Baseball Stars 2 Impressions: Baseball on VC Doesn't Suck Anymore
Dec. 11
Baseball Stars is generally regarded as being the best baseball sim on the NES. I was always more of a Bases Loaded guy, personally, but it was a fun game nonetheless. Baseball Stars also made an appearance in arcades and on the Neo Geo home console as Baseball Stars Professional, and this week's Virtual Console lineup brings its sequel, Baseball Stars 2, to the Nintendo Wii.
It was a wise decision to bring the sequel to VC instead of Baseball Stars Professional, since Baseball Stars 2 outclasses its prequel in every way. Whereas Baseball Stars Professional has that first-generation Neo Geo stink on it -- complete with simple gameplay, barebones presentation, and an ugly default system font -- Baseball Stars 2 shines as one of the better 16-bit takes on the sport of baseball.
There's not really much else to say about Baseball Stars 2 otherwise. It's...baseball. You hit a ball and run around some bases. Sometimes you throw the ball so that this other guy can catch it. Other times, you pitch the ball directly at the batter's head on purpose, because it's funny.
Baseball Stars 2 looks really nice for a game of its era, though. The graphics are cartoony and vibrant, the presentation is flashy and somewhat ridiculous, and there's plenty of goofy digitized voice to keep things lively. Controls are tight and responsive, and the experience plays as fast and as smooth as you would expect from an arcade-style baseball game.
About the worst thing you can say about Baseball Stars 2 is that it's not 2020 Super Baseball, which is what some consider to be the Neo Geo's best baseball game. Unlike Baseball Stars 2, 2020 Super Baseball takes the sport in its own futuristic direction, adding robots, landmines, and high-jumping catches to the equation. Baseball Stars 2 may be a good game in its own right, but when one baseball game is going up against another baseball game with robots in it, the robots are going to win every time.
Luckily for Baseball Stars 2, 2020 Super Baseball is not yet available on the Virtual Console, and it stands head and shoulders above its current VC competitors World Class Baseball on the TurboGrafx-16 and the putrid Baseball for the NES. Assuming you don't already own Konami's excellent MLB Power Pros (and if you call yourself any kind of baseball fan, you should buy a copy as soon as possible), Baseball Stars 2 makes for a great time, despite its relatively high asking price of 900 Wii Points.
Here's the start of a typical game of Baseball Stars 2...
...and here's 2020 Super Baseball, for your future reference. Note the awesome diving robot catch at 00:58.
Comments
Man, an EXCELLENT baseball game on the NES to port would have been Base Wars: Cyber Stadium Series. It featured robots and the future, but it threw the rules of Baseball into oncoming traffic!
For instance, any time you had a robot on a base, you could opt to steal the next base, only instead of being OUT if you were tagged by the ball, you got to fight to the death for it, in a simple fighting-game sequence. If you won, you kept the base, so basically you could rack up the points into the hundreds before a game ended. That and the fact that you can basically make the ball do whatever you want after it has been pitched (want to make it do a cartoony spiral? Sure! Whatever!), made it the feel-good Baseball game of the future.
I wasn't even going to comment on this one, but you mentioned robots playing baseball and that got me all nostalgic.
HELLO MAJOR LEAGUE FANS, THIS IS MICHAEL BEARD!
I love when you bean one of the sluggers and they get all pissed-off and storm the mound to attack the pitcher. It shows a cut-scene that looks like it came out of The Super Spy!
I love the rhythmic chewing of the Baseball Stars 2 pitcher. It's almost...hypnotic.
specific_chris: I played that game at a friend's house once, when I was young, and I never knew the title of it. It was awesome, though.
I remember you could completely demolish the opposing team by hitting them with pitches repeatedly. You'd lose by about 30 runs, but still. Why can't they make games like that anymore...?
Oh yeah! I don't remember there being a penalty for destroying the batters, but you can totally do it! They explode and everything!
Man why didn't I bring my NES with me when I moved... I'm definitely going to play that game again. I agree that they should make games like that nowadays, I mean, it's not like Konami isn't still around (since Base Wars was made by Ultra). Not that I don't appreciate MLB Power Pros, it's the most fun I've had with a baseball game that was made in this decade, but come on, let's see some robots!
I do remember that those tank-tread robots were tough to destroy... you could go through the android ones like tissue paper, though.
I think it says something that even though I only played this game once when I was about 8 years old, I still remember so much about it. Robot baseball, people. Come on.
(Now I need to find out if they ever made Iron Leaguer games in Japan. They probably sucked, though.)
When I saw that Baseball Stars 2 was being released on Virtual Console, I thought it would be the inferior NES version. But it was the Neo Geo version instead, which has held up much better over time.
As far as NES baseball games, I've always liked Tecmo's Bad News Baseball. Tecmo's trademark animations combined with wackiness and unforced errors and varying character strength and weaknesses from team to team and player to player made for a great game. I'd like to see an updated version where you can play through a whole season (or more) and build character stats, but with the wackiness and errors and fun factor still included.
I'm also wondering why Bob Uecker has never done voiceovers for a baseball video game, and when some enterprising company is going to remedy that mistake.
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