Spring, 1994

The burbs, USA

Timmy has been mowing the lawn and taking Rufus on walks even more than usual this spring and his parents aren’t sure why. It’s not because he’s trying to be more helpful to his parents because he still refuses to clean up the dog poop in the yard. It’s not because he wants to increase his chances of running into his crush two houses down because he’s actually been walking Rufus up the street to avoiding a potential run-in. It is because he’s desperately trying to earn some more allowance money. You see, baseball season is right around the corner and Timmy is jazzed. He thinks the Expos are a dark horse to win the Series and he even thinks Matt Williams has a shot at 60 homers.

But reading the Suburbia Gazette box scores every morning and watching SportsCenter doesn’t cost money, at least not for Timmy. He’s saving up his allowance money because this season he’s going to take his fandom and baseball saturation to the next level by buying a baseball video game!

If he keeps up his current Rufus walking, dish cleaning, laundry folding, crush avoiding, lawn mowing pace he figures to have enough money saved up in three weeks. Just in time for the real life baseball season to start and just enough time to get informed and hyped about which game he will choose to buy.

Deciding which game to buy is no easy choice because this is 1994, after all. Baseball video games rained down from the sky every spring in the late 80’s and 90’s and 1994 was the peak of this downpour. 10 baseball video games came out in 1994. 10 freaking games.

How is Timmy supposed to handle this kind of decision? Things are never simple for 11 year olds.

Ahh, but that’s where we come in. We are here to simulate all of the information gathering, consciously or subconsciously, that Timmy will be going through over the next three weeks. We’ll break down all the components for each game that might catch Timmy’s eye and help him on this life changing decision.

Things like:

The Name of the Game - More important than people often think. Does this game sound cool?

The Cover Design - Is it eye-popping enough to make Timmy want to pick it up for a further look?

The Back of the Box Claim - How does all the nonsense, information and pictures make the game sound?

Advertisements/Promos/Taglines - How much do these ads get the imagination spinning on what it’s like to have the product.

While often convincing, these things don’t always give Timmy the truth about a product. That’s where word of mouth can help. Thankfully Timmy has always been pals with the playground’s information gatekeeper, Clark. Clark oozes video game knowledge. He spends recess on the swing set --not actually swinging-- but hunched over the latest edition of EGM, Game Informer or Nintendo Power. Clark and his insights are the final piece of valuable information for Timmy to use in his decision.

Let’s get to the games!