I am seriously considering buying this factory-sealed new boxed game of Hardball! for the Commodore 64 on eBay for $14.99. Maybe a little steep with the $5 shipping thrown on top, but Hardball! is definitely on my classics list and I can state with certainty that it still holds up pretty darn well (for me at least) because I played a game of it versus FG40 just a couple of years ago and it was still great fun. Oh Hank Contos, how I miss you and your "somebody gonna pay" attitude. I'd probably rate hardball as my second favorite baseball video game of all time - and I've played a lot of them. Hardball was released in 1985 on multiple systems and I played the hell out of it on two of them - the Commodore 64 and the Mac 512K - both excellent versions with enough differences to keep it interesting.
But I saw one guy on the Lemon64.com Hardball forum who apparently loved it even more than I did. He played an entire season of 162 games against the computer and kept unbelievably meticulous offline records to support a very impressive statistical evaluation while finishing the season at 141-21. Check out his posts on the effort here. Who was the offensive star in his season? The flamboyant Willie Barnes who hit .457 with 100 home runs and 204 RBIs - that's not a bad year.
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6 comments:
Good old Hardball!
Your man Hank "Con Man" Contos only managed 89 home runs for the season. Pretty weak.
It does hold up well. $20 is cheap for a sealed classic like Hardball!.
You middable muddapucka - you gonna pay for dat.
I'm thinking about getting it, but then my dilemma would immediately become - do I open it or let it remain sealed? I already know the answer too - I would open it. But so what, $20 for a virgin copy seems pretty good to me.
Yeah the Con Man came up short. Could you believe the detail that guy went into?
My next goal is to figure out to emulate it for the 512K. Maybe you'll try out one of my emulators for that blast from the past. I've already got it running for Risk.
There are a few old Mac games I remember well. Several were shareware:
Hardball!
Scarab of Ra
Dungeon of Doom
Risk (of course)
Dark Castle
I agree, $20 it's just the price I'd pay for a sealed C64 classic :)
I couldn't stand to see it sitting there on the shelf any longer so I snarfed it myself. Now I just have to re-buy my long-lost C64 and 1541 drive to be able to play it!
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