Bases Loaded (video game)
is a baseball video game originally developed by Tose and published by Jaleco for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was first released in 1987 in Japan and in 1988 in North America, and a Game Boy port was released in July of 1990. For the Virtual Console, Bases Loaded was released on September 11, 2007, in Japan and on April 7, 2008, in North America for the Wii, and on May 15, 2013, in Japan and on July 10, 2014, in North America for Nintendo 3DS. The Wii U version in North America was also released at the same time as the Nintendo 3DS version. A port by Mebius and Clarice Games for the PlayStation 4 was released in Japan in 2015.
The game is the first installment in the Bases Loaded series, followed by seven sequels across three generations of consoles. There are three more video games in the Bases Loaded NES series, Bases Loaded II: Second Season, Bases Loaded 3 and Bases Loaded 4. There was also a Game Boy version of Bases Loaded. The series continued onto the SNES platform with Super Bases Loaded, Super Bases Loaded 2, and Super Bases Loaded 3. The final entry to the series was Bases Loaded '96: Double Header, released for the Sega Saturn and PlayStation.
Bases Loaded is also the first in a series of sports games by Jaleco known in Japan as Moero!!. Baseball games were localized in the Western markets as the Bases Loaded series while the basketball game was localized as Hoops, the tennis game as Racket Attack and the soccer game as Goal!. Two titles went unlocalized: a baseball game Shin Moero!! Pro Yakyū and a judo game Moero!! Juudou Warriors.
Gameplay
The game allows the player to control one of 12 teams in either a single game or a full season. For single games, there is also a two-player option.Bases Loaded featured a television-style depiction of the pitcher-batter matchup, as well as strong play control and a relatively high degree of realism, which made it one of the most popular baseball games of the early NES.
One unique feature of the game is that the pitcher can provoke a batter to charge the mound. Each team has only one batter who can be provoked in this manner, however; it is up to the player to discover who it is.
At the time Bases Loaded was released, few video games were licensed by North American major league sports. Therefore, the league depicted in Bases Loaded is a fictitious league of twelve teams.
Disembodied catcher's mitt
One of the trademark images of the Bases Loaded franchise was the disembodied catcher's mitt, also referred to as the "phantom paw", that would catch pitches that were thrown extremely outside. Developer Heep Sop Choi claims it was programmed to show the catcher making some terrific snatches without any bodily movement.Release
A defective chip was found during manufacturing, delaying the Nintendo Entertainment System version's North American release.A port for the Atari Jaguar was planned to be developed by Jaleco, after being signed by Atari Corporation to be a third-party developer for the system, but it was never released.