Disco Stu is Optimistic!

Mike Trout: NES Demigod

Baseball Simulator 2013

After months of development, keithisgood Electronic Media is pleased to present the official release of Baseball Simulator 2013! This update to Culture Brain's 1989 NES classic--Baseball Simulator 1.000--allows a player to compete with any current MLB team. The base rom (link at the bottom of the page) gives players the choice from 18 MLB Teams:

• Boston Red Sox
• Detroit Tigers
• Cleveland Indians
• Atlanta Braves
• San Francisco Giants
• Washington Nationals
• Texas Rangers
• Los Angeles Angels of Anahiem
• New York Yankees
• Los Angeles Dodgers
• Cincinnati Reds
• Chicago Cubs
• Tampa Bay Rays
• Oakland Athletics
• Baltimore Orioles
• Milwaukee Brewers
• St. Louis Cardinals
• Philadelphia Phillies

In addition to this 18, the .sav file included in the .zip archive below gives players an additional 6 MLB squads:

• Chicago White Sox
• Seattle Mariners
• Toronto Blue Jays
• New York Mets
• Arizona Diamondbacks
• Pittsburgh Pirates

Team data and logos for the remaining 6 MLB Teams (SD, MIA, COL, KC, MIN and HOU) is already included in the rom data. Swapping in The Rockies, for example, is a simple matter of swapping team data at the appropriate location in the game hex. Instructions for this process is included in the attached archive!

Baseball Simulator 2013 includes up-to-the-date (2013.03.18) rosters for each MLB team. Want to see what happens when R.A. Dickey's Blue Jays have to face Mike Trout and the Angels in AL Play?

That's one nasty knuckleball

Can Jose Bautista keep up his prolific power streak into 2013?

PROTIP: Never hang a slier against Jose Bautista.

Baseball Simulator 2013, the only NES Baseball Game that Matters, can be downloaded here.

To play Baseball Simulator 2013, Download the archive linked above, a clean (legal) copy of "Baseball Simulator 1000.nes," a suitable NES emulator (I prefer FCEUX, but Nestopia, VirtuaNES and a host of others work just fine) and the LunarIPS rom patching utility. Put LunarIPS, "BASEBALL SIMULATOR 2013.ips" and "Baseball Simulator 1000.nes" in the same directory and run LunarIPS. Follow the prompts and voila! Baseball Simulator 2013. Copy and Paste "BASEBALL SIMULATOR 2013.sav" into the emulator's "save" folder to gain access to the 6 additional teams. Please Tweet any bug notices to @keithisgood.* 

*As of this release, there is a glitch in drawing the title screen after the game runs a demo inning where a line of 1's appears. Any fixes will be updated in the archive and reflected in updated version numbering on the readme.

Baseball Simulator 2013!

Official rom coming soon...

After 5 months of work and increasingly high hurdles to jump, Magic Kids--my hack of Virgin Games' M.C. Kids for the NES--is finally complete. I've previously covered the game, saying what a shame the McD's shill was; constant arches and clowns detracted from a fun, complex NES platformer.

A big thanks to everyone at the romhacking.net message boards. Specific kudos to romhacking user Alchemic for cracking the game's text compression and writing python scripts for text decompression and reinsertion. Also a huge thanks to romhacker Proveaux, who held a digital peace summit and hammered out a three way accord between the M.C. Kids rom file, the newly written text and Alchemic's inserter script.

A complete log of changes would 1) make for an over-long entry here; and 2) take away some of the surprise playing through the game. The image at left seems a fitting emblem of how the game has changed. Instead of the Clown, the game's plot is set into motion by (the familiar-looking) Walter the Wizard.

The Magic Kids .ips patch (and super sweet box art) can be downloaded at the link below. The patch should be applied to a clean version of "MC Kids (U).nes."

http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1136/

Enjoy!

The 2013 NFL (Uniform) Super Bowl

[Drumroll! Trumpet Fanfare!]
THE (UNIFORM) SUPER BOWL

 VS

After a bizarre Wild Card Round, a hard-fought Divisional Round, the Traditional v. Modern battles of the Championship Round, here we are, the Super Bowl of NFL Uniforms. Cue Whitney's Star Spangled Banner, cause its about to get real up in here.

If the NFC wasn't designated as this year's home team, that tie would back to nip San Fran in the ass. Their regular season mark of 11-4-1 would have made them the road team in Super Bowl XLVII (Exelvieya?). Finishing the season 12-4, the Pats would get to wear their (slightly better) navy over grey home kit...

...But its all prevarication. Home/Away colors is dictated by the NFL and the Niners get to be homies this year. Red over gold is waaaaaaay (complete with 7 a's) better than any possible combination of Patriot grey, navy and red. SF's supreme block typeface and the superiority of the interlocked SF Oval over Flying Elvis make it a lock. Even in the real Super Bowl, where the Niners face the Baltimore Ravens no-good, dirty team thieves, San Francisco wins the Super Bowl of Uniforms in a walk.

Not to toot my own horn (doc says I'll go blind), but I also picked San Fran as the winner of MLB's World Series of Uniforms as well. What can I say? I left my heart uniform in San Francisco.

More Baseball Simulator 2013

The completed team logo set for Baseball Simulator 2013:

The 2013 NFL (Uniform) Playoffs - Championship Round

AFC CHAMPIONSHIP

 AT

What is this, 2004? Indy and New England? Indy arrived here by being cleaner than Baltimore's dirty-bird attire and less annoying than Denver's kit. New England just barely escaped the black hole of awful which ate Cincinnati and Texas. This match up is traditional minimalism vs. sleek modernism. I love the simplicity of the Colts' uniforms, but leave with the feeling it needs that dash of je ne sais quoi. A splash of accent color, perhaps? In the end, Indy is just too plain for this match up. The Patriots flat-out look better.

NFC CHAMPIONSHIP

 AT

Seattle's tasteful take on Native Americans Trounced Washington's less-tasteful take in the Wild Card round and their unified, cohesive design sent the Falcons flying. San Fran, being mostly the same as its Divisional opponent Green Bay, won by virtue of better color.

At the beginning of the year, I would have taken every image of Seattle's uniform set and burned it with fire. The acid green flares and grey accents have grown on me, though. The repetition of that Seahawk-tooth motif--on the leg-stripe, the back of the helmet, around the collar--really ties the room together, to paraphrase a famous west-coaster. San Francisco looks so damn nice, though. The red and gold says, "The Catch," and "Comeback Joe." It says Steve Young and Jerry Rice and more Super Bowls than I can count on a hand. A Simplistic design done well with a great color palette... San Francisco reigns supreme.

So... San Fran and New England. Probably not going to be a huge surprise on this one, but you'll have to wait two weeks to find out for certain who's wearing Championship Uniforms.