Is this the longest NES title?  There may be something to that.

I guess Jack talks to you directly after this screen.

To Beat: Finish a Round
To Complete: Win a match against the CPU
My Goal: Beat Jack Nicklaus
What I Did: Won a skins match and stroke play
Played: 10/22/20 – 11/1/20
Difficulty: 1/10
My Difficulty: 3/10
My Video: Jack Nicklaus’ Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf Longplay

When I think of Jack Nicklaus’ NES golf game, I think about Twitter.  That is probably going to need some explaining, but it’s simple.  I can’t believe it, but Twitter is already 15 years old.  I got in on it about three years after it first launched, so I’ve been around awhile.  The thing about Twitter starting out was that you were restricted to 140 characters per tweet.  Well in 2017 they expanded the limit to 280 characters, and I remember tweeting about how now I wouldn’t have to worry about completing what I think may be the game with the longest name on the NES: Jack Nicklaus’ Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf.  (Just in case you want proof, here’s the tweet.)  Pretty close to three years later, I finally got to make good on that by playing this game.

Jack Nicklaus is often considered the greatest golfer of all time.  Before turning pro, he won the U.S. Amateur in both 1959 and 1961, and finished 2nd in the U.S. Open in 1960.  He would win the U.S. Open in 1962 after turning pro, the first of his 18 major championship wins, the most all time in professional golf.  In 1986, at age 46, he won The Masters for his final PGA Tour win, capping off at 73 Tour victories.  Only Sam Snead and Tiger Woods have won more, with 82 each.  Nicklaus would move on to the Senior Tour, racking up wins there, and he also made further appearances on the PGA Tour.  He finished his career at The Open Championship in 2005 at St. Andrews, where he had long hoped to play his final professional game.

Jack Nicklaus gave his name to a series of golf games.  The first of these is the game I played here, Jack Nicklaus’ Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf.  The game initially appeared on various home computers in 1988.  It was developed by Sculptured Software and published by Accolade.  The NES version was released in March 1990 in North America and June 1991 in PAL territories.  The game was ported by the original developers but published by Konami on NES.  This game was also ported to the TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine in 1991 and the Game Boy in 1992.  There are six other games in the Jack Nicklaus series, the latest of which released in 2016.  There were also several add-on discs for the original game that only appeared on home computers, adding many courses and sometimes extra features.

What round hair you have!

As this is the first golf game I’ve covered for this project, I’ll go over the rules of briefly.  This game has only one course of 18 holes, but what is special about this course is that it is comprised of Jack Nicklaus’ favorite holes across every course he’s ever played, a “best of” pack if you will, something that can only be done in video games.  Anyway, to get started you begin with the ball on a tee.  You select a club, a driver in this case, and hit the ball toward the tiny hole at the other end.  Wherever the ball lands, that’s where you will hit from the next time, no matter if it lands on the fairway, rough, or a sand trap.  The idea is to hit the ball as few times as possible to put it into the hole.  Scoring in golf is done by strokes, or how many times you hit the ball, including penalty strokes in certain cases.  Everyone plays golf separately, and the competition is who can complete the course in the fewest strokes.

This game offers two different ways to score golf.  The standard mode is Stroke Play.  Simply keep count of all strokes made over 18 holes.  Each hole has a par score, which is an expected number of strokes per hole.  Score is traditionally tracked by how many strokes you are above or below par.  Professional courses have Par 3, Par 4, and Par 5 holes, and 18-hole courses in whole almost always add up to 72 strokes in par.  The other mode in this game is the Skins game.  Instead of trying to win by strokes, you are trying to win by money.  Each hole is assigned an amount of money, and the player that finishes the hole with the fewest strokes wins the money.  However, if there’s a tie at the top, the money is carried over to the following hole, with that hole’s money added in.  The first six holes are worth a certain amount, the next six holes are worth more, and the final six holes are worth even more, typically in single amount, double amount, and triple amount fashion.  Tiebreaker holes are played for any ties after the final hole to see who wins the last prize.

The gameplay screen is where you will play golf.  The game is played from a sort of 3D perspective where the game draws out your view before taking every swing.  It is a neat idea, except for how slow and long the drawing takes, every single stroke.  Like you can say the entire, full name of this game more than once in the time it takes to render the screen.  The top of the screen shows where you are aiming, designated by a golf ball shaped cursor.  Move the ball cursor with Left or Right to aim.  A flag will show where the hole is, particularly useful if the hole is too far away to see from where you are.  There are bars on either side of the aiming cursor.  If you cross these bars, your golfer will turn in that direction and the view will redraw completely.  This is so you can aim in any direction, 360 degrees, should you desire.  The left hand side has a color bar which is your swing meter.  The bottom of the screen contains all other pertinent information.  You can see the wind measured in both direction and strength on the bottom left.  The bottom right shows your club selection and difficulty level, as well as arrows showing your button presses, for some reason.  The bottom middle shows all other stats, such as player name, hole number, stroke number, par, and distance to the hole.

It’s golf!

When it’s time to swing the club, pay close attention to the swing meter on the left-hand side.  Swinging the club is a three step process.  First press A to start the cursor moving upward.  To set the power, press the A button again.  Now the cursor will go back down.  Press A once more to set the angle of the ball.  The swing meter is scaled differently here than in most golf games I played.  Normally hitting the ball with full power uses the full strength of the club, and all other power settings in between have a linear effect in regard to power.  For instance, setting power in the middle of the meter gives you a half-swing.  This game has a non-linear power bar, which is confusing for the first time player.  The green portion of the meter represents 0% to 100% power.  A red line most of the way up represents 50% power, and the white lines in between break up the power meter into 10% segments, with smaller-sized segments appearing at the top of the power bar, meaning you need to be more precise if you want accuracy on longer shots.  The red area at the top of the power bar is for an overswing.  Setting the cursor in the red hits the ball harder than 100% power at the cost of some left-to-right variance.  If you must hit the ball straight, don’t go into the red.  To set the angle straight, you want to press A for the last time at the line between the green and the brown.  Press early and your ball will hook left, press late into the brown area and your ball will slice right.  Sometimes this is what you want depending on if trees or other obstacles are in the way.

Putting the ball is pretty much the same as swinging.  The swing itself is still a three-part process, same as above.  There are two considerations you will want to make before putting.  The angle of your shot is pretty important.  The ball cursor at the top still determines that angle.  If the green is flat, you will want to line up the shot so that your ball, the hole, and the ball cursor all fall in a straight line on screen.  Which brings me to my next point, reading the slope of the green.  Here the wind meter is replaced with the break meter, which behaves in a similar way.  The arrow shows the direction of the slope and the red and green break meter shows how steep it is.  The more red showing, the steeper the slope.  Upward directional arrows indicated you are putting downhill, and downward facing arrows mean you are hitting uphill.  Downhill shots are tricky in that if you overshoot, the ball will roll and roll a long way.  Take your time.  One other interesting aspect of this game is that the hole position itself on each hole is set randomly every time you play.  You may approach certain holes differently depending on where the hole is on the putting green.

Be sure to read the break on the green and take your time.

You will set up and configure your game on the menu screen before golf.  Right after the title screen, you’ll select your game mode between Skins and Stroke Play, as well as the number of players for each, either 2-4 players for Skins or 1-4 players for Stroke Play.  On the next screen you will set up each player.  Use the arrow keys to move around the highlighted cursor and press A to make selections.  You can choose either Male or Female as well as if this player is CPU controlled or not.  If you choose a CPU player, Jack’s name is populated in the name field.  You can press Left or Right to cycle between the CPU players and all the other settings are updated to match the particular CPU player. Otherwise, you can enter a human player’s name up to 8 characters and set the gender manually.  Next is the Skill setting, either Beginner or Expert.  On Beginner the game auto selects the best club for you considering your current distance to the hole, and also it shows on-screen the max distance for that club.  On Expert you choose clubs on your own with no on-screen indicator for club distance.  It’s unnecessary, seeing as you can use the distance table provided in the manual, but I played on Expert anyway.  Finally, you choose which tee you’ll play from, either Pro, Men’s, or Ladies’.  This sets the initial distance from the hole, with the earlier settings starting you farther away.

There are 8 computer players, named Jack N, Nancy D, Lars X, Babs R, Art M, Natasha, Eddie C, and Sally C.  Each character has their own personality more or less as listed in the manual.  Since their settings are pre-populated in-game, you can get a sense of how well each character plays just from the menu.  You really can’t tell though how they compare to each other, and the names aren’t in any discernible order.  Jack is clearly the best player available.  From the manual descriptions Eddie C seems to be next best, and Natasha seems like the best female player.  I played against these three players only through my various attempts.

This was my first time playing through Jack Nicklaus’ Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf.  By my count there are 7 golf games on the NES, and I had played about half of them before, but not this one.  This is a common game, among the cheapest NES carts you can find.  As of this writing, it is worth about $3 on Price Charting loose and $10 CIB.  I imagine it isn’t hard to find in a lot, that’s how I got mine.

Most of the time is spent watching this slow rendering.

It turns out that beating this game is completely free, hence the 1/10 difficulty rating.  Simply finish any round, win or lose, to get the same ending screen no matter what.  According to the manual, after 50 strokes on any one hole, the game pushes you along to the next hole, so it is truly 100% free.  Playing the game against the CPU is harder but not too hard if you pick an easy opponent.  The difficulty ramps up a lot with the more challenging players.  After a few rounds I discovered it was gonna take perfect, and I mean perfect, play to beat Jack Nicklaus.  I abandoned that idea rather quickly.  Eddie C was a real challenge himself.  I managed to squeak by him in Skins play in a back and forth match that went to sudden death.  But I was no match for him in Stroke Play.  On one particular round he shot a 59, a massive 13 strokes under par, and it was then I decided to find a different CPU player to beat.  I settled on Natasha who also gave me some real trouble.  After a few tries I shot a 65 and beat her by one stroke, which included an eagle (two strokes under par) on the final hole to come from behind and seal the deal.

Of all the NES golf games I’ve played, in this project or not, I think Jack Nicklaus’ Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf is probably the weakest one.  The graphics are a little bit hard on the eyes, and some of the views don’t line up well visually with where your ball is.  That’s the cost of essentially rendering the graphics at run time from wherever your ball is.  While a really neat trick, the NES can’t quite pull it off convincingly.  There’s little music to speak of here, just menu music, end of hole music, and some voice samples and sound effects.  The controls are responsive and simple, just what you would expect in a golf game.  The gameplay itself suffers from the rendering issues I mentioned above.  Lining up putts can occasionally be a challenge.  It’s also interesting how easy it is to hit the pin from a great distance.  Hitting the pin often ensures you’ll have just a short putt to finish off the hole.  The modes in this game are interesting, and there are plenty of AI options.  This is definitely not a bad game, but it’s not great either, so this is why it is a bargain bin type of game.  Sorry, Jack.

#169 – Jack Nicklaus’ Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf (Skins Game)

#169 – Jack Nicklaus’ Greatest 18 Holes of Major Championship Golf (Stroke Play)

Crush monster home runs in this quintessential NES baseball game!

Not shown is the giant baseball and corresponding *pling* sound effect at power on.

To Beat: Win 9 Games
Played: 12/29/16 – 12/30/16
Difficulty: 2/10
My Difficulty: 2/10
Video: R.B.I. Baseball Longplay

The NES library holds a large collection of sports games. While Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!! and T&C Surf Designs could be loosely classified as sports games, I feel comfortable saying that today’s game is the first major sports title covered on the blog. There are more baseball games on NES than any other sport. So not only is it fitting that this first sports game is a baseball game, but it also happens to be one that I really enjoy and have spent a lot of time playing over the years.

R.B.I. Baseball is the first in a long series of baseball games developed by Namco for release in Japan. There it is known as Pro Yakyuu Family Stadium. Subsequent games on the Famicom were released yearly spanning 1986 through 1994. The 1989 installment was called Famista as a play on the name Famicom, and the series has been named Famista ever since. R.B.I. Baseball on the NES was released in June 1988 and was published by Tengen. This is one of three licensed NES games published by Tengen. It was also released as an unlicensed black cart version that seems to be much more prevalent than its gray cart equivalent.

The Famista series in Japan would carry on to many other consoles such as the Super Famicom, MSX, and Game Boy, as well as modern versions on the 3DS and Android/iOS. Not related to Famista, the R.B.I. Baseball name would be used in a brand new series developed by Major League Baseball (MLB) themselves in 2014. This separate series has received new entries every year. Also unrelated to both this new series and Famista are two R.B.I. Baseball games on NES. Developed by Atari Games and published by Tengen, R.B.I. Baseball 2 was released in 1990 and R.B.I. Baseball 3 came out in 1991. These games share a similar style as the original game but with all MLB teams and rosters included. They are not officially licensed by Nintendo and so they will not be covered in the main project, though I will probably play and write about them one of these days.

Choose your abbreviation and let’s get started!

R.B.I. Baseball lets you play a typical nine-inning match against either a computer opponent or another human player. When you begin, you get a list of ten teams and you can choose the team you want. The list only consists of two letter abbreviations and only a fraction of the teams are covered. The last two teams in the list are the American League All-Stars and National League All-Stars, and their rosters are comprised of best players not already included within the other eight teams. Once teams are selected, choose from one of four pitchers. Then the game begins!

The gameplay for R.B.I. Baseball breaks down nicely into pitching and fielding on the defensive side, and batting and baserunning on the offensive side. The one common thread between everything is base selection. On the controller, Right represents first base, Up is second base, Left is third base, and Down is home plate. Most baseball games will use this same scheme because it is both sensible and intuitive.

Player 1 is always the away team, meaning he bats first. While batting, the pitcher is shown at the top of the screen and the batter on the bottom. When batting you can position your player anywhere within the batter’s box with the D-Pad. Press the A button to swing the bat. You can hold the button down to do a full swing, and you must press A again to bring your bat back if you swing way too early. If you tap the A button the bat will immediately stop at whichever point it lies during the swing path, and if you get the bat to stop over the plate you can bunt the ball. The B button is used for sending your baserunners on a steal attempt. While the pitcher is winding up to throw, you press B along with the direction of the base you want to steal. For instance, if you have a runner on first base, press B and Up to have the baserunner start running toward second base.

It doesn’t look like it but this is good swing timing.

When a batted ball is put into play, the perspective shifts to an overhead view of the field and now you control the baserunners. Here the A button is used to go back and the B button is used to go ahead, and you combine this with a D-Pad direction to direct a specific runner to the nearest base. This is the same as baserunning while batting. For example, say you hit a ball all the way to the outfield wall. When your batter reaches first base, you can press Up and B to advance the runner to second base. Now if the throw from the outfielder is going to beat you to second base, you can send the runner back to first by pressing Right and A and avoid making an out. As long as the ball is hit fair and the screen remains in fielding mode, you can move runners around as much as you want, though you run the risk of getting tagged out for being careless on the bases.

In the bottom half of the inning you control the pitcher and defense. To pitch, you start by positioning your pitcher on the mound with either Left or Right. Press the A button to start your windup and throw a pitch. If you hold Down with A, you will throw a faster pitch, and if you hold Up with A you will throw a slower pitch. The slow pitch plays a different sound effect than that other pitches and sometimes it will bounce off the ground, causing the batter to swing right over top of it. After the pitch is thrown you can steer it with Left or Right to curve the pitch. Finally, the B button in combination with a D-Pad direction lets you do a pickoff move toward a base.

If the opponent puts a ball into play, then you play defense from the overhead view. Depending on where the ball is hit, the game will automatically give you control of the nearest fielder. Actually, you get to control most fielders simultaneously. Just run your fielder into the ball to pick it up, or you can follow the ball’s shadow if it is hit into the air. Once you have possession of the ball, press A and a direction to throw the ball to the desired base. If you press A without a direction the throw goes to first base which is useful for infield grounders. If you press B with a direction then your fielder will run toward the base with the ball in hand. This is useful for running down baserunners. The game goes back to pitching once the fielder has the ball without any controller movement for a while.

Sometimes you have to make a long throw to get an out.

The team rosters are very simple. As selected at the start, there are only four pitchers per team. The first two pitchers are the starters and the other two are relievers. This is important because the starters maintain their stamina longer than the relievers. Also in consecutive games, the prior game’s starter is unavailable. You can change pitchers in the middle of the game by pressing Start to call timeout while pitching. You can then bring up a menu of available pitchers and get a fresh arm into the game right away. The same goes for hitting if you want to bring in a pinch hitter. Each team has four pinch hitters on the bench and they can be swapped anywhere into the lineup regardless of position. Just like in a real game, if you pinch hit for the pitcher, then you must select a new pitcher at the start of the next half inning.

Players have different attributes that are not always spelled out in the game. For pitchers, you can see their ERA. Typically, the lower the ERA the better the pitcher. What the ERA doesn’t indicate is that some pitchers throw faster, some have better curves, and a few even throw sidearm for a different look. On the hitting side, you can see a hitter’s batting average and home run count. Hitters with high batting averages tend to hit the ball more often in places it can’t be fielded easily, and hitters with high home run totals have more power. The hitters also have different speeds while baserunning with no visible stat to suggest how fast they run. Finding skilled players in certain areas requires trial and error.

Love that 32 home run power!

R.B.I. Baseball was one of the few sports games I had growing up and I played it often. I owned both the unlicensed black cart and the licensed gray cart and those same copies are still in my collection today. This game was particularly popular in college and people would drop in to play matches all the time. I haven’t lost to the CPU in ages but I lost quite a few games in the two player mode. Our preferred house rule was “straight pitch” style where we always threw pitches right down the middle, focusing just on hitting, fielding, and baserunning.

Despite all those years of playing R.B.I. Baseball, it turns out I learned something new about the game when I set out to beat it. I was expecting that I would have to win a single match to consider the game beaten. However, there is a different ending screen if you win nine matches, one against each opponent. The downside to that is that there are no passwords or saving in the game, so you must complete all nine games in a single sitting. The upside is that the game has a mercy rule which can shorten games significantly. If you lead by 10 or more runs at the end of an inning, then you win immediately.

My favorite team in the game is the National League All-Stars, but similar to college it’s not quite fair to play as one of the teams completely stacked with talent. I would have definitely picked my favorite team, the Chicago Cubs, except they aren’t represented in the game at all. So I decided to play as my backup team Detroit. They are a very good offensive team which aligned with my desire to score a bunch of runs to win quickly by the mercy rule. Since I have the game mastered already, it was a breeze to beat all nine teams.

It’s true! Chicks dig the long ball.

Here are some stats about my 9-0 run of the game. I outscored my opponents 112-4, and I allowed all four of those runs in one inning of my first game. Every game I won by the mercy rule and I averaged a little over 5 innings per game. I pitched two separate three inning no-hitters and struck out 90 batters total. I got 145 hits, including 28 home runs, and I only allowed 23 hits. It was a pretty thorough bashing of the other teams, but I expected nothing less!

One interesting tidbit about R.B.I. Baseball is that it is the first console baseball game that uses actual MLB player names. This is because the game is the first baseball game officially licensed by the Major League Baseball Players Association. However, the game is not licensed by MLB, and as a result it cannot include the names of the actual teams. So here you have the names of the players but not the name of the team, leaving only the city names to represent the teams.

It may not be easy to see just looking at the game, but R.B.I. Baseball is a classic title that is still fun to play today. Appearances can be deceiving, since the characters are large, chunky sprites and the movement feels slow. The music, while catchy, can get repetitive over a long play session. What really matters is that R.B.I. Baseball is simple and easy to play. It may be a trimmed down experience, but it is so intuitive and quick to start playing that it has maintained its popularity for all these years. If the formula is good enough for a modern remake, then it is good enough here.

#44 – R.B.I. Baseball