Still love the original Baseball Stars for the NES:)

[bigfriendly]

I remember playing this game when it first came out. My friends and I where in our late teens and we were instantly hooked. We played lots of leagues and were so hopelessly addicted that one of my old friends blamed Baseball Stars for almost flunking a semester of college. It was common to leave trash talking notes under the wiper-blades in the college parking lot. Hey Mo, (short for Morgan) unless you want everybody to think you're a candy ass you better show up at Big Daddy's this afternoon so I can blow your sorry ass out of the water. It has been over 30 years so I'm paraphrasing but something very similar to this was said way back in 1990. I have a NES emulator on my laptop so I play a new league once every year or two. This is definitely my all time favorite console baseball game. I know that lot's of people prefer Baseball Simulator 1000 and it does have some cool features and incredibly deep statistical package for a NES sports game. I just can't get past those goofy little midget players on the fielding screen. The graphics and player animations just don't look as good as they do in BS. I do wish that Baseball Stars had the in depth league stats that BBS1000 has. Anyway just wanted to share a fun gaming memory from many years ago:)

Edited May 14, 2020 by bigfriendly

[128Kgames]

Try Baseball Stars Professional or Baseball Stars 2 on the Neo Geo if you ever get a chance, I think you'd enjoy them.

[Tanooki]

Well if you're going to do arcade, scratch the first as it's pretty stiff.  BS2 though is truly fantastic.  There's also the NGPC version of the game, and I'd put even that over the original arcade one.

[DragonGrafx-16]

Only Baseball game I really played was Tecmo Super Baseball on the SNES... not really into sports games.

[DJ Clae]

The second one on the Neo Geo is great. But the Neo Geo ones are more arcade style. They don't have all the management options of the first game on NES.

[Cynicaster]

I remember playing a lot of Baseball Stars in grade school.  I made a team named after my teacher and the roster was made up of my classmates.  I played a lot of baseball games in the NES era and Stars was definitely the coolest from a features standpoint.  It did have some lopsided and unrealistic gameplay, if I recall correctly, where certain players would either be ridiculously powerful or ridiculously useless. 

 

The Neo Geo ones are cool - especially the graphic style - but I much prefer the gameplay of the NES version. 

 

 

[+cvga]

I loved Baseball Stars for the NES. I spent years building teams that were far more powerful than any of the teams that came on the cartridge (American Dreams). I'd build a powerhouse team, start a new league with a new team and build that one up. Eventually, I only had teams of superstars. I had teams named after Saturday morning cartoons, famous dogs, family members, video games characters and a couple of others. It was great fun for years until my battery died

[+wongojack]

I think there are only 2 (or maybe 3) games where a group of friends and I actually attempted to play multiple seasons in succession while improving our players and developing our franchises.  Baseball Stars is by far the one we played the most.  I have yet to have a gaming experience like it all these years later.  The only problem is that in the few times I've attempted to play it single player, it hasn't had the same draw.  There was something really fun about sharing the goofy player and team names with your friends and then testing out your team against each other.

 

I also played Earl Weaver's Baseball and Super Tecmo Bowl with those same friends, but we were never really very serious about playing multiple seasons in STB.

[bigfriendly]

6 hours ago, cvga said:

I loved Baseball Stars for the NES. I spent years building teams that were far more powerful than any of the teams that came on the cartridge (American Dreams). I'd build a powerhouse team, start a new league with a new team and build that one up. Eventually, I only had teams of superstars. I had teams named after Saturday morning cartoons, famous dogs, family members, video games characters and a couple of others. It was great fun for years until my battery died

 

[bigfriendly]

I fire up the emulator on my laptop every so often when I want to play. I build up a new team to powerhouse status when I do it. You're right though, it's not the same as playing with your friends. Back in the glory days I would name my players after the original cast of Star Trek and the Phoenix Cardinals (now known as the Arizona Cardinals). I need to look for a better controller for my PC. I'm using a MOGA and no matter how I configure it in the emulator settings it just sucks compared to the real console. Try to throw to second base and it throws to first. Same thing with with other classic NES games that are emulated like Contra and Castlevania which I like to play from time to time. It also sucks when playing 2600 games on my laptop also. The precision just isn't there when playing:(

[Loafer]

Baseball stars 2 on the neogeo:  Still the best arcade style baseball game ever made.  I'm seriously confused on the missed opportunity by Midway.  They did NBA Jam for basketball, NHL Hitz for hockey and NFL Blitz for Football. Where the heck was their over-the-top baseball game?  The template was right there in BS2 on the Neogeo, just turn it up to 11 and bingo, would have been a classic methinks.

 

edit: I know of MLB Slugfest but I'm referring to arcade.  So what is NHL Hitz doing there?  Well it's totally awesome and forgot it never got an arcade release (I think) but yeah I guess I shouldn't ignore Slugfest.  Blech did not age well at all! 

Edited May 25, 2020 by Loafer

[Lord Mushroom]

On 5/15/2020 at 5:40 AM, DragonGrafx-16 said:

not really into sports games.

I second that, with an exception for racing games. The only two sports games I have liked were over the top cartoony: Nintendo World Cup and Tecmo Cup Football Game. 

[Tanooki]

Yeah Slugfest only got home play, basically MIdway was on the way out so because of all the drunks and dudes into football stupidity they still cranked out a couple Blitz titles for bars, but that was it.  And Slugfest was never that good, even when it was new, but Hitz was, better than EA good so they decided to destroy the franchise to get revenge (seriously not making that up...they killed a studio and put people out of work to make a point.)

[Joe C.]

I also enjoyed playing season of this game. Stats were decent but I did prefer Baseball Sim. My favorite leadoff hitter was named Creepy. Anyone remember what team he played for?

[Machine]

The NES has some great baseball games. Baseball Stars was my favorite 1 player game, and RBI was my favorite 2 player game.