Baseball!

Also known as: Beesubooru (Japan), Basebol! (South America)

Developer: Magnavox

According to the box, in Baseball!, "It's all here - even an electronic umpire!" When I saw electronic umpire, I was so hoping for an over-the-top voice to tell me I was "outta here" after striking out…I pictured Leslie Neilson in the original Naked Gun movie yelling it to me. If they had another voice yell out, "Hey! It's Enrico Pallazzo!!" afterward, I would have deemed this to be the greatest game ever created in the history of creation. Unfortunately, the developers at Magnavox were too lazy to travel ten years into the future to give us those gems from a movie released in 1988. Those bums. What they did do, though, is give us a solid game of baseball for the time. While simplistic, Baseball! does have some neat gameplay aspects. First, you can control the ball when pitching. While you can't slow the ball down or speed it up, you can curve the ball to the outside and inside of the plate to try to confuse the pal you're playing against. You're also able to control the outfielders while you're pitching, to potentially catch balls and ensure that the other player doesn't score. While these two things seem like lame things to swoon over this game about, you have to remember - this is a 1978 home console game. Little things like that, which we take for granted now, were very nice features back then. The big bracket at the top of the screen represents the back wall of the field. If you can hit the ball to that bracket, you get a homerun. Any other hits result in getting on first base. The distance a ball is hit seems to be random, but hitting a ball a little early will send it flying to the left field and hitting it a little late will send it to the right field. Overall, this is a solid baseball game for the time. It would only take a few years for future baseball games to make this one look very primitive, but for its time, Baseball! deserved that exclamation point at the end of its title.

Review added: 12/01/2025

Bowling! / Basketball!

Also known as: Jue de Quilles (Europe), Ten Pin Bowling / Basketball (Europe), Boliche! / Basquetebol! (South America)

Developer: Magnavox

Well…I generally like bowling games…and I generally like basketball games….and I really don't like Bowling! / Basketball! This is a duo of bad games. I suppose I'll start describing them. First is Bowling! This is one of the worst bowling games that I've ever played. It's not THE worst, but it's up there. Basically, at the bottom of the screen, you'll see a cursor go back and forth. When you press the action button, the cursor will stop and the ball gets thrown. You can hook the ball using the joystick, but the pin physics are awful. It doesn't seem like pins can knock down other pins…pins only drop if the ball seems to hit them. If it is possible, and I'm wrong, I wasn't able to see it happen. Either that or the physics are so awful that I didn't notice it. It makes me believe that spares like a 6-7-10 split are impossible to pick up in this game. Also disappointing is that the score is posted on the screen after you throw each ball, but you do not see the score like you would see if you were at an actual alley. You can play with up to three other players and play in league mode or tournament mode. The only difference between those two modes is that tournament mode has the cursor move back and forth quite a bit faster, so it's slightly more difficult to line up your shots correctly. Next is Basketball! Slightly better than bowling, but still not passable, Basketball! is a two-player-only game where both players fight for control of the basketball on the court, then try to take a shot to sink a basket. If the other player is touching the ball while the offensive player is shooting, then the shot will be blocked and the ball will be stolen. After five minutes, the game is over and the player with the most baskets wins. While it sounds it could be fun in theory, the gameplay and awkward shooting from each player make this more of a frustrating experience at times than a fun experience. This duo of sports games was purposely made poorly, I believe. You see, a decade before his brother Bo Jackson made headlines by playing professional football and professional baseball at a high level at the same time, Bo's older brother was making a name for himself by also doing two sports at the same time….albeit at a lower level. Playing in his local bowling league and challenging children at the local YMCA basketball club, D'oh Jackson was famous enough to have this game designed after him…and the developers made sure that these games were just as sub-par as his skill in the sports were. They had to. D'oh knows poor quality.

Bowling!

My Score

3.0

Avg Score

4.1

Placement on the List

Basketball!

My Score

5.0

Avg Score

4.9

Placement on the List

Review added: 12/01/2025