Sports games have always been a weird genre to me. I used to think it was a pointless one. Why sit in front of a TV and make little sprites play a sport when you can go out and do it yourself in real life? I didn't understand the value of simulating something realistic. As I grew older, I found it was harder to actually do things like get together enough people to play a real game of baseball. I also discovered that not all sports games are actually based in reality. Some have fictional players and/or add interesting twists that go beyond what could happen in real life.

So now, I'd like to take a moment to talk about all of the Baseball video games I especially enjoyed. Feel free to discuss your own favorites.

I'll begin all the way back on the NES with Baseball Stars.


Now I didn't actually play this game on a real NES as I heard of it MUCH later. It was made by SNK, which is one of my favorite game companies. I stumbled across this game by accident but it has a lot of charm. First, it was the oldest game I can recall that has female baseball players. Being female, I'm sure you can tell why that stands out to me :p Also, this actually had the ability to create your own teams and players for those teams.

That brings me to Baseball Stars Professional, the sequel to this game.


Baseball Stars was actually a NeoGeo/Arcade game ported to the NES. Sadly, no official port of Professional was made to any console. This sequel features more teams (including a second all-female team), refined graphics, and refined gameplay. It plays a lot smoother than the original. Being an arcade game, there's obviously no team/player creation, but it's still a fun game to play and worth mentioning.

The pinnacle of SNK Baseball games, however, is 2020 Super Baseball.


This was another NG/Arcade game but also ported to the SNES and Genesis. It took the core engine developed in Baseball Stars and expanded upon it, taking things to a futuristic setting. Now players use cybernetic implants for increased performance and teams build robots to play for them. There's also crazy things like landmines and booster pads, launching players 200ft in the air to rob home runs. It's a really fun arcade style sports game that can be a fresh breath of air from realistic sports sims.

But what about the realistic baseball games? Well, there are some memorable ones of those too. I'll first give some credit to the RBI Baseball series. I think the last one made was '95 for the Sega 32X. Anyway, this series always felt like the Tecmo Super Bowl of baseball games to me (ironically, Tecmo's baseball games never made any real impact). They were well made and feature rich for their time. Aside from your typical exhibition matches, the games offered playoffs, seasons, situations, homerun derby, and defense practice modes by the end of its run. I also liked that in addition to having all baseball teams (at the time) with full 25-man rosters and stats, the games also featured the last 10 years worth of playoff teams and last 5 or so years' all-star teams. You could also do a mode where you could create your own custom rosters from all of the many players available.

Next, I wanna give a nod to Hardball '95.


I never played older Hardball games so I can't say if this was done even earlier, but I think this was the earliest MLB game to feature color commentary, which is actually fairly impressive. Al Michaels calls your game in full rather than older games (like RBI) that maybe has an announcer limited to telling you that a fly ball was hit at best. Another interesting feature is that you could freely edit any details you wanted of a team. Their name, their logo, their manager, and their players' names. You could even change the stats of the players to match with the names you gave. The editing freedom was ahead of its time and it really took other games until the PS2 era to start featuring stuff like this.

Of course, Hardball didn't have REAL character creation. The first game I've seen that allowed you to create your own character was Triple Play '96. Though its system was very limited and unrefined. Triple Play eventually got a proper creator together by 2000. Triple Play 2000 to me was most memorable for its commentary, though. Whether it was calling pop-ups "cans of corn in the outfield" and then going into a rant on the origin of that term... or just mentioning the weird fake sponsors like Lobster Cola and Oyster Pudding... it was a fun game to listen to.

Of course, EA really shone when the series re-branded itself to MVP Baseball. By the series end in 2005, I think this was the most solid baseball game made to date. It's a shame EA no longer has a license to this but still is allowed to make mediocre football games. It was their baseball team that really had the creative minds in my opinion and I really hope they grab the second license back from 2K sports. Anyway, MVP 2005 had it all. The gameplay was solid. The slider system for tweaking it worked very well. The controls were intelligently designed. Character creation was well done (though I do believe Sony's surpassed them on this by now). There were tons of modes and the Owner mode was very solid here. It also had all 3 levels of minor league baseball where most games stop at AA. It also had good commentary from the actual commentators for the San Francisco Giants. Now this may just be personal bias because I'm actually used to hearing those two guys specifically calling real ballgames... but the commentary in that game always felt more like listening to an actual ballgame than it does in The Show.

Anyway, that's my look at some of the baseball games I played over the years that hold a special spot in memory.

I can not believe you left out Ken Griffrey Jr.'s game for the Nintendo 64. That would be my favorite baseball video game of all time.

thing1 : I hear this sentiment a lot, but I honestly have never played the game. I ended up buying a Playstation instead of a N64, so I don't really have any familiarity with N64 games :x

Didn't Ken Griffey also have a SNES baseball game? I don't remember caring for that one too much though...

Crazy Li : you know, i honestly do not know if he had a snes game or not. :/ that is sad...

I know you are probably limiting your list to retro games... but the Show series on PS3 is bar none the home of the best games in the genre.

Specifically 12 the Show jumps out for its enhanced physics simulator. I too have played a LOT of baseball video games, with it being my favorite sport.

Nice list either way.

legacyme3 : Yanno, I didn't ever get around to play The Show '12. I was gonna get it went it dropped to $30 at my store but then we never got any more copies in. We just had '11. I have played '10 and it was a pretty good game but it didn't really feel quite as good overall as MVP '05 which is why I wish EA would get back into the MLB game. At least if the two companies doing it were Sony and EA, I think you'd end up with two outstanding series because both companies do it well and they would be forced to push each other harder in the competition.

Is Show '12 really significantly better than previous entries? What do you feel are some of its best improvements? Also what the heck is Diamond Dynasty?

It's a large improvement. The ball physics are much better and it more realistically moves off the bat than it has in years past.

The biggest changes I'd say are the improvements to Road to the Show.

One of the best features in the series is s community made roster called OSFM Full Minors, which you can download off the roster vault through the online feature. Includes most of the prospects on each team. (Limited roster size and all)

Diamond Dynasty is an online game mode that sort of resembles Ultimate Team from other series. Collect cards and use them to build a team to play against other teams. Not my thing as I don't like online play. If it wasn't free I'd never use it.

While it's fantastic, if you don't have it yet, save your money for 13 the show, out March 5th.

legacyme3 : Yeah... I was thinking at this point, it's close enough to '13 that '12 would be silly to buy. I don't imagine they could ruin '13 either (though it is possible). I'll wanna make sure it's at least as good if not better before making a purchase though. Some sports game developers tend to just randomly remove features some years so that the next year's version is actually a downgrade if you liked X-feature that was removed.

I also don't like that most sports games don't actually offer anything noteworthy from one release to the next. All you're really doing is shelling out $60 for updated rosters. This is why I never buy them each year (and why I didn't buy Show '11 and held off on '12). You need to give them a few years to make actual advances that mean something. I heard the new stuff they added to Show 12 was actually 4 years in the making.

Anyway, thanks for the insight. I'll either buy 13 if it looks worthy enough or just get 12 really cheap and update the rosters. We'll see what Sony gives us.

Crazy Li :

As someone who has played every the show game, they make a fair deal of progress for a sports game each year. There's a reason I shell 60 on release each year for only the show. (I buy all other sports games used)

Next years game is rumored to improve franchise (my baby) dramatically with changes in how scouting affects your team over time. Plus they've added a beginner mode which will help people who struggle with the timing of hitting (ie casuals).

If you want more news on it Google the site "operation sports". They are primarily a sports game forum and have tons of info.

legacyme3 : I love Operation Sports. I get a lot of my roster updates for games from them.

Franchise mode is actually all I play in sports games that have them (or Owner mode if it has that). Shaping a team over a long-term period feels the most rewarding. I'll have to keep up on what improvements they make. Does The Show feature single-A minor league teams yet? Also, do they do expanded rosters in September? A couple of things that bug me about most MLB games I've played is that if they even feature minors, they only have AA and AAA and it doesn't have realistic roster expansion. At the end of the year when the minor league teams' seasons have ended, you're supposed to be able to call up some extra minors guys to do stuff like covering late-year injuries or helping your starters rest for the playoffs. It's kind of a struggle in that final month when you're still limited to 25 players.

Crazy Li :

No on single A, but yes on roster expansion.

It also features compensation for free agent signings, the rule 5 draft, and the option/dfa system.

legacyme3 : Jeez... still? What's so hard about adding Single A teams? EA did it back in the PS2 era :|

Good to know about the roster expansion though. That's a more meaningful feature, I think. I think Rule 5 and options are old features though. As is different types of free agents and unrestricted free agent stuff.

Anyway, thanks for asking my 10 million questions about the series :p you've been tremendously helpful.