T.J.'s Time Machine - R.B.I. Baseball

[RaychelSnr]

This week on T.J.'s Time Machine we are going back to 1988, a much simpler time in sports video games to take a look at R.B.I. Baseball, the first game with real MLB players.

"Much like the way football has seemingly overtaken baseball as America’s pastime, football video games have followed suit and become the most popular sports game genre by far. It wasn’t that long ago though that baseball video games were sitting atop the sports gaming world and it all goes back to a little game developed by Namco, R.B.I. Baseball."

[Koolie G]

I loved this game. I thought Vince Coleman was still on the Cardinals though. The Cardinals were great to play with b/c they had Ozzie, T. Herr, Willie McGee and Coleman(I think) so you could just play small ball and then hope Jack Clark could drive them in. I think they also had T. Pena then too.

You can't forget T. Armas on the bench with the Red Sox who had like 40 something homers. You always had to put him in the lineup. Great game, I spent many an hour on that and I got really excited when they finally got the Reds on RBI 2. On regular RBI I had to settle for Eric Davis on the NL All-Stars.

[SPTO]

I was never a big R.B.I. guy. I preferred Major League Baseball on the NES. That game came out the next year and was officially liscenced by MLB but not the PA so you had the full team with the real players except it didn't have their names.

I will say that sometimes I miss those days when you didn't have framerate bugs and the need for a patch and sliders etc etc.

[SportsTop]

Re: T.J.'s Time Machine (3/6)

IYou can't forget T. Armas on the bench with the Red Sox who had like 40 something homers. You always had to put him in the lineup.

That is my most vivid memory about RBI Baseball.

[nyisles16]

Vince didn't go to the Mets until '91 -- sigh, thanks TJ for bringing up that name!!!


RBI baseball was played to the death by my friends and I.. heck I remember playing my dad in some games... I miss the simple days of games..

[Steve_OS]

How about that "Stealing a base" sound effect? hehe....sounding like a flat tire or a crazy machine gun.

[mustang93]

My friends and I still have heated arguments to this day while playing RBI even though we're all almost 30. And Detroit is the team to beat in my opinion.

[ndeezlo]

Vince Coleman didn't have the fireworks in this game. The 87 Cardinals and Tigers were my first favorite teams . Raised near Detroit, Dad's from StL.

[Randor2000]

I don't remember where I saw it (I'm sure it's on Youtube by now) but someone made a recreation of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series using RBI baseball. They dubbed in the audio from the original broadcast. That was pretty funny.

LOL at the hit scoring. I remember if a guy got to 1st, I would throw the ball away so I could throw him out going to second and keep a "no-hitter" going. Ah, to be young again.

[daflyboys]

Re: T.J.'s Time Machine - R.B.I. Baseball

Good idea for a feature, but it needs vids and/or screen shots.

[SportsTop]

Re: T.J.'s Time Machine - R.B.I. Baseball

Good idea for a feature, but it needs vids and/or screen shots.

Did you happen to click the link and read the article?

There's at least three screen shots embedded in the article.

[SportsorDeath]

Wow, TO, you preferred Major League Baseball? Really? I thought that game was horrid, and if I recall correctly, it actually came out before RBI by at least a month or two. MLB was a part of the group of games released by LJN that were utter garbage. In MLB, every fielder wore what looked like catcher's gloves, and every time a batter made contact, the screen would blink and there would be about a 2 second pause until the next screen came up and showed where the ball was hit.

RBI crapped all over that sorry excuse for a game.

[Pdevine22]

Awwww, memories. I loved RBI Baseball, Baseball Stars and Baseball Simulator 1.000. Everything was so much simpler back then.

[SPTO]

Re: T.J.'s Time Machine - R.B.I. Baseball

Wow, TO, you preferred Major League Baseball? Really? I thought that game was horrid, and if I recall correctly, it actually came out before RBI by at least a month or two. MLB was a part of the group of games released by LJN that were utter garbage. In MLB, every fielder wore what looked like catcher's gloves, and every time a batter made contact, the screen would blink and there would be about a 2 second pause until the next screen came up and showed where the ball was hit.

RBI crapped all over that sorry excuse for a game.

I was just a kid. I didn't know any better!

[Cletus]

I still have this game for my NES, although it doesn't work very well. I loved it, especially stealing bases with the cardinals and pitching with nolan ryan.