There is not one part of that mental image that does not rule.
At the risk of being self-indulgent (perhaps even mindlessly so), I beg the forgiveness of anyone who doesn't like my video game articles to bear with me for this last one for the month of March. My last article left a bitter taste in my mouth.
Base Wars is a humble game with a simple promise and a fantastic premise: in the future, baseball will kick impossible amounts of ass. Not only will we have, as a fanbase, evolved past the point where impossibly proportioned athletes using steroids typically reserved for the agricultural sector phases us, they will no longer even interest us. Instead, machine has replaced man on the baseball diamond, bringing with it an impressive arsenal of guns, swords, and rocket-fists.
Featured: a macabre parody of humanity warped by science. Also featured: a picture of an NES game
Base Wars' gameplay is fairly simple, which is why it works so well. It's just regular baseball, except better in every measurable way. The rules for strike-outs, force-outs, and pop-outs remain unchanged--but everything in between is where the brilliance lies. Once the ball is in play, the hitting team's robot(s) run the bases. If they beat the throw to a base, they're safe, and the game continues. But if the runners get greedy, then things start getting interesting.
If a runner is tagged, the action leaves the overhead view of the stadium and enters a side-view of the runner and tagging player doing battle. From here, the game quits being a baseball sim and more accurately resembles Street Fighter; it's nothing more complex than a no-holds-barred brawl to the finish. If the runner wins, he gets to keep advancing the bases and the ball is knocked free from the tagging player's hands. If the tagging player wins, the runner is out.
To keep things fair and the scores under three digits, Konami implemented a clever gameplay mechanic: the more narrowly a runner beats a throw, the more health it has available in the battle. A photo-finish at the base means the runner has 100% of its health meter filled at the start, while a brazen attempt at base-stealing where the throw has the runner beat by a mile results in a fight where the runner has a paltry amount of energy supply, whereas the tagging player always has a robust 100% of their health. Basically, the defender always has the advantage.
Left: a close play at third base. Right: the blue team signaled steal with a megaphone
Even more brilliant is that when a robot's total HP has been depleted, they are destroyed utterly in a fiery maelstrom. Lose three robots this way, lose the game. So let's say your team is up to bat, down by 12 in the top of the 9th. You know the opposing team's second baseman has only 120 or so HP left and you've already destroyed two of their robots. Do you try to win the game with sound fundamental baseball and solid base-running and hope to hold onto the lead through the bottom of the ninth? Or do you try to fuck that last robot up and win by default?
Of course you try to blow that fucker up! This ain't Tony LaRussa nickel-and-dime baseball, kids!
"Blow that fucker up" is definitely more the Ozzie Guillen school of management
All of that would make a solid game, but it actually gets even better with pennant mode, where you can earn money to customize your robots with better pitching arms for more ball control and faster throw speed, more powerful weapons, shoulder upgrades for more powerful batting, better legs for faster base running, and regenerating body armor to get your health back in battle.
You'd think RPG elements in a sporting game would be two great tastes that don't taste great together, like mustard and crab-apples. In fact, they're more like Oreo cookies and Bigfoot pepperoni pizza. Independently, they're amazing, but when one is nestled delicately just under the cheesy surface of the other, it's pure magic.
I know some other sports games have tried including RPG elements to varied degrees of success--NBA Hang Time's create-a-character feature allowed players to create a shitterrible rookie and watch his ass get walked over for the entire season before finally accumulating enough stat points to be marginally better than Tyues Edney.
Finally a chance to make my white-boy dream of three assists in the same game to Patrick Ewing a reality!
Depending on whether you consider WWE games to be fighting or sports games, the create-a-wrestler mode for those games is disappointing in the same way. What 16-year-old wrestling fan wouldn't love the chance to watch his virtual alter-ego job a dozen times to Essa Rios before finally getting the stats to maybe one day contend against D-Lo Brown for the European Title?
Behold: your mid-card hell. And If you got that joke, will you be my friend?
Base Wars actually handles this pretty well by putting you in charge of the entire roster and actually allowing even an ill-equipped team the ability to compete by simply having a good eye and fast reflexes at the plate. Rack up a couple victories and you're well on your way to having the funds to be a competitive team.
Of course, I'm not going to say this game is perfect. For example, the higher-end weapons are straight-up broken. If you hit someone with the first shot of an automatic weapon you can just hold the button down until they drop and they won't have a chance to retaliate or even move out of the way. Also, you do damage to players by hitting them with a pitch, so you can hit the entire roster over and over with fastballs and win without ever having to take the field.
But for a game made in '91, it's better than any other baseball sim I've ever played. Some people think about baseball to lose an uncomfortable erection, but thinking about Base Wars actually makes mine worse.
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