InRepair
03-24-2007, 05:44 AM
It was made by a company named Epyx, I believe, and they also made computer games, as well. I'm guessing this game--I think it was called "Head to Head Baseball"--was made in '88 or so.
Anyway, the way it was played was as such: the game came with two teams, a Red team and a Blue team. Each team came with a small roster of position players and pitchers. The position players, I believe, had differing abilities, so you did have to adjust your lineup accordingly. On the back of each player's card was a field of squares, all of which were obscured by those red squiggly lines (that's as descriptive as I can get) that were also found on the back of the packages in which the old Transformers came in order to hide their "tech-specs." To see what was written beneath for either, you needed those strips of red, translucent film, the same material found in 3-D glasses. So, then, if I remember correctly, what would happen is that the batting player and the pitching player would pick the pitch he expected and pick the pitch thrown, respectively, and lie their cards down atop one another atop that field of red squiggles. I think it was the "pitch predicted" card that had the red material on it, and the "pitch thrown" card just had a slit of an open window in the cardboard. Well, depending on the quadrant selected by the pitcher, the pitch selected by the pitcher, and the pitch expected by the batter, one could "read" the result of the play. I guess that, the better the hitter, the more "good" offensive results there were available underneath all those squiggles. And, somehow, the readouts were situated whereby, if you were looking for a change and were thrown a fastball, odds are you were the reading was going to be "ground out" or something. The coolest part, though, was when the readout was "play tape." See, the game came with a cassette tape that you would play in these situations, and, when you did so, you'd hear a color commentator describing the action. It was all random what would happen in the sense that it would just depend where the tape had stopped since the last time you played. The guy would say something like, "All right, and the pitcher's getting into his stance. There's no love loss between these guys. They've had a long history of antagonism toward one another. Here's the wind-up, and the pitch...a line-drive CAUGHT by the third baseman...WHAT a grab, robbing the batter of a sure double" and so on. Then there'd be silence, you'd stop the tape, and wait to play it again the next time "play tape" came up. And then you'd move the pegs or whatever representing the batter and runners accordingly.
My description's kind of fuzzy in some places, but I think those of you--if any exist--who played it will know what I'm talking about. I actually still have it. I'll have to dig it out and figure out all the things I described incorrectly. The basics I remember, but the specifics I'm unsure of. That audio tape part, though, was great. Whoever recorded the play-by-play, with ambient noise in the background, did a great job. It was like listening to a radio show from the 50s or something.
Anyway, the way it was played was as such: the game came with two teams, a Red team and a Blue team. Each team came with a small roster of position players and pitchers. The position players, I believe, had differing abilities, so you did have to adjust your lineup accordingly. On the back of each player's card was a field of squares, all of which were obscured by those red squiggly lines (that's as descriptive as I can get) that were also found on the back of the packages in which the old Transformers came in order to hide their "tech-specs." To see what was written beneath for either, you needed those strips of red, translucent film, the same material found in 3-D glasses. So, then, if I remember correctly, what would happen is that the batting player and the pitching player would pick the pitch he expected and pick the pitch thrown, respectively, and lie their cards down atop one another atop that field of red squiggles. I think it was the "pitch predicted" card that had the red material on it, and the "pitch thrown" card just had a slit of an open window in the cardboard. Well, depending on the quadrant selected by the pitcher, the pitch selected by the pitcher, and the pitch expected by the batter, one could "read" the result of the play. I guess that, the better the hitter, the more "good" offensive results there were available underneath all those squiggles. And, somehow, the readouts were situated whereby, if you were looking for a change and were thrown a fastball, odds are you were the reading was going to be "ground out" or something. The coolest part, though, was when the readout was "play tape." See, the game came with a cassette tape that you would play in these situations, and, when you did so, you'd hear a color commentator describing the action. It was all random what would happen in the sense that it would just depend where the tape had stopped since the last time you played. The guy would say something like, "All right, and the pitcher's getting into his stance. There's no love loss between these guys. They've had a long history of antagonism toward one another. Here's the wind-up, and the pitch...a line-drive CAUGHT by the third baseman...WHAT a grab, robbing the batter of a sure double" and so on. Then there'd be silence, you'd stop the tape, and wait to play it again the next time "play tape" came up. And then you'd move the pegs or whatever representing the batter and runners accordingly.
My description's kind of fuzzy in some places, but I think those of you--if any exist--who played it will know what I'm talking about. I actually still have it. I'll have to dig it out and figure out all the things I described incorrectly. The basics I remember, but the specifics I'm unsure of. That audio tape part, though, was great. Whoever recorded the play-by-play, with ambient noise in the background, did a great job. It was like listening to a radio show from the 50s or something.