Tamachi

Your favourite catboy enby

Small creative internet creature.


superhenryjones
@superhenryjones

Things that I learned/remembered researching the MLB Power Pros games for freelance work that probably won't fit into the word count:

  • Konami had to "team" with 2K Sports to release MLB Power Pros because after NFL 2K5 became one of the best football video games of all time at the price of $19.99, EA Sports monopolized the NFL license in response. In a lesser-remembered counter, 2K monopolized the third-party license for Major League Baseball (Sony could continue to make The Show because they were first-party). NFL 2K was wiped out for Madden, one of the nost infamously stagnate sports franchises. The highest-rated baseball series at the time, EA's MVP Baseball, had to shut down with the only game on non-Sony consoles MLB 2K, a franchise that became more bugs than game, and completely imploded with NO THIRD-PARTY COMPETITION WHATSOEVER.

Capitalism destroyed two of the best sports franchises in favor of two of the worst. View-baiting Youtubers could (and probably have) release videos with an angry stock face of the host and the caption, "THE MOVE THAT RUINED SPORTS VIDEOGAMES!!!" And I would know WAY more about where the host's veins are than I should.

  • Power Pros was partially inspired by Hideo Nomo, the first pro Japanese player to break into Major League Baseball. His pitches affecting HOW the ball was hit led to the creation of Power Pros' easy-to-learn-hard-to-master hitting system. In MLB Power Pros 2008's franchise mode, if you choose to create an expansion team without a complete league redraft, you will need free agent pitchers as you will be surrounded by rookie pitchers with stamina that makes it nearly IMPOSSIBLE to go through a full season and maintain sanity. The top option: 39-year-old Hideo Nomo.

  • Daisuke Matsuzaka "invented" a pitch called the "gyroball," a funky curveball or slurve (slider/curve combination). Japanese media mythologized it into this unhittable ball and completely misrepresented it, such as the manga/anime Major which portrayed it as a ball with insane velocity and rotation which didn't allow bats to hit it properly. It's in the Power Pros series as a secret boost given to certain pitchers that allows them to occasionally throw a lightning-fast pitch. One of the pitchers in MLB Power Pros who can't throw it? Daisuke Matsuzaka.

  • The Wikipedia article source "stating" the games didn't sell well in America linked to an interview where the creators actually say it sold fine, but they couldn't get past producers who hated its "kiddie" look. This is why you go deeper than the Wikipedia.

  • The scrapped third American release was set to have the license for the World Baseball Classic, the World Cup of professional baseball, as its main new feature. The first console release of a Power Pros game since is 2023's recent WBSC eBaseball: Power Pros. WBSC is the governing body of the World Baseball Classic.



PIZZAPRANKS
@PIZZAPRANKS

Cover by Filipa Namorado

Buy it! Subscribe and get it monthly or just the commissioned game for $5!

The latest edition of Indiepocalypse (the monthly alternative game anthology I run) is now out! If you don't know what Indiepocalypse is I wrote a starter guide!

The games in this month issue (as seen in the trailer) are

And newly commissioned for Indiepocalypse!

Hlina by @sakiamu

A low-res picture of a field with a house and a large character portrait

A dream in a world of plasticine.