Tuesday, March 14, 2006

More about my well-spent youth

This afternoon I have been reading a little bit about one of my favorite subjects: the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). I was driven to this distraction by a clever little piece of internet journalism which I found courtesy of this link description from the Sports Guy's intern:

mcsweeneys.net (Daniel M. in NC) -- The ideal fantasy baseball lineup if compiled entirely of classic Nintendo characters. I'd probably have just picked the American Dreams from "Baseball Stars" or something, but that's admittedly much lazier and less entertaining, kind of like the whole "Pistons as the Olympic team" argument.

Of course the reference to "Baseball Stars" got me excited and I decided to read more about the game I love. Wikipedia has an incredibly detailed analysis of the game. Of particular note to me was the description of the "Luck" player attribute:

Luck (?): Unknown. Luck's exact affect on the game is currently unknown. One theory is that "close calls" are awarded to the player with the higher luck. Another theory is that luck helps players get hits that sneak through the defensive holes, or get hits when the game is on-the-line. It has also been suggested that luck helps players out defensively by decreasing the chances of a bad throw. There is also the theory that luck is a bogus category that has no effect whatsoever.

Amazingly, even after 17 years, no one knows what this value actually means to a player. All I know is that if you give me Oh, Kagenu, and the rest of the Japan Robins, I'll take on anyone.

2 comments:

  1. Hey Rich,

    I was always partial to Rush n' Attack, which until minutes ago, I thought was called "Russian Attack" I can't believe I've been in the dark about this for 17 years.

    I was the third kid on Miami Beach (1988) to play on a Nintendo Entertainment System. In fact, we were filmed by the local news station WSVN 7; Miami locals will know about this station. And even then, way back in 1988, I fought with my brother for a chance to play Contra. He did a back flip and shot down a weapon's blimp, and therefore was able to get second player. My neighbor was first. Ugh.

    Favorites: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rush_%27n_Attack

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon%27s_Key

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renegade_%28video_game%29

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NARC_%28video_game%29

    Least Favorites:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-bert

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  2. I hated QBert as well. Awful game. Although not as bad as Orb-3D.

    http://faqs.ign.com/articles/550/550558p1.html

    ReplyDelete