Simulation sports on the NES are pretty fun, there's nothing quite like a good time with a semi-serious banger to bide the time during sleepovers. Especially Konami titles like Blades of Steel and Double Dribble. If you have the Power Pad, Track and Field, one of the best of its kind, is also a doozy. But then there's Cyber Stadium Series: Basewars. On the surface, sounds absolutely awesome. What you get is a fairly standard baseball game that doesn't lean into its outlaw gimmick far enough.

Developed by Konami and published by their shell company Ultra games, Basewars was released in 1988 for the NES. It's a baseball game where the owners got tired of paying the high wages of the human players, so the owners opt instead for combat-centric robots to play the game in their stead. The commentary here on today's overinflated sports contracts has aged so rich, you can draw jadeite from it.

Compared to the aforementioned Double Dribble and Blades of Steel, it's a serviceable representation of the sport. The only unique elements to Basewars is when it comes to force plays, the two robots will duke it out in one-on-one combat and the ability to buy cybernetic upgrades to increase the robo's fighting ability, pitching speed, batting power, and general movement. Beyond that, there really isn't anything fundamentally different that separates this game from any other given baseball title on the Nintendo. You hit, you pitch, you run, you can steal bases, there's home runs...it's baseball. 

Even though regardless of team you select, the colors are the same. The graphics do look great, and I've always like the sprites for the bots playing the game. They have a pretty clean and detailed design and the variety is a cool idea. They can be equipped with tank treads, a wheel, Tom Servo's hoverskirt, and a pair of regular ol' cyber legs. I know it's the NES, and it's probably easier on the hardware, but I find it mildly disappointing that they're playing on either grass or ordinary astroturf. The team owners didn't want to pay exorbitant contracts for human players, but they'll waste what's left of the natural resources to treat and grow grass for androids to trample over? yeah, that makes sense. A metal gridiron or steel canvas would have fit more into the futuristic theme. Not really much else to look at, even the fanfare for a homerun is tepid.

As a baseball game, again, it's not too impressive in the controls department. The pitching, even by NES standards, is fairly mediocre. Batting, however, is overpowered as shit. This game is completely on the juice, and every batter, regardless of upgrades, feel like they can just smash a ball out of the park. The average game of Basewars can be summed up into either a homerun derby, or you just brutalize the opponent's robots into a forfeit. Speaking of the fighting, it's ridiculously fun...for about the first four fights. Then it tilts into redundant really fast. There isn't even any strategy, and it barely matters what weapons are selected, just mash buttons until one of them explodes. 

Like most Konami games, that OST does get drilled in the brain, the base on that chiptune is sick. Overall, I feel like Cyber Stadium Series: Basewars is a novelty at best, and not really worth revisiting. It doesn't even have enough to separate it from most other 8-bit baseball games, and it's a fairly forgettable one at that. Play okay enough, just little to have pushed it beyond a rental. And I LOVED robots as a kid. The name Cyber Stadium Series almost implied that other sports were going to be attempted with the robot gimmick. Now a cyber hockey game would've been awesome. Baseball just doesn't seem like the right medium for it. An average game, but the joy is fleeting. Grab Tecmo Baseball instead.