F1 Pole Position

Racing and driving simulations have come a long way over the years. Okay, so have most other types of games to some extent or another. I don’t know, it sounded like a good start…leave me alone.

Either way, I’m fairly spoiled by the look and feel of modern racing games. The content and controls in most titles are fairly solid nowadays, and just about anything with pretty colors and lights will keep me entertained at least until the LSD wears off. So I’m going to take a step back in time mentally to try to get a feel for how I would have viewed F1 Pole Position around a decade and a half ago.

Hmm…no, this isn’t much better.

I’m just not feeling it. The controls are a bit difficult to grasp, and me without an instruction manual doesn’t make it any easier. The graphics are fairly bland, and trying to squeeze a Mode-7 racetrack view into a horizontally-split screen doesn’t make it easier for me to see what’s coming up. Sure, having the rear-view in the top half is neat, but it’s a bit wasted when most cars are almost always in front of you.

Yeah, I may be bitching just because I suck at this game. That’s my choice. There are more flashing lights and colors elsewhere…

Extra Innings

The field smells like little jocks.

“Wel-wel-welcome to…*clack!*…Extra…INning!” I love the early video game voices. Love them. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent playing Populous just so I could hear “Well done…mortal!” as a reward. I can tell you that I reloaded the Extra Innings ROM about nine times in a row, only three of which were strictly necessary to emulate the way the name of the game was said in that quote back yonder.

Extra Innings is a game about baseball*, as you might have guessed from its title. There were no extra innings when I played the game though: I was able to…score?…a…single…run (I apologize in advance, but my knowledge of baseball is limited to recognizing it and then changing the channel with a throaty cry of “NOOOOOBOOORRRIINNNNGGGGBAAAALLLLLLL”) before the computer embarrassed me and began running the bases like it was fleeing from hungry dogs covered with live grenades.

Despite my dislike of baseball—and all other sports, save perhaps soccer and the fighting man’s sport, fighting—I kind of had fun playing this game. Sure I was soundly beaten by the computer every time I played, but Extra Innings has a few things going for it, which I will enumerate for you:

• “Wel-wel-welcome to…*clack!*…Extra…INning!” Adorable. Precious. It made me squeal a little.

• Easy on the eyes! The graphics of this game, while not amazing or innovative, aren’t ugly as hell either. That’s a plus. A small plus, but still a plus. Maybe a C plus. You know, orange and carbonated.
• Decent music! I don’t remember it being super-repetitive or annoying or anything. I guess decent != forgettable, but whatever.
• Intuitive controls! The controls are easy to figure out, and they’re pretty responsive to boot. They don’t allow for a spastic-fingered dolt like me to win, but I appreciate the attempt.
• Each player has their own little statistics; some are better than others, as represented by little happy or frowny faces. This means I can create little stories in my head about the players as I play the game, which enables to me emotionally invest myself in their fates. Most of my team later committed group suicide. It was slightly traumatizing. So much blood and chaw.
• Fill in this list item later with groundbreaking analysis of baseball. Really blow their SOX off! Get it? Oh me, you card. (Note: check to make sure baseball team with “SOX” in the name really exists. You don’t want to look dumb in front of the video gamers. Their opinion matters more than anyone’s.)

If you’re looking for a baseball game on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, you could certainly do worse than Extra Innings. Either way, I’m judging you. POORLY.

* It is also a game about passion, intolerance, gambling, the futility of man versus nature and paraphilia.