Since Legends of the Diamond didnt give me that sweet baseball fix I was craving I decided to give it another shot with Dusty Diamond's All-Star Softball. I had played it once before when a friend brought his copy over a few months ago, but without the manual that day I didnt really get to see what the game had to offer.
There is a wide variety of characters to choose and you get to pick your team from them playground style until you have your team of 10. Every character has a specialty and some even have special moves beyond that. They can thrive in obvious stats like hitting and pitching, but some of them have more subtle areas of expertise such as late game stamina.
Now when I first played my goal was to make a very well rounded team and make sure each player was assigned to a position that was well suited to their abilities. After getting creamed several times over becuase of fairly lousy fielding controls I decided I needed another plan of attack. My new plan was to go all out on the offensive. I drafted 8 of the top 10 hitters listed in the manual and hoped to just use that muscle to out score my opponents.
Turns out that was the way to go! Home Run after Home Run had my over-sized and out of shape players panting from running the bases so often. I got temporarily stalled on the final match against the girls team named The Amazons though. They had stats that were far better than the best players available to me so it was a painful battle. But after taking a game into extra innings I was finally able to win the pennant!!
One last cool thing about the game was that you get to pick the teams name from a fairly lengthy list of made up teams. If any of you have noticed whenever I get to enter a name or a highscore initial I always type in the letters R-A-D. Those have been my arcade initials since I was a kid so I keep stickin to them. Anyways in Dusty Diamond they actually had a team name called The Rads. I obviously had to pick that as soon as I saw it.
[img width=638 height=482]http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk189/Crabmaster2000/DustyDiamond-Ending.jpg[/img]Decided to try my luck at some puzzling since it had been quite a while since my last puzzle adventure. The Game of the day turned out to be Yoshi's Cookie.
This game features Mario as some kind of baker operating a couple conveyor belts in what I assume is an oven. By matching entire rows or columns of identical cookies you knock out that row and shrink the overall batch. Yoshi is on the side keeping a tally of which cookie types you have been able to knock out. After getting 5 succesful matches of one particular type of cookie he rewards you with a Yoshi Cookie which can be used as a wild card and be matched as any type of cookie.
The object of each round is to clear your entire oven of cookies. Once you do so you advance to the next round. The only thing that makes the following rounds more challenging is an increased speed. After completing 10 levels in 10 rounds you are rewarded to this delightful ending screen:
[img width=643 height=480]http://i280.photobucket.com/albums/kk189/Crabmaster2000/YoshisCookie-Ending.jpg[/img]NES Games Finished In 2012(
click on a title to view the video)
Silver SurferNinja Gaiden III: The Ancient Ship of DoomDouble Dragon II: The RevengeDouble Dragon III: The Sacred StonesGhosts n GoblinsTetrisPro WrestlingGradiusZanacAdventure IslandKarnovTrojanExcitebikeBaseballSpy HunterAdventure Island IITennisBattletoadsShadowgateBattletoads/Double DragonPinball QuestSection ZGodzillaHydlideMarble MadnessBack to the FutureDarkmanTerminator 2RobocopTotal RecallPredatorRobocop 2Robocop 3Hudson HawkHome AloneHome Alone 2Batman ReturnsGhostbusters IIGhostbustersDie HardA Nightmare on Elm StreetThe Krion ConquestAdventures of Dino RikiUltima: Exodus
Legacy of the WizardAir Fortress
Ultima: Quest of the Avatar
Darkwing DuckUltima: Warriors of DestinyLegends of the DiamondPro Sports HockeyDusty Diamond's All-Star SoftballYoshi's Cookie
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Wow, what a lame ending screen. C'mon Nintendo :/
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@Duke.Togo: Its a puzzle game, I wasnt really expecting it to give me closure to the epic tale of cookie baking. They did give the cursor that you move around a shout out as a character in the credits though 
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Go cursor, it's your birthday...
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I've always been a great fan of Dusty Diamond Softball. The different player attributes and school yard one-at-a-time player selection make it fun. The different fields can be pretty annoying, but a add a bit in terms of charm. My favorite baseball/softball game for NES though is Baseball Stars hands down.
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@singlebanana: I've still got many more baseball games to play, but I'm a Baseball Stars fan too so far.
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Just a little trick for Baseball Stars. The way to get a 90 Max pitcher......Make sure that the pitcher has a pitching abilities max of at least 75 and no points toward "prestige." Fill in all categories except prestige. When full, go to batting abilities and fill in prestige there. Prestige will fill in on the pitching stats also and push up your max until it reaches 90. BOOM! Have a beer to celebrate.
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