Game Two According To 2020 Super Baseball

2020 Super Baseball is a very weird game.

Basically, take Baseball Stars (it has the same teams, like the Ninja Black Sox, and the same mechanics), add in some wacky rules (only a tiny portion of the field is foul territory and it’s only a home run if it goes in the “Home Run Area” in center field), and fast forward to a society in the far off year of 2020, and there you have Super Baseball 2020.

I decided to play as the “Battle Heroes,” because, why not, and the computer randomly picked the “Aussie Battlers”. Since the Heroes wear red and the Battlers wear blue (and, Australia is basically the Texas of continents), I guess I’m playing as the Cardinals this time. As much as that hurts me deep inside.

First of all, let’s talk about the crazy ground rules of this game. Like I mentioned above, most of the field is fair territory, and only a little bit of it is home run territory. Observe:

The red is foul. Literally everywhere else is fair. And I abused the hell out of this — basically, imagine how good Ichiro would be if he could slap the ball mostly foul down the left field line. Because that happened a lot in this game.

Here a few more of the game’s awesome quirks:

Ladies! Playing baseball!

A ball landing in “fair” territory.

As the game progresses, each team earns money for doing things well (throwing strikes, getting hits, getting outs on defense, etc.). Home runs are worth a big-time bonus of 5,000 bucks, which my Heroes earned in the top of the third to take a 3-0 lead:

And the hitter is loving it:

Robot umps! The future is fantastic:

In the seventh inning, after I had racked up a four-run inning and a 7-0 lead thanks to some of that classic Ichiro slap-hitting, we come upon the “Lucky 7.”

What’s so lucky about it, you ask?

Each team’s hitting power goes straight through the roof! Only I was able to capitalize, bringing a run home, largely because my robot pinch hitter didn’t get the job done.

Despite the high wackiness potential, the last three innings were quiet, perhaps due to my stockpiling of cash for the upgrade “Pitching Arm C,” which costs $20,000 and increases “pitching power” by 45%. Either way, it was a handy 8-1 victory for the Cardinals Heroes.

So there you have it. Game Two of the Video Game World Series has the Cardinals making it 1-1 after the Rangers took Game One in Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball. It’s really shaping up to be an exciting series!