million to spend however he sees fit.

The team, called FANGRAPH NERD, is set up in a league against Baseball Stars stalwarts: the American Dreams, Ninja Blacksox, Brave Warriors, Japan Robins, and Lovely Ladies. To play games, just go to League Play and then Continue Play.

The goal is to play out a season — managing the team however you see fit, using the money whichever way you’d like, changing the lineup however you want — to achieve the best record possible.

In order to adjudge most accurately the roster-construction skills of each user — and to avoid rewarding those users who just happen to be awesome at video games — the savestate dictates that all FANGRAPH NERD games are simulated by the computer.

Here’s everything you’ll need to get started:

• The emulator I’ve used is the FCEUX version, available here. Load this onto your computer first. (It’s possible that this is only available for PC users. Any information on making this accessible to Mac users, too, is appreciated.)

• A .zip file of the ROM itself is available here. Once you’ve extracted the file, open it from within the emulator.

• The savestate for the Challenge is available here. Open this once you’ve started playing Baseball Stars in the emulator. (Note: As a couple users in the comment section suggest, you may receive the following error when attempting this: “Warning: found unknown save chunk of type 31.This may be caused by using a different or incompatible emulator.” However, it appears as though just pressing “Okay” will allow you to play the game like normal.)

Some additional notes:

• I played out one season without changing anything, and came out with a 32-93 record (.256 winning percentage). We’ll consider this a “replacement-level” season.

• One note on changing your team’s lineup. First, go to VS. Pick FANGRAPH NERD and Player 1 and any other team as a C player. Set the lineup how you want it. Play through at least one batter like this. Voila! The lineup’s now changed in season play!

• Feel free to report any technological difficulties. I can make no claims as to being able to fix all of them, but it’s likely that if one user has a problem, another user will have a similar one.

• The prize is yet to be determined, but it will likely involve very public praise.

• Please note, finally, that it’s unlawful and shameful to ever, ever, ever, ever, ever use a ROM or emulator without already owning the game. Neither FanGraphs nor NotGraphs endorses this sort of behavior.

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of their original console system, NeoGeo has just announced that, on Dec. 21, 2010, ten classic NeoGeo titles (see full list below) will make their way exclusively to the PlayStation 3 via PlayStation Network. Relevant to this site is that one of the games in question is, in fact, Baseball Stars Professional.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that, owing to its prohibitive cost (about $650 new), I never (a) owned a NeoGeo or (b) played many (any?) of the titles for it. Baseball Stars for NES, on the other hand, was/is a legitimately great game.

The cost of this particular edition of Baseball Stars is much friendlier to consumers, at just $8.99 (with later PSP versions costing $6.99). If the images below are to be believed, it’ll also offer a Network mode for playing online.

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Because I’m not what you’d call an “expert” in matters technological, I don’t know when it was officially released, but I’m able to inform you beyond a shadow of the shadowiest doubt that, as of this afternoon, iBooks is definitely available for the iPad, iPhone, and — relevant to this author — iPod Touch.

There are probably exactly 1000 exciting things about this, but for bespectacled and university-educated baseball fans like you and me and everyone we know, one terrific benefit is being able to access and read certain books — specifically, those in the public domain — in a manner that still announces to the world that you’re a modern-type man (or woman).

For example, after downloading the iBooks app yesterday, I found just seconds later a text with which I was previously unfamiliar: John Montgomery Ward’s Base-Ball: How to Become a Player, published in 1888.

Ward is an interesting case, generally. His Wikipedia page, for example, informs us that he “graduated from Columbia Law School in 1885 and led the players in forming the Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players, the first sports labor union.”

So, that’s one thing.

The other is that Ward is also the purveyor of white-hot prose. For example, from Base-Ball:

It may or it may not be a serious reflection upon the accuracy of history that the circumstances of the invention of the first ball are enveloped in some doubt. Herodotus attributes it to the Lydians, but several other writers unite in conceding to a certain beautiful lady of Corcyra, Anagalla by name, the credit of first having made a ball for the purpose of pastime. Several passages in Homer rather sustain this latter view, and, therefore, with the weight of evidence, and to the glory of woman, we, too, shall adopt this theory. Anagalla did not apply for letters patent, but, whether from goodness of heart or inability to keep a secret, she lost no time in making known her invention and explaining its uses. Homer, then, relates how:

“O’er the green mead the sporting virgins play, Their shining veils unbound; along the skies, Tost and retost, the ball incessant flies.”

You just got Homer’d, America.

If you’ve yet to read The Cultural Importance of Keith Hernandez, posted yesterday by my esteemed NotGraphs colleague Dayn Perry, and not yet watched the slightly not safe for work short film “I’m Keith Hernandez” he shared, trust me: do so. I’ll wait.

…

Twenty minutes well spent, eh? I told you so. When any short film begins with Keith Hernandez’s Seinfeld cameo, you know it’s not going to disappoint. And on a cold and snowy Monday afternoon up in the Great White North, “I’m Keith Hernandez” scratched me right where I itched.

Procrastination through baseball; I’ve got it almost down to an art. And recently on my travels along the highway of information, I hit the jackpot: R.B.I. Baseball 3. While video games have certainly come a long, long way, there’s nothing like a game of baseball displayed vividly in 8-bit graphics, using baseball’s 1990 rosters.

I was the Toronto Blue Jays, of course. It was an afternoon affair, in Kansas City. Dave Stieb versus Kevin Appier.

It wasn’t pretty, an 11-1 Royals final. Dave Stieb took the loss after giving up six runs in the first inning, and was spelled in relief by Jim Acker, Jimmy Key, Duane Ward and Tom Henke. My only run came courtesy of an inside the park home run by John Olerud. It was wild. Appier went the distance for the Royals, striking out 12, Tony Fernandez and Junior Felix twice, and Kelly Gruber three times. By the 8th inning, Appier was tossing junk 27 MPH. But it didn’t matter; I couldn’t hit him.

Some pointers:

• When you’re ranging right with your shortstop, trying to get to a ball in the hole on the left side of the diamond, your left fielder is running to his right, too. And when inevitably your shortstop doesn’t get there in time, you’re screwed. It’s maddening.
• On fly balls, there’s no assist circle on the field, where you’re supposed to end up to catch the ball. More madness.
• The sound effects are utterly amazing. Appreciate them.

Did I get rocked? Absolutely. Most importantly: I had fun. And that’s what counts. They were twenty-seven minutes I wouldn’t ask to be returned.

I also found, on the same website, Nintendo’s 1983 release, Baseball, and 1987’s R.B.I. Baseball.

Enjoy. And don’t mention it.