Baseball Stars

About

A baseball game from the late 80s that brought new ideas to sports games, Baseball Stars lets you play through a season or a single match. Manage your team between games, build rosters with custom names, and keep stats as you play. The action follows baseball rules with more depth than earlier games. You can create players and teams from scratch, giving you control over your squad's makeup. The game introduced features that would become standard in modern sports titles. You gain money, upgrade players, and track prestige as a manager. It had a battery backup so you could keep your progress between sessions. David Littman of EA's NHL team said the GM mode in his games was inspired by Baseball Stars. Known as one of the best baseball games on the NES, it helped shape how sports games handle team creation and management.

Storyline

Baseball Stars, due to the introduction of a battery backup, allowed players to create a team and season which could be stored, so that statistics were retained between playing sessions. Players were able to create players and teams, even going so far as naming these elements. As well, the game introduced managerial controls, such as the ability to earn money, gain prestige, and upgrade players on the roster. David Littman, a producer on EA's NHL series of games, has said that the popular GM mode in the NHL games was inspired by Baseball Stars, so the influence it has has continued. Gameplay involved taking part in a season, or simply a one-off versus mode. The rules of the game stayed true to baseball, and the realism was seen as being far beyond anything that had come prior to its release.