Who are the best virtual baseballers?
Sports games don’t always lend themselves to having memorable characters. Usually it’s just a bunch of similar guys, without necessarily any story or any standout avatars that take on lives of their own in the conceptual “mind of the gamer.”
Pablo Sanchez. The Secret Weapon. The quiet, unassuming, all-around Latino beast of Backyard Baseball. Little fella, big cap down over the eyes. The unanimous number one pick, both in the game and for this ranking of characters. Fun fact: Pablo canonically only pretends not to speak English. Perhaps to help cover for the fact that his original voice actor is very much not a native Spanish speaker.
Ken Griffey Jr. The Kid is obviously a real-life superstar, and a Hall of Famer. But like John Madden, or especially like Tony Hawk, Griffey is both a legendary guy in his own right and a famous video game character. And he was the perfect avatar for a ’90s baseball video game: young, All-American, backwards cap, blowing a bubble as he hits a home run.
Paste. The power-hitting talisman of New Jersey in Bases Loaded. Everyone knows he’s the best character in one of the most popular fictional roster baseball games of all time. And, while it’s a myth that he’s the only guy who will do this, he is one of the special “slugger”-type characters who will sometimes charge the mound after hit by a pitch:
Pawapuro-kun. Sure, he may be the least familiar to western audiences of the four. But I’d like to see your fave in a dang kart racer. The mascot of the Power Pros series is your classic mute self-insert game protagonist, and his character design is oddly similar to Pablo Sanchez: Bald, big-headed baseball boy. Besides starring in dozens of story modes across the Pawapuro series, this fella’s also starred in the peak fiction that is the intro cinematic for Pawapuro 2022. Feel free to turn on the subtitles:
Others worth consideration:
- Jon Dowd, a dev insert to replace Barry Bonds in the MVP Baseball games. There are other Bonds replacement characters, but this is the one everyone remembers.
- Pete Wheeler, IMO the second-best Backyard Baseball character. Lightning fast, brick-stupid, drawling.
- Hammer Longballo, the totemic power hitter from Super Mega Baseball.
- Bobson Dugnutt, Todd Bonzalez, Sleve McDichael, etc. The funny names from Fighting Baseball.
- Yabe, the sidekick character from Pawapuro games, who does have a distinct personality: dweeby but impetuous, mecha enthusiast, and a bit of a bumpkin.
Here’s the limited Ohtani sleeve for the new Pawapuro game
Certain preorder physical copies of the upcoming Powerful Pro Yakyuu 2024-2025 come with a Shohei Ohtani sleeve over the box. And here’s what that looks like, pulled from the YouTube trailer. Bit of a pained smile, right?
New Encyclopedia Pages
I swung through the original R.B.I. Baseball series this week with some new pages:
- R.B.I. Baseball 2
- R.B.I. Baseball 3
- R.B.I. Baseball 4
- R.B.I. Baseball ’93
- R.B.I. Baseball ’94
- R.B.I. Baseball ’95
- R.B.I. Baseball 14
- R.B.I. Baseball 15
YouTube Viewing Guide
- MLB The Show 24 (Switch) Gameplay – My Switch version videos of The Show tend to be popular so people can see how the thing runs before they purchase. This one also happens to include my first ever perfect game. Tragically, my starting pitcher Eovaldi got hurt in the fifth inning, so it had to be a combined perfecto. Also tragically, the commentary only ever talks about a no-hitter, and weirdly have no commentary lines for a perfect game specifically.
- Super Bases Loaded 2 (SNES) CPU vs. CPU Gameplay – In the form over function tradition of the Bases Loaded series, this one has a lot of Mode 7 fake-3D stuff going on that looks interesting but kind of impractical.
- MLB Rivals (iOS) Gameplay – I can’t say I understand why Com2uS, in every region, publishes like four different licensed baseball games all for mobile. I can see why you’d have a GM game, and a separate KBO game, but what is the difference between MLB Rivals and MLB 9 Innings?