Blogging live to you and yours. It’s your boy TWOTALL4UFOOL. Happy MAR10. LOL! I find it funny how these unofficial holidays have become more popular. Another funny one to me is “May the 4th be with you”. Anyway I’m doing this piece as part of the big collab over at The Well-Red Mage. If you haven’t done so definitely check the website out. A lot of excellent things going on over. And if they ask tell them that your boy 2TALL sent you. Anyway let’s dive in and “play ball”.
Now growing up baseball was one of my favorite sports. It was actually the first sport I ever played. Even though basketball is my favorite sport I have nothing but love for baseball. And when it comes to video games it is actually one of the easiest sports games to play in my opinion. But the games haven’t always been great. As a kid I loved playing Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball for the Super NES. Excellent game and still playable today. If you are a retro gamer check that title out. There have been other baseball titles too but for the most part during my time playing the PS1 or N64 no baseball game really caught my eye.
Now enter Mario. He had been in sports titles for while. The Mario Kart series was a big hit. But for the N64 there was also a Mario Golf game, and a Mario Tennis game. Now I’m not a big golf fan at all. Watching it on TV bores me and it just seemed like a boring video game to put Mario & Friends in. Tennis is a much more fast pace game. Even though I didn’t play it very much growing up I find it very entertaining. Mario Tennis is actually one of the many games that I had for the N64. Now when the GameCube came along and we saw sequels to those games. And for the most part I skipped their sequels. But in 2005 I saw a game that looked totally awesome. A game that I never thought would be done with Mario. It was Mario Superstar Baseball. To this day it is my favorite Mario sports game.
This was the first game I saw that combined one of my favorite video game franchises with one of my favorite sports. Something you didn’t see to often in 2005. But from character perspective they definitely made this work. It featured a wide variety of characters from the Mario universe. You had newer characters at the time such as Pianta’s, and Noki’s but you also saw classic characters such as Hammer Bro, Monty Mole, and Boo. You even saw Dixie Kong make an appearance in this game. How awesome is that? I think the only thing that could’ve made this game even more awesome was Nintendo including the seven Koopalings. But it had a great mix of characters. So I can’t complain. Each character had their own strengths and weaknesses.
The game had many different modes. Exhibition mode was excellent for if you were going to play with a friend. But where I feel this game really is special is Challenge mode. Where you choose one of the captains (Mario, Yoshi, Peach, Wario, Donkey Kong) and take their team to take out all the other ones and eventually playing Bowser’s team. Each team has a set roster of players and your objective is to recruit other players (including rival captains) to join your team. You want to have the best team possible going in to playing Bowser.
This is definitely the best Mario sports game ever made in my opinion. There was a sequel that came out for the Wii in 2008 Mario Super Sluggers. But who knows if Nintendo will put out another Mario baseball game. I feel it is a missed opportunity for Nintendo if they don’t. But the Switch has plenty of life left in it. So you’ll never know.
So if you have a GameCube or a Wii laying around and if you don’t have this title try to find it. For a fair price of course. Trust me if you love Mario and baseball you won’t be disappointed. Since it is MAR10 what are some of your favorite Mario titles? I’m curious. Let me know in the comments below and we’ll go back and fourth. Until next time. Blogging live to you and yours it’s your boy TWOTALL4UFOOL. Remember that TOGETHER EVERYONE ACHIEVES MORE. Thanks for reading. Mama mia! LOL!