The Onion punks Little League World Series with NES-inspired write-up
Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 11:07am by Jack
The Onion is at it again with this recap of the Little League World Series. The thing is, they used a current real event, the Little League World Series, but the game they described was actually the classic NES game Little League Baseball Championship Series (skill 1 hitters and pitchers, etc.)
“Jerry had all his pitches working today: the fastball, the slowball, the ball that starts fast and then slows down right before it reaches the plate, and the breaking pitch that starts down the middle and then slowly curves 15 feet outside as the batter begins his swing,” Hershiser said. “His pitch sequences were set up beautifully. He did a great job of throwing pitches inside to make the batter stand in the far corner of the batter’s box, and then coming back with a fastball that painted the outside corner. Worked every time.”
I especially loved the ol’ fast-then-slow pitch, and the day I discovered I could jump to ctach screaming line drives (I was, and still am, a notorious instruction booklet tosser). Go Texas!
After successfully beating the bejesus out of the Shadow Warriors, Billy and Jimmy Lee were about to come face with another plot-advancing situation. Specifically, the leader of the Shadow Warriors would resurface and kill Billy’s girlfriend, Marian. So naturally, Billy and Jimmy set out to bring down the Shadow Warriors once again and avenge the death of Billy’s girl. Plot lines like this can only mean one thing…2-player co-op baby! Good news for anyone who enjoys playing a beat ‘em up with a friend. Gone is the tacked on level up system that limited the fighting techniques you could use early on in the game. In turn, you’re freed up to cut loose and make use of every skill your character was given, including a couple of new moves like the Hyper Uppercut and the Flying Knee Kick. When I first played this game many moons ago, I was happy to see that they preserved the Whirlwind Kick. It’s a personal favorite of mine.
If you would have told me as a kid that Super Mario Bros. 2 was merely a localized version of a pre-existing game from Japan (Doki Doki Panic), I wouldn’t have believed you. But in fact, that’s exactly what Nintendo did for the stateside release of the next chapter in the Super Mario series. This was due to the fact the original Japanese version was basically the same as the first Super Mario Brothers, only with slightly improved graphics. Also, the difficulty level was on the high side, too high for American audiences in the eyes of Nintendo. The solution? Take a platforming-oriented game, swap out the main characters and a few items to better fit the Mario theme, slap a “Super Mario Bros. 2” label on that bad boy, and you’ve got yourself Nintendo’s best-selling game of 1988.
RoboCop is a movie that needs no introduction. Actor Peter Weller played the role of Alex Murphy—a good cop that was killed in the line of duty and shortly thereafter brought back to life as a cyborg law enforcement officer. 1987 was the year of the film’s theatrical release, and it turned out to be a rather successful one. Soon after its arcade debut in 1988, the RoboCop game was ported to a few home gaming platforms, including the venerable Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Now back at that point in gaming history, the commercial success of a game usually required important stuff like sensible controls, a fun experience, and maybe even some replay value just for extra measure. Well, as most would agree, RoboCop was a game that was sorely lacking in those areas. In the end, the only individuals to get any real benefit from this were the developers at Data East. We basically kept their wallets lined well enough for them to produce more mediocre console content.
