My Top 100: #86 – RBI Baseball 3

1991 – Tengen (NES, Genesis)

 

When I was younger, I didn’t really know why some NES cartridges looked different than usual.  I managed to rent some Camerica (gold) and Color Dreams (light blue) games a few times in Baie Sainte-Anne, which seemed like a great spot to find strange titles.  Tengen was another company whose cartridges were different, opting for black and a slightly different shape with two little grips on it…  they looked pretty snazzy, and I never really considered them out of the ordinary.

As it turns out, Nintendo had some pretty strict control over what content NES games could have.  This is common knowledge to video game addicts now, but when I finally learned this, it all made sense.  Good ol’ quality control!!!  You know, LJN games notwithstanding.

Atari was actually releasing games under the Tengen name, throwing its name into the ring of companies who had to bypass the 10NES lock-out chip.  As far as I can recall, however, the quality of the majority of these games was pretty good!

 

 

*Oh man, memories…*

RBI Baseball 3 is the only Tengen game I ever owned, and I played it a TON.  I had never played a sports game before it that was licensed by a major league player’s association, which meant that I got to play as the real guys!  Kelly Gruber, Mark McGwire, Ken Griffey Jr., Jose Canseco…  they were all there!  It was incredible!

I watched baseball religiously when I was little, about as religiously as I watch NASCAR these days.  In my mind, if I could play as the Toronto Blue Jays and win in the game against whatever team they were going up against that night, then the real Jays could pull it off, too.  Of course, it was all superstition, and the Blue Jays were a pretty stacked team for a while.  It was almost expected of them to win on a nightly basis!  Well, expected from me, anyway.

I like to take a little bit of credit for their two World Series titles.  They did have to go through the Oakland A’s in ’92, and with the McGwire\Canseco duo hitting home runs like crazy in RBI3, I had to work pretty hard to beat them…  but I always did.

 

You’re welcome!

2 Comments on “My Top 100: #86 – RBI Baseball 3

  1. I always loved Baseball NES games. Had that generic one on the 31-in-1, played Base Wars like crazy (Pro Tip: pick the custom team, and you’ll always start off with awesome weapons, no charge!), and vividly recall FINALLY beating my older cousin Steve at RBI Baseball (the first one, I think).

    The whole time, he was laughing with his sister Erika about something they had written on a piece of paper before we started playing. They wouldn’t show me what it was. Finally, after I won the game and was cheering for myself, they showed me what was written on the piece of paper.

    “Let Jordan win.”

    🙁

    Great memories!

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