The Greatest Show on Earth... during the All Star Break

I remember as a child loving the All Star game. As a young child - not yet jaded by eighteen seasons of miserable (present season excluded, thank G-d) losing baseball served up by the Pittsburgh Pirates - I collected the cards, played the video games, played stick ball and most of all loved watching the game of baseball.

The All Star game meant a bit to me as a young one because I never got to see the American League. The first nine years of my life were as a Mets fan and the past twenty has me a follower of the hapless-since-Sid-Bream-ruined-our-dreams Buccos. There weren't a ton of them playing and you got to see larger than life match ups of my favorite players.

Nowadays the game itself has a lost a lot of meaning. You can blame it on a number of factors including interleague play, the sheer number of players selected, the approach the managers take to it, the availability of so many games you just didn't have in the 80s.

But watching the home run derby and Prince Fielder just a moment ago continue to swing away when the first round swing off was done, just to see if he could hit five homers with only five swings (and he did it), it reminded me that this may be the most fun moment of the game. The game, for all the MLB hypes it, really counts for nothing. Yes, I know! The winning team gets home field advantage in the World Series. But at its heart, the game is an exhibition put on for fans to just have fun and see guys they would never see paired up or against each other for one day.

Home Run Derby is fun. Even Chris Berman and the way he commentates the action is all about fun. Can you honestly imagine Joe Buck calling the Home Run derby? Really?

In 1994, the Pirates were only at year 2 of 18. They hosted the All Star game. Ken Griffey Jr. baseball also came out that year for SNES. I can't say if it was the first or not, but it had a unique feature. Home Run Derby. I remember playing it at All Star Fanfest and friends would come over to play one another. We'd compete to see which made up player - who needs player licensing anyways?!? - could smack the most.

The ground rules before any Home Run Derby challenge were simple. No Ken Griffey Jr.

I always picked a huge muscular guy that was a blatant rip off of Frank Thomas.

No One Wants to Be Dazzler

I recently bought X-Men the Arcade game for the Xbox out of nostalgia for what I could only categorize as the greatest arcade game ever made. I dare say most men between the ages of 25-35 would share my enthusiasm and agree that there was not a better game to drop some quarters into at the local arcade.

It's not that the X-Men arcade game was the greatest arcade game ever designed. Wrestlefest holds a special spot in my heart, while others loved games like Area 51 or Time Crisis. No... while the game was fun to play, the graphics were great for their time and it was relatively simple to play, that's not what made it amazing.

What separated it from other stops in the arcade was that six people could play at one time. There were huge two screens for this one game! Sure, there was a smaller version with four control stations but it just wasn't the same. Better yet, on the six-person console, each station was an assigned character. If you were standing at the left-most station, you were the boy scout, Cyclops. You couldn't be anyone else.

And with that memory, I recall another one. No one wanted to be at the controls furthest to the right...

Dazzler.

Who the hell was Dazzler anyway? If you were a young pre-teen boy like me all you knew was she was not cool enough to be in the Fox Saturday morning cartoon and that said it all. Granted, neither was Nightcrawler, but he looked so awesome and you could do wicked jump kicks, so who cared!

Dazzler also didn't appeal to the older games either. If you were the guy who wanted to be the hot chick you picked Storm. Look at the outfits and there is no comparison! Storm looks like at her tamest she's playing to a burlesque house.

On the other hand, Dazzler wore full body "tights," an open member's only jacket and lesbian haircut.

I find it ironic, that after what has to be at least ten years since I last played this game, I found myself in a game of six where I had no choice.

I was Dazzler.

And as I sat there, ignoring my wife and son, doing weird acrobatic moves as I through sentinels across the screen and occasionally threw some form of exploding bubblegum at enemies I could only think of one thing...

Nobody moves the blob.

Thanks for the Memories 1 vs. 100

They canceled 1 vs. 100 last Thursday. I am disappointed with this for a number of reasons but mostly because it was a gaming experience my wife and I could enjoy together.

My wife has never really liked video games and I think just sometimes indulges me when I talk about interesting quirks about them. She has never been very good at them and has no real desire to find a genre she likes.

But we both liked playing 1 vs. 100.

Maybe because its like bar trivia with no pressure on us since its in the privacy of our bedroom, but we liked spending two hours on our bed trying to get in the top 10 or the mob. Twice we ALMOST made the top ten only to miss a question. I am still resentful to Michelle Williams of Destiny's Child because I didn't know she was going on Broadway. It was a great experience for me, my wife and unborn but stubbornly kicking Joel Masen.

I took particular pride the time the guest hosts were the guys from Penny Arcade and I knew who Catsby & Twist were. Only about five percent of the 50,000+ players knew it and I helped a good guy named Ross get in the mob because I knew the answer and helped him out since he was in my randomly assigned foursome.

Most trivia games for video games aren't very good. Trivial Pursuit I hear is a dud and the Scene It games are more of a party game. Seeing as I don't throw parties and if I did I would not play video games at them, I found 1 vs. 100 a refreshing change.

You will be missed 1 v. 100. By both

The Top Ten Athletes in Video Game History

10) KEN GRIFFEY JR – KEN GRIFFEY BASEBALL

Whenever a sports game bore the name of a famous athlete, it was safe money that said person was the statistically best player in the game by a mile. There are many worthy contenders out there in various sports genres of players who were leaps and bounds above the competition. But for my money, there was no disparity greater than Ken Griffey Jr.

For some reason, as a child I never mastered the timing to hit the ball in this game. Home runs for me were few and far between. But with Griffey I was sure to hit one out of the park before the ninth. HE was simply the dominant force.

Amusingly, the makers could not get the licenses to use any other real MLB players’ names besides Griffey, so a lot of the teams had puns or interesting quirks about the names.

9) LAWRENCE TAYLOR – TECMO BOWL

While there were a number of super human players in the game besides Bo Jackson, no one dominated the other side of the ball than Lawrence Taylor. By selecting the man who revolutionized the game and the value of a good left tackle, you could guarantee your opponent would never score a field goal or extra point.

If you wanted to score a bunch of touchdowns in Tecmo Bowl, you chose Joe Montana and the 49ers. Even when the opponent guessed your play and crashed the line, you could still dump the ball off the Roger Craig and come away with a few yards. But if you wanted to infuriate your buddy by stopping them from scoring points, you picked the Giants. And you were always L.T.

Taylor was complemented by a great cast of supporting characters who could also get at the quarterback or intercept the ball. But due to the mechanics of the game, you really could do very little to minimize the damage a player-controlled L.T. could do.

Lawrence Taylor had one other redeeming factor that made the Giants my favorite team to play, a fact that was often overlooked. He was the only player who could catch Bo Jackson.

8) WEDGE– FINAL FANTASY X (BLITZBALL)

A fictional game, blitzball featured a team of players trying to score in a game that was a combination of soccer, rugby, water polo and lacrosse… and played underwater. In what can only be called a logical faux pas, the developers failed to explain how players could play this game for five minute periods without oxygen masks.

Wedge was by far worth every dollar spent. If you needed a Winger to score a hat trick, Wedge could over power every goalie. If you needed a strong center that could make plays and score his share of goals, Wedge could do that to. Or if you needed a lethal defender that would ensure the opponent would only get past him through a fluke or computer glitch, look no farther than a slide tackle from Wedge. About the only things Wedge could not do well in blitzball was play goal or do color commentary.

7) HULK HOGAN – WWF WRESTLEMANIA

There have been many wrestling games, but only one had Hulkamania running wild over you. The game featured only a few other characters – Andre the Giant, Honkey Tonk Man, Macho Man Randy Savage, Bam Bam Bigelow and the Million Dollar Man – and none of them could compete with the Hulkster.

No matter what move you performed, you’d drop you opponent to the mat. About the only thing Hulk did that wouldn’t result in an immediate victory was pummeling your victim with the 24 inch pythons. If you wanted to beat the game with anyone else, it would require a cunning strategy, especially against Hulk.

6) MICHAEL VICK - MADDEN 2004

Once upon a time, prior to dog fighting and prison and signing with the Eagles, Michael Vick was considered one of the top quarterbacks in football. And undeniably, Michael Vick was a machine when it came to Madden. While Vick was a tour de force in my personal favorite Madden – 2002 – it was in 2004 that he grew into an unstoppable force.

Michael Vick could do it all. He could run down the field as fast as any RB. He could air it out for 40 yards to a receiver in perfect stride. And trying to defend him was a nightmare. Your entire defense would be predicated on containing Michael Vick.

EA may have eventually leveled the playing field, but it can’t undo the past. And for that, Michael Vick in Madden ’04 is the greatest video game QB of all times.

5) TEAM ARGENTINA – NINTENDO WORLD CUP

I have always been proud to be an American. I feel privileged to be born into the land of the free and the home of the brave on so many levels. That extends to gaming. If I wanted to win at Ice Hockey, I was the USA. In Dodgeball it was the USA. In the Olympics game, it was the USA. In Nintendo World Cup, it was… Argentina.

The beauty of the Nintendo World Cup game was that you could do insanely powerful shots on goals called Power Kicks. The Argentineans would do a bicycle kick that not only would guarantee you a goal, the ball would zigzag all the way across the field and disembowel any player obstructing its course. Please reread that last sentence. The ball would literally send anyone who tried to block it, including the goalie flying off the screen.

The one shame of the game was that you could only do five Super Kicks a half, so despite still being leaps and bounds over all the other competition, Argentina could only inflict bodily harm on half the goals you’d score before the game ended in victory.

4) AMERICAN DREAMS – SNK BASEBALL STARS

Arguably the greatest sports game of all time, the American Dreams lived up their name. While last names were not included, their roster included Sandie Koufax, Cy Young, Dizzy Dean, Pete Rose, Babe Ruth, Joe DiMaggio, Hank Aaron, Willie

Mays, Johnny Bench and Lou Gehrig. The last two were their bench players.

In order to beat them with one of the other six pre-created teams required you to play a perfect game. Not only did you have to manage to produce runs off a pitching staff that makes the 90s Atlanta Braves look shabby, nearly every single pitch you threw had the potential to go out of the park. Pete Rose, the leadoff hitter, was in the “weak part of the order.”

Your only hope to beat them was to create and max out the stats of your own customized team – a major selling point of the game – and even then your chances to win were about 50-50.

The game featured a money system whereby every victory you got with your custom team could be used to upgrade your roster through stat increases to hiring free agents. The rare win against the American Dreams netted you over $100K.

3) JEREMY ROENICK – NHLPA 93

American hockey prowess was at its pinnacle in this game.

For twenty years I’ve called Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania my home. I have had the privilege to watch the greatest hockey players in the world on a nightly basis. For the past twenty years, I dare say there is not a hockey market that has seen the amount of pure hockey talent that Pittsburgh has. And on this classic game, the greatest hockey game ever, I always loved hoisting Lord Stanley with my Pens. I adored Mario Lemieux.

It pains me so much to say it…

But Jeremy Roenick was better. Very few players in the game got 100 ratings (besides Roenick and Lemieux, I can only recall Steve Yzerman and Sergei Federov getting the same honor). And Roenick was the best. He could bloody anyone he came across and steel the puck off them. He had a blazing slap shot. He could make the goalies all look ridiculous.

In what could be the greatest testament to how dominating Jeremy Roenick was in this game, you could let your friends use “the move” while abstaining from its use yourself and still win.

2) MIKE TYSON - MIKE TYSON'S PUNCHOUT

I never beat Mike Tyson.

All it took was one punch and you were out. After staring down the likes of King Hippo, Sandman and Glass Joe, all my effort were for naught against Mike Tyson. Not only did his punches come with blinding speed, but the margin for error was zero. Literally.

As a child beating Mike Tyson was considered the ultimate in video gaming achievements. A buddy managed the feat once at a birthday party and was king of Birch Elementary for a full week.

1) BO JACKSON – TECMO BOWL

There is no athlete in the history of videogame sports as dominant as Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl. Number 34’s dominance in the realm of video games holds a special place that all gamers who had an NES hold dear.

The original Tecmo Bowl featured a play calling system where while on offense you would pick one of four plays. On the other side of the line of scrimmage, the defense could try to guess the offenses’ play and if successful the entire team would crash the line and the resulting play was sack or lack of yards.

Whenever the Raiders were your opponent, your only defensive strategy was to select Up-A. Run 1, as I always called it, is the modern day equivalent of the HB off tackle featuring Bo. If you didn’t select it, this was the result.

Once you got him out in the open, the only thing that could literally stop you from extending the play indefinitely were boredom, finger cramps or a power outage.