My “player” is now 20 years old, third season of professional baseball, and including playoff games, I’ve managed to have an ERA under 2.00 for both the first season of AA and the second season in AAA baseball. Helps that the PawSox (yes, I play for Boston, it wasn’t my choice) won the International League title last year too! Combined, a 28-8 record over the two seasons. Also bumped up the strikeout rate to almost eight per 9 innings pitched. 

After these two stellar All-Star seasons, both starting in the bullpen and moving to the rotation quickly, I’ve made it to the big leagues, and two starts in, and after (in my opinion) struggling in Spring Training (yes, with an ERA of 3.00), I think I should be pretty happy. 

START #1 – At Tampa Bay. Struck out 8 batters over 6.2 innings, and started the game by retiring the first 19 batters! Got in trouble in that 7th inning and the manager came and got me, but still got a 3-2 win in my first start. All this on only two hits though, really impressive with how many hits I surrendered in Spring Training (a ton). 

START #2 – Home against Kansas City. Complete game shutout, 7 hits, one walk, 8 strikeouts, was allowed to finish it off in the 9th even with two guys on base. Awesome pitching effort on my part, didn’t get the strikeout touch until late, as 6 of the strikeouts were in the last four innings. 

Two starts in, 2-0 record, an ERA barely above 1, 16.2 innings and 9 hits allowed. If I do half this good the rest of the way, I could be Rookie Of The Year AND Cy Young winner. How nice would that be?! Anyways, it’s interesting to tell how things change when you go up from one level to the next, even at a Pro level of difficulty (not super hard, but no gimme stuff either), and I can’t wait to play some more. The updates will be here for it. 

It’s a different ballgame now, completely. 

Emulation has made the prospect of bringing back anything that’s retro very possible again, even to the point of emulating something that your system can, in theory, already do! DOSBox on a PC is that weird kind of parallel, since it’s emulating an old x86 processor on an … x86 processor?! Yes, a much faster one, like hundreds of times faster, but nonetheless, a similar architecture. That said, we know why it’s done, it’s done because older programs aren’t tolerant of 64-bit, or even 32-bit architecture, and not even close to being tolerant of the speed differences. Thus, we have an emulator that is no different than pushing a clock back 20 to 30 years, but yet doing it so perfectly. 

Why my sudden interest in wanting to play some old DOS stuff? Two games came to mind, and I promptly went and got them to try out. The first was Stunts, a basic acrobatic racing game made in the early 90′s. The object was simple: build a stunt track, race it against the computer or against the clock, and don’t wreck. Of course, wrecking was pretty fun too, as much as cheesy VGA graphics would let it be. That said, plugging it back in was still fun and rewarding, still a blast to play, even with a keyboard! The next step is for me to plug in a PS2 controller and really have at it, maybe even with analog controls. 

The second game was IndyCar Racing. I have extremely fond memories of this series being the first “complete” simulation for, at the time, CART racing. Tremendously realistic, and extremely advanced for its day. I remember being frustrated because my 486 had issues playing it sometimes. Trust us, that’s a non-issue now! But anyways, in giving it a very quick test, something became very clear to me: this game will take more of an adjustment period, and it’s that change in graphics as the reason why. We’ve grown so used to very easy-to-see tracks that in places like the Cleveland track, built from an old airfield complete with runway, it’s not clear to see where you should turn like it would be with a modern game. This is realism we’re talking here, but when you get used to super-perfect graphics, going back to pixelated, even if it’s still fun, is a change. Stunts is so dirt simple, it doesn’t suffer from this, but a racing game shooting to be realistic sadly does. 

I’ve definitely not given up on IndyCar Racing, and can’t wait to give it some more time, but it’ll definitely need it. That said, I’ve been very pleased to go back and try these two classic games. 

Editor’s Note: Both of these games are freely available on many abandonware sites, and I’ll be posting a huge Stunts track pack in the near future from another site.)

I’ve just past real time again, at July 31st, 2010, and a (grumble) member of the Pawtucket Pawsox. Why do I put up with this? Simple, my contract runs out after this season and I may be able to move to a new organization! Anyways, over 300 innings in my career, my ERA is right around 2.00, with a 28-8 record. In almost 130 innings this year in Triple-A, I’ve walked six guys.

So why stick with this when I could be playing MLB 10? Simply put, why move to the next game until I can at least complete one career or accomplish something in this game! My character is a mere 19 years old, he’s about to make the majors, and if I stick with this game, it’s more than possible I could pitch for 20 “virtual” seasons, and win 300 games. Sure, there would be plenty left for me to do with the game, like a batter RTTS, or even a Reds franchise (I have one … in Spring Training … of year one), but to be able to actually accomplish something of that magnitude of a game would make it worth it. 

And that, friends, is why I still play MLB 09 instead. Oh, I’ll get MLB 10, even if it is just a rental, before the season is up so that I can download updated rosters … those are all not available anymore on MLB 09, they shut off the servers at the start of the next season. 

I believe that a lot of people would be willing to pay 800 or 1200 Microsoft Points for the ability to upgrade their Halo 2 and continue to play it. An updated client (or even a tool to adapt the maps and the game to the H3 engine) would be a cool way to bring 1080p to a great old game, to provide continued support, and to make some money. If 100,000 people were to buy such an add-on (and in the world of Halo, that’s not a big number), that’s a million bucks. Surely Microsoft or Bungle or someone can find a programmer who can code this up for a lot less than that.

Looking at it in the other direction, I can see why they would never want any part of this though. More people playing old Halo games means less people buying and playing newer Halo games, or at least they could feel this way. I don’t believe that’s the case, I instead think the fan base is vibrant enough that it would not make a dent in future sales, it would just be a quick and useful cash-in to an old game series, and while some people would view it as blatant, I would actually think of it as useful. Bungle has always been good about supporting their products for a long time, this might be a good way to do it!

What do you think? Do you think there’s room for just straight-up original-to-360 ports like this?

I noted this on Facebook the other day and had about three or four people look at me (from a virtual comment sense) like I had crossed eyes or something, but simply, I do not count myself as a video game collector anymore. Now by no means does this mean that I don’t still love video games, count it as at least a part of who I am (less than before, family does that to you), and still get games that I want to play. It just comes down to a few things.

1. Some of the stuff in my collection is just too expensive to keep. Take this cartridge I’m auctioning, it’s a great example. It may go for well over $100 before it’s all said and done. The last one that was auctioned, based on limited research, went for over $165. I think it’s cool to own it, but it’s just not that cool when you have other needs and you don’t think you will realistically play it soon.
2. When you’re single, you don’t ever believe that you’ll use an excuse like “Well, I have a wife and kids now”. Except one little problem. When you do have the wife and kids, you find that this excuse usually is where it’s at. Anthony’s formula is worth more than my rare game, that’s just how it is.
3. It’s getting harder to play the old stuff on new TV’s and newer hardware. Sad to say but it’s just simpler now to use emulators for a lot of the really old school systems, and in some cases, newer systems too. They give me more options, and with the adapters out now (which I am a huge fan of), you can play with the original controllers and still have that feel. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not 100% all in on everything being digital, but if I can have a way to play it where I control the rights, gray area or not, I can deal with that.
4. Time. This is probably also partially under the “wife and kids” moniker, but there’s not enough time to enjoy it all. There’s time to enjoy bits and pieces, and time in between for some aspects of it, but not to enjoy all of it. It just hits a time where it makes more sense for someone else to have it as part of their own collection.

So if you see me post on a few more cool things I am selling, don’t sweat it, it’s really not that big of a deal. Until I actually have the time to, I don’t know, complete something, I doubt I’ll feel bad about selling that game that I know I won’t get to play soon.

But, newer technology plugging in to older TV’s sometimes has its own set of pitfalls, one of which I was able to fix last night. Some games, such as Forza Motorsport 3, and the intros to all EA Sports games, feature an all-white background. When this happens, the screens begins to shake. Not drastically, but enough to give you a headache, big time! It took me about 30 minutes (and a second 360 due to our neighbor) to figure out that for some reason, the TV does not like when the 360 is set to 1080i as the highest resolution, it wants it set at 720p. So, it now is.

This might be one area (albeit for a very small number of users) where the PS3 has an advantage. It allows you to select all of the valid resolutions that your TV supports. So, if you had a monitor that could handle 720p and 1080p only (computer monitor with HDMI in?), you could set it that way and take 1080i out of the equation, or you could keep a LCD screen from ever backsliding all the way to 480i. The XBox 360 only allows for you to set a maximum resolution, so it leads to possibilities where some in-between resolution doesn’t play nice, and you can’t fix it, you’d merely be able to go lower than that resolution.

Problem solved though, interesting food for fodder for future dashboard updates (say that five times fast).

I found in my garage about 90 Atari 2600 cartridges in a plastic tub. This by itself is not really newsworthy, but since there is a way to get something out of them, there is in fact a story there. Toys ‘R Us has recently begun to advertise that they accept classic games, stuff that no one else wants, including Atari 2600 cartridges! A look at their web site shows that while for almost all systems, they differentiate between new and used games. However, they do not do this for the 2600, just one SKU. This is where it begins to go downhill.

I proceed to take my plastic tub of games to the local Toys’ R Us. Yes, there’s some shock and comedy factor here. So, I get to the front counter of the store where I was directed, show them the games, and after it taking two people to realize what they actually were (these kids were born after the launch of the SUPER Nintendo after all), they dig for 10 minutes to find their trade in scanner book. Obviously, if no one knows where the trade in book is and it’s buried, they are not doing much of a job of pushing their trade-in program!

When they finally do this, which is already 15 minutes into the trip, they look and find that there are 2 SKU’s for everything, including Atari 2600 games, and when they scanned the SKU for a non-complete (yes, they want box and instructions) Atari 2600 game, it did not allow them to take it in. I showed them the web site, explained that their own corporate office does not require the box and instructions to receive their tiny sum of a quarter per game, but they didn’t care, the book said how to do it and they would not accept them. Oh yes, it took three people to say this, and the manager did not seem interested at all into taking any effort into helping. Completely did not care. So, I took the games and left, disappointed in my experience there.

If you’re paying attention, this is the Sawmill Road location in Columbus. Just in case someone is reading this.

So, it’s about 8:20 at night then, and not a lot of places are left open. Just for fun, I decided to take the tub of games to a local mom-and-pop store up in Powell to see if they would take the games and how much they’d offer. Figured that since they’re common Atari 2600 games, they’d have a ballpark pretty quick. I walk in with the plastic tub, let them know I’m looking to get some trade-in credit, and after one of the associates in a smart-allic response said they’d give “a nickel” for the games, they say it’s simply too late to figure it up and I’d need to bring the games back later. Not even basically, they admitted they are too lazy to look it up, didn’t want to deal with it and told me to go away.

Now, realize this. Your sign says you are open! Such laziness and the admission that they do not feel like doing work is exactly why many stores like that never succeed, they don’t care. I whispered under my breath how much I appreciated their laziness, and while I hope they heard it, I doubt they did. Disappointing was the word for Toys ‘R Us. Just embarrassed is the word for this video game store, their owner should be ashamed of their employees, not even willing to take 2 minutes and throw out a ballpark figure for the games. Who knows, they might have gotten a deal, I would have sure been willing to sell low, diaper money always wins.

By the way, this was the Play ‘N Trade on Polaris Parkway just west of Polaris Fashion Place. You too have also been called out.

So, the games will end up on eBay, someone who actually genuinely appreciates them will get them for their fair market value. In the end, it’s probably the best solution for everyone.

I’ve found a tool and some directions on how to get the Strategic Commander working in Windows 7 x64. The directions are here, and the tool to use it, Strategic Engine, is attached to this blog post. I’ll post more on how it works soon, but this will get you started now.

StrategicEngine1.3.exe

That all said though, as time goes on, there is only so much you can do with the current-day game and current rosters. A direction in content that I’d like to see these games go is backwards, into the history of the game, allowing gamers to better re-create the history of our national pastime, both in players and venues.

THE PLAYERS – How cool would it be to, with a click of a mouse, be able to go back in time and play baseball with rosters from any past year! Simulation games and sites have already been able to harness history to create these mythical matchups (Baseball Mogul, WhatIfSports.com come to mind), so why not bring it to a fully interactive next-gen game.  MLB 09 does get closer than most games on this front, allowing user-created rosters to be traded about over their site. The only problem is that any roster traded assumed a 30-team league, which makes re-creating any season before 1998 challenging, if not impossible. Maybe it needs to be amended to allow create-a-teams, or create-a-seasons. I know some things can’t be re-created, but flexibility would allow quite a bit to be.

THE SEASONS – To that same effect, baseball was played differently even 10 or 20 years ago. Doubleheaders were normal fare, even scheduled. Four-man rotations were a normal occurrence, and the season didn’t last as long as it did not. Heck, no baseball game has ever managed to conquer a season-long weather pattern and (God forbid) rainouts! I would love to see a completely wide open customization of schedules and seasons made available, so that you could go back to a 16-team 154-game season if you so chose, and allow for slider adjustments specifically for certain types of play, like four-man rotations. Maybe someone can fork out a few thousand bucks and get a Farmer’s Almanac license deal in there too, I bet they’d dig it!

THE STADIUMS – This is the one feature I could see being included as downloadable content, and for the record, if it’s done right, I’m cool with it. You can of course play all the modern parks every single year, but how much fun would it be to go play in classic stadiums … ANY of them! I realize that this is a huge undertaking for any developer, considering that over the past 20 years, I’d venture that 80% of the stadiums are freshly built, and the remainder have had some refurbishments (like a Wrigley Field, sans lights … hey, games called by darkness!!). But, if there were stadium packs, and even like in old PS2 Madden games, create-a-stadium options with a fancy owner mode, imagine the realism you could attain.

Let’s face it, history makes baseball what it is. That’s why people get so bent out of shape about the steroids scandal, it messes with that history in ways that are hard to undo. That said though, there’s no reason that technology can’t help bring history to the current with video games. The tech is already in place, it just has to be nearly pushed into one interactive package.