Rocket League

Psyonix - 2015 - PC/PS4

As I've written before, I prefer my sports games to be fantastical as opposed to realistic. If I want to play a "realistic" sport, I'll just go outside and actually play it. But when I want to play a game of soccer with flying rocket powered RC cars, I'm coming to Rocket League

Really all you need to know about Rocket League is "soccer with flying rocket powered RC cars". And that's what's brilliant about Rocket League's design: simplicity. It's easy to grasp the mechanics and understand what you need to do to win the game. But there's still an incredible amount of depth and skill required in mastering these mechanics. Controlling your car is easy, but learning how to manipulate the ball can be difficult. The ball is essentially a large, low gravity physics object and learning how to strike the ball so it goes where you want it to can be a bit frustrating for new players. After learning how to strike the ball, the next challenge in the Rocket League meta game is learning where to position your car in different situations so you can be prepared when your teammate crosses the ball over to you and you can take that game winning shot on goal.

Learning when to use your rocket fuel is also crucial step on the way to becoming a Rocket League master. Newer players may be tempted to constantly burn through their fuel in order to get to the ball first - which in my experience can be a valid strategy. There are several glowing powerup pads scattered throughout the field that will refill your rocket fuel when you drive over them, so it's often tempting to use your fuel very aggressively. But I've also found having some spare fuel to intercept an opponent's shot on goal or to take a shot of your own when the ball bounces your way can be the difference between victory and defeat.

After playing several hours against the CPU just trying to get the hang of the game, playing against others online was initially a little intimidating. But the Rocket League matchmaking system seemed to work pretty well and I found that I was being pared with and against players of similar skill level pretty often. Playing online even supports local split screen, so you and a friend in the same room can join a team together and take on the internet. Rocket League supports 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 matches. I've mostly only palyed 2v2 and 3v3 and I think 3v3 is my favorite. 4v4 can feel crowded, 2v2 can feel empty, and although I haven't tried it, I'd imagine 1v1 would just feel gimmicky. Although it's not something I'm personally interested in, there's also a decent infrastructure with tiered rankings in place for those who want to play this game competitively as well

Rocket League Video Review

Summary
Rocket League is a great execution of an awesome idea. It reminds me what's great about my favorite competitive games: it's easy to pick up and play, anyone can learn it. But it takes time and practice to really master this game.

Ken Griffey, Jr. Presents Major League Baseball

Software Creations - 1994 - SNES

I am not a baseball fan. I played softball in high school more or less against my will for 3 or 4 years. I was terrible at it and the experience made me hate the sport of baseball. It's quite boring compared to other sports I watch or play; there's just a lot of standing around and waiting for something to happen. And watching baseball on TV is even more dull and uninteresting to me. So understand when you read this that I am not, for example, a football fan telling you how great Madden is or a soccer fan telling you amazing FIFA is. I am someone who hates baseball telling you that my favorite sports video game is actually my least favorite sport

Ken Griffey, Jr. Presents Major League Baseball (KGJPMLB) is actually the first of four baseball games to bear Griffey's name. There was another one made for the SNES and two more for the N64. I haven't bothered playing the other games in the series because I'm sure they probably added a bunch of new features and depth and realism to the game, which is not really what I look for in a sports game. The whole realism thing is exactly what turns me off in modern sports games too. I don't care if LeBron James' face has 90 billion polygons and the sweat will roll realistically down his face or whatever. I want to make LeBron James do 17 backflips, dunk the ball and shatter the glass NBA Jam style. I want to be able to piledrive players on the opposite team way after the whistle NFL Blitz style. I want fantasy in sports games, not realism. The beauty of KGJPMLB is in its simplicity and its goofiness, not depth or realism.

Ever played Divekick? The metagame of KGJPMLB is sort of similar. The buttons and controls are easy to grasp, so the difficulty and fun of the game lies not with memorizing complex sets of buttons, but more with trying to predict what your opponent will do. And like Divekick, the game is best played with another human opponent, not by yourself. One player plays the batter and the other will play the pitcher. And just as in real baseball, this is where the main interaction of the game lies. But KGJPMLB speeds up the normal slow pace of baseball by cutting out all of the downtime and waiting in the game and speeding up the action. The pitcher will be able to control the speed of his pitches, holding down for a fastball and holding up for a changeup. The pitcher can also throw curveballs, holding either left or right to make the ball veer wildly back and forth. The hitting/pitching mechanics are simple and well implemented. As a batter, you'll probably find the game difficult to play on reaction. You'll have a huge advantage if you've caught on to the pitchers patterns and can guess what speed and direction the ball is coming at. And as the pitcher, you need to keep varying the pitches to keep the batter on his toes. It's so satisfying as a pitcher when you throw two consecutive fastballs and then the batter swings way early at your changeup and curses you out.

As I mentioned before, the game is also kind of goofy. Apparently KGJPMLB had difficulty securing the rights to depict actual players from the MLB player's association. As such, Ken Griffey, Jr. is the only real MLB player to appear in the game, despite the game depicting real teams and real stadiums. This opened the door for KGJPMLB to take a little creative license with the player's names on each team. The player's names on each team in the game belong to a specific theme. For instance, the Kansas City Royals are all named after Presidents (A. Lincoln, J. Kennedy, R. Nixon etc.), the Boston Red Sox are named after characters from the show Cheers (C. Claven, N. Peterson, S. Malone etc.), and the Milwaukee Brewers are superheroes' secret identities (C. Kent, P. Parker, B. Wayne etc.). It's kind of a fun "guess the theme" mini-game each time you play a new team. KGJPMLB is animated in a sort of cartoonish way that matches perfectly matches its goofy, fun gameplay. When players overrun the ball in the outfield and slam into the backstop, they make a crashing sound and fall comically flat over backwards, which I used to love and laugh at as a kid. After striking out, the players may also break their bats in frustration, which is a nice little touch. Anyone who has played this game before also remembers batters turning to face the screen and yelling "Aww c'mon!" directly at the player after striking out in what I found out is actually a soundbyte of Jim Belushi's voice

Composed by the legendary Tim Follin, this game has a very short, but very excellent soundtrack. Also if you've never heard of Tim Follin before, you should look him up. He's probably never composed for any game that you've played or maybe even heard of, but he's an absolute legendary oldschool chiptune composer. All the while you're playing KGJPMLB, you'll be treated to this rockin' anthem, which is one of my all-time favorite tracks ever composed for any video game. Love that track. So catchy.

Summary:
If you and a friend are looking for a good, quick game to kill some time, you can do worse than KGJPMLB. It's fast, goofy and fun and will probably have the two of you shouting at each other in no time. KGJPMLB is a good example of exactly what I want in a sports game: Crazy, goofy, fast-paced action with a good sense of humor.