Bargain Bin

MLBPA Baseball (Genesis)

Here's a great example of why you have GAME TESTERS to fuck around with your game before releasing anything to the public.  Other than insanely overhyped games that get rave reviews for no other reason than paying to advertise in a review magazine, sports games in particular have the unique ability to reach homes before almost every single one of the players in said homes finds at least one completely game-breaking flaw or bug to exploit, completely negating any positive gameplay review that was or will be published.  This is often because reviewers don't catch them, because most reviewers hate sports, know nothing about sports, and want to be done with the review as quickly as possible.  Such was the case with the infamous Madden '95 for the SNES.  Sometimes, the flaws are right in your face and don't even pretend not to destroy any legit enjoyment you would otherwise have unless the players decide to enforce your own honor system of rules amongst each other in a 2-player game.

MLBPA Baseball is every bit as infamous as Madden '95, but like any other sports game of the early to mid-'90s, you won't find a shred of evidence of this on the internet, because the many fans of sports video games hide in the sports forum crowds, calling each other fags, challenging each other to fights on Facebook at a location where neither party will show up because each will be caught with child pornography before the week is out.

MLBPA Baseball features authentic 1993 rosters, but not the MLB license itself, so you only get likenesses of team colors and the city name instead of the official team.  It's also very difficult to distinguish any of the locations where you might be playing, but those are nitpicky criticisms for 1992.  No, the REAL issue here is the gameplay.  More specifically, the ability to completely break the legitimacy of the gameplay by doing the following:

STEP 1: Pitch out the batter to first base.

STEP 2: While pitching to the next batter, continue to throw to first base until the last guy decides to take too big a lead off of first and gets thrown out (usually within 3 or 4 pitches).

STEP 3: Repeat.

It's a hilarious pattern, and what's even more frustrating is that playing any other way against the computer makes it nearly impossible to even get a single hit, hoping for a random home run every now and then.  Everything else is either very basic (a good thing) or, in the case of fielding, confusing as getting military instructions from a retarded dog (a bad thing unless you consider that some military authority figures are dumber than a retarded dog).  I could make countless other jokes and metaphors about playing this game and not getting to first base... IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, but that would be childish and also inaccurate, since the anger you might feel after playing will be more than enough to STEAL HOME... IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

I mean sexual assault, in case you were wondering.

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Comments

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Psycho Gorilla

Just to prove how much the internet hates sports games, gaymefaqs doesn't even have the published year right, listing it as '92 in the US and '91 in Japland, when I'm looking right at the cart and see the year 1994.  And yet it has the 1993 rosters, so it's good to know that such info has nearly half a decade worth of timeline fuckups listed for any game historian looking to do some research.

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Psycho Gorilla

Oh, and IGN has the release date listed as December 31, 1994, so that just about covers 5 years.  Good to be so thorough!

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Eek

Is that Mark McGwire with a syringe of steroids and a milk moustache in the banner?

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Psycho Gorilla

Sometimes when your eyes tell you you're seeing Mark McGwire with a syringe of steroids and a milk moustache in the banner, that's (s)exactly what you're seeing!

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Cruroar

shit i totally owned that game on my genesis, where did my old games go...

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Psycho Gorilla

...I'm guessing in a local bargain bin, where pack rats like me pick them up and notice you named your team something offensive!

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Eek

That's assuming the internal battery still works. I once tried playing the entirety of Shining Force in one sitting because it wouldn't save my progress.

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Psycho Gorilla

UPDATE: Notice how I mentioned that Child Pornagraphy joke applying to sports fans, and wouldn't you know it, there was a child molestation scandal before the year's end.