More than one monocle pops at the sight of Charlie Hustle dancing and shouting in the most elegant room in the casino. He gathers up the money in both arms. “Great job, as always, kid! See you at the stadium!” He runs off.
The other bettors look down their noses at you as the
ultra-elegant tuxedoed robot escorts you and Melvin out of the high stakes
poker room, back out through the fancy doors, which he closes, leaving you
outside the silver door, in the main room of the casino. You and Melvin head
outside. Before you start walking, you look up at the large, gold-colored
casino building, and think for a minute. “What is Charlie up to?” you ask.
“That’s just what I’ve been wondering,” replies Melvin. “So
far, he’s been true to his word, getting us into all these baseball games, but
something isn’t right.”
“Yeah. Didn’t you say that Super league is the highest
league?”
“Sure, that’s right,” says Melvin.
“Well, didn’t Charlie say there were two games left to win
the challenge?”
“Yeah… that doesn’t make much sense… unless they are both in
the Super league? I guess we better ask him.”
“Yeah, if we see him again. I get the feeling he’s just
going to take all the money and disappear.”
“But then we’d never get the baseball challenge ring!” says
Melvin, alarmed.
“I know, that’s what I’m worried about.”
The two of you walk to the Super stadium, which is the grandest one you’ve seen yet. It has a gigantic sign reading “ATARI SUPER BASEBALL”, with “BASEBALL” in glowing red letters, “SUPER” in glowing blue letters that keep turning upside down, and “ATARI” in gorgeous, glowing spectronium letters. Everything looks sleek and modern. No red uniforms this time, there’s a white team and a yellow team, and you are on the white team. The robots are smaller than at the Super Challenge stadium, and much faster. As always, Melvin is there with you in the locker room, ready to be the baseball. “Super baseball is pretty much like Realsports™ baseball, actually,” he explains, “just faster and slicker.”
A batboy runs into the locker room. "Are you the Player?" he asks.
"Yes," you answer, wondering what he wants.
"The umpire wants to know... do you want the game in easy mode, or impossible mode?"
You and Melvin look at each other. Melvin whispers, "Given those choices, I'd pick easy."
"Uh... easy?" you say, uneasily.
"Got it," he says, calling "Hey Frank, set the
left difficulty to a!" as he runs out the door.
"What was that about?" you ask Melvin. You flip through
the Super Baseball manual which is sitting on the bench. “There’s nothing about
difficulty switches in here…”
"Beats me," he says, shrugging.
You hear the organ play a weirdly monotone version of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” as your opponent's sleek white robots all dash out onto the field. “Well, Melvin,” you sigh, “here we go again!”
Put the Super Baseball
cartridge into your Atari 2600. Use game select to pick “1 PLAYER / 1ST UP”. Set both difficulty switches to a. Play until you win. Post a link to a video in the comments section of yourself
completing the challenge.
Has no one finished this level in all this time?
ReplyDeleteIncredibly, that is true! Of all the games to stump the AtariQuest community, somehow Super Baseball is the one that no one has cracked! It's a great opportunity for someone to pick up 3 bonus points on the leaderboard, and unlock chapter 25...
DeleteI have shifted all my energies to beating this chapter for the opportunity to move forward in the AtariQuest! Wow the computer player is unstoppable unless you get a home run it seems... I have found one game clip where someone achieved this and I have hit countless times how they do and no luck. My only theory is that maybe it only works on console and not emulator? I purchased the game and am waiting for it to come in. It's a strange theory which I don't have high hopes for. Any helpful pointers Melvin?
DeleteI don't really remember Super Baseball being that unbeatable... but... I haven't played it in a while! I better pop in the cartridge and check it out...
DeleteWoof! I played for dozens of innings tonight, and got nothing but 0-0 scores! This guy https://youtu.be/fltr3xw6M3s?t=200 claims that pushing down and to the right when swinging results in frequent home runs... but that sure isn't the case for me! Sometimes, if I push left, I can get a player on base... but it's inconsistent... a single home run would let you win the game... maybe there's a trick to it?
DeleteIn the name of Charlie Hustle, I figured it out! Ozzie Smith says he flips over Atari baseball https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlnsfa91Oy8 but what he doesn't tell you to flip is the COLOR/B+W switch!!! I stared and stared at the CGW review video where he gets home run after home run and wondered how it could be possible... did he have a different ROM? Was his Atari on some weird setting? I played with the a/b switches and they didn't do anything... and so I wondered, what if the COLOR/B+W switch somehow did something? AND IT DOES! When you set it to B+W, it seems to be a secret "easy mode" that makes hitting home runs possible! I'd be curious to dig through the ROM and see what that looks like in the code... regardless -- it works! So... the race is on for bonus points!
DeleteAlso, I updated the story to reflect this new discovery... :)
Delete😳
ReplyDeleteI had the same experience. You're on to something, it could be an emulator issue. I hope you beat it so we can move on from baseball.
ReplyDeleteSadly, I've been playing it on the cartridge, and not making any progress. The Classic Game Room guy seems to be playing on an emulator, and getting multiple home runs... so... I'm not sure what to think... https://youtu.be/fltr3xw6M3s?t=200
DeleteHey, Future L! See the comment above! I figured out the secret... put your Atari in B+W mode, and suddenly home runs are possible!
DeleteI set the emulator to B/W and made a save state. Out of approximately 50 at-bats, I failed to land one single base hit, let alone a home run.
DeleteAgain, it could be an emulator thing, but my local retrogame shop doesn't have Super Baseball at the moment (darn!).
If I never see this game again it will be too soon.
See my note below to Peng... short story: I was wrong about B+W... set the left difficulty to a, and hit the ball as I describe below, and home runs are very possible.
DeleteFollowup ... I tested this on an emulator (https://javatari.org/) and was able to hit home runs when left difficulty was set to a.
DeleteI tried the B+W and no luck on ten innings. I'll keep trying but thinking I may need to be on real hardware. I reached out to the Atari compendium website owner and he did his own investigation and found difficulty switches to be what can allow a homerun.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ataricompendium.com/game_library/easter_eggs/vcs/26superbaseball.html
????
DeleteOkay... I'll do some more experiments and let you know what I find...
OH MY GOSH! You're right! I set left difficulty B (basic) and right difficulty A (advanced) and B/W (not sure if that matters or not) but yeah, homerun on first at-bat! FINALLY!
DeleteMy bad, that is both left and right difficulty on A and A (A usually means advanced on Atari...weird)
DeleteOkay ... did more experiments. I was TOTALLY wrong on the COLOR/B+W thing. I was fooled because it is really hard to tell if the a/b switches are set. The Atari Compendium seems to be right... if you set the left difficulty switch to "a," the computer fielders are a little slower, and home runs become possible (and even very easy) if when you bat, you pull down and to the right before pushing the button, and swing so that you hit the ball *just* as it crosses over from the grass to the clay. Updating the story appropriately...
DeleteIt seems that the difficulty switch setting Left A only fixes gameplay for 1st up and not 2nd up game selection.
DeleteWow -- you're right -- I set both difficulty switches to "a" and it doesn't seem to help when you are 2nd up! Maybe that's why they didn't put it in the manual! So... I'll change the challenge to "1st UP" so we can get through this!
DeleteYes, 18-3, football scores!
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/QtQBHm4AwMU
Heh, wow, that's quite a game! Technically, you were supposed to pick "2nd UP" ... but it really doesn't matter, so I'll allow it, mainly because no one should ever have to play this game again!
DeleteAlso -- congrats on getting the 3 bonus points, and on finally breaking the Super Baseball curse!
DeleteDoh! Thanks for the mulligan!
ReplyDeleteIt was a shutout! Only took 9 months and now we're off to the races!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0yU_GHZeHs
Wow it has been nine months, hasn't it? Well, good things take time... and so does Super Baseball, apparently! Anyway, nice shutout, nice job grabbing two bonus points, and thanks so much for pushing on this -- your exploration broke the logjam... so now, as you point out, off the the races!
DeleteWhoa -- this game is TERRIBLE! Maybe 2 player is okay? But 1 player is terrible. Who can complain about ET, when this is out there? With the "a" difficulty set, homeruns are crazy easy! And when you field, the center fielder can easily tag out the runner on his way to first -- why do the fielders move that fast? When I played I just knocked out a few home runs, and then spent the rest of the game bunting myself out just to make it end. I'm glad to have this one behind me! https://youtu.be/XVcf0Mj9pt4
ReplyDelete7-0 ... that's a shutout, all right! And you even got a bonus point. Maybe now you can shut this game out of your mind... Speaking of minds... if you meet an absent one at the racetrack, say hello!
Delete