Major League Baseball (Intellivision, 1980)
Entry posted by Mezrabad
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Major League Baseball (Intellivision, 1980)
Major League Baseball is the game I saw being played at every Sears I walked into when the Intellivision was being introduced. I'm not a fan of baseball, but to me this game will always represent the tantalizing first glimpse of the Intellivision's exciting potential. In fact, prior to acquiring an Intellivision for chronogaming, Baseball was the only game for the Intellivision I'd ever played on the original hardware. Upon further reflection I find myself a little annoyed at the one and only friend of mine who actually had an Intellivision but never invited me over to play it. (Though he did demonstrate his AD&D cartridge to me the one time I was there so I guess I should be grateful for that.)
The screen layout, predictably, looks like a baseball field. At the start of the game all nine players on the home team come out onto the field from their dugout (left side for home, right side for visitor) and take their positions. The opponent's batter takes its place at the home plate. Using the disc, the player whose team is in the field can have the pitcher pitch a ball with different levels of speed and curve but with no "telekinetic" control over the ball while it is in flight. A batter can hit either a foul or a home run and the fielding team doesn't do much about it. Anything other than a foul or a home run, however, is treated as a grounder and that's when it gets fun. The Intellivision keypad is used to great effect here as each position on the field is represented on the overlay. If the ball gets hit into left field you activate the left outfielder by pressing the player on your keypad and then you move them to the ball using Disc controller. When they've gotten the ball, you press the field position to which they should throw the ball and try to tag the running player out. In fact, you can even commit an error. If you decide to throw the ball to first base but in the middle of the throw decide to activate the second baseman, you'll deactivate the first baseman and the ball will land on the ground. This allows the runner to take advantage of your mistake and stretch the hit out into a double or triple. This mechanic adds a flexibility to the gameplay lacking in the other baseball titles we've seen. For instance, some previous games have determined how far the runner gets (single, double or triple) depending on where the ball is hit. In fact, unless my memory is rotten (and it could be) I don't think any other game offers the freedom of throwing the ball to whatever position the player feels like nor do any allow the runner's player to make any decisions going around the bases, which I'll get to next.
On the running side of the game, the player at bat has complete freedom over the lead runner and can have them run in either direction (towards the next base or back to the most recent one touched) whenever they feel it's to their advantage. When the pitcher is getting ready to pitch, it's possible for the runner to take a nice lead towards the next base in an attempt to steal. To counter this, the pitcher can throw to the baseman to try to tag the runner out. In addition to base stealing this play mechanic allows for a form of emergent gameplay which I think baseball players call "monkey in the middle". Specifically, this is when a runner gets caught stealing a base and the basemen throw the ball back and forth to trap the oscillating runner between them. It isn't behavior that's "programmed" into the game, but because of the simple gameplay mechanics and the design choice of leaving it up to the players the situation can emerge just like it does in a meatspace game of baseball.
I might be wrong, but the sound effects sound either like digitized samples or very masterful programming of the sound chip. The first time I heard the "YER OUT!" I thought it sounded like an umpire growling the actual words. The cheers and whistles of the crowd also sound pretty good. I wonder if any game has the crowd cheer louder for the home team? It would make sense, wouldn't it, I mean it stands to reason there will be more fans of the home team in the stands...but I digress.
The one drawback to this cart is that it is only for two players with no solo play option but this can be a plus as it encourages people to play videogames together. The bright side of this meant I had to recruit my son (now 10, he's been chronogaming with me since he was seven) to play Baseball with me. This sort of situation is always a treat for me but depends on the game whether or not it's a treat for him. He picked it up quickly enough but was lamenting that we had to play for Nine. Whole. Innings...actually it was only eight and a half. After it was over he was very happy to get back to playing Oblivion. I did get a big kick out of seeing him seemingly embrace the stealing bases tactic, though towards the end I think he was doing it to end the game faster.
I should mention something about Major League Baseball being an Intellivision game which utilizes the practice of licensing trademarks from professional sport leagues. We'll see it again for every early Intellivision sports title I can think of, including Backgammon. Does anyone know if this strategy paid off for the system? It does nothing for me personally, but does anyone out there in, um, chronoblogosphere remember how they felt about licensed sports titles on the INTV back in the day? Was it more exciting to play Major League Baseball than it would have been to merely play Baseball?
Next time we'll play Football, though I should call it NFL Football to get you NFL fans out there excited.
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