Are you ready for some baseball?
Batter up? This week's surprising game is a classic baseball game with a self-describing name. The N64 sees some more love with a love-it or hate-it release; see which one our recommending staffer thinks it is. Also, a crappy Genesis shooter. Something for everyone, it seems!
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World Class Baseball
| System | Virtual Console - TurboGrafx-16 |  |
| Cost | 600 Points | |
| Players | 2 | |
| Controllers | Wii Remote,Wii Nunchuk,GameCube | |
| ESRB Rating | Everyone | |
| Released | Dec 1989 |
Click here for a video preview
Coming out of left field is this diamond of a baseball game. At its core, World Class Baseball is not unlike the simple arcade baseball titles of its era. However, what makes this game earn its moniker are the small details. The batting and pitching motions are surprisingly fluid. If you hit a home run, you'll see yor player wave his arms in the air from the top-down view as he heads for home plate. And my favorite, it you get hit by a pitch, your batsman will really look like he's hurting, even with a scant few frames of animation. It's a dandy, graphically.
But even better, it's well fleshed-out in terms of gameplay. You can change the rosters and lineups of all 12 teams in the game, including calling up farm prospects. You can call for defensive shifts and shore up to bunt. The game even keeps track of statistics and keeps you updated on changes from inning to inning. I think that's impressive, and as such it's more than enough to recommend this game to anyone that likes America's pastime.
Yoshi's Story
| System | Virtual Console - Nintendo 64 |  |
| Cost | 1000 Points | |
| Players | 1 | |
| Controllers | Wii Nunchuk,GameCube | |
| ESRB Rating | Everyone | |
| Released | Year 1998 |
Click here for a video preview
Yoshi's Story is truly one of the gems of the N64 library. It's a psuedo-sequel to Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, and the gameplay remains largely the same. The largest difference is in the graphics department, where the hand-drawn pastel look from Yoshi's Island has been replaced by a bizarre, 2.5D "sewn" look. Baby Bowser has turned Yoshi's Island into a storybook, and the result is that everything looks plush, cardboard, or something in between. It's a wonderful aesthetic, complimented by the impressive texture effects. Yoshi's Story progresses in a strange, non-linear way. Each level is broken into several stages, and you only have to play through one of them to complete the level. The challenge comes from the fact that you do not clear a stage by getting to a goal. Rather, you seek out 30 pieces of fruit. Depending on your Yoshi's color, various fruits will give different scores. If you want the biggest challenge (and best score), try finding the 30 Melons which are hidden throughout each stage.
Yoshi runs through the stage in a giant loop, eating fruit and avoiding familiar enemies like Shy-Guys and giant fish. There are all sorts of interesting movement systems in the game as well, from a flying sea dragon to a bunch of zig-zagging smiling ... things. No matter which stage you pick in a given level, the amount of variety within that stage is staggering. Now, there are some stages which present cheap deaths, but hey—this is a 2D platformer. It's expected! But I can't recommend Yoshi's Story enough for its variable gameplay and incredible charm.
Super Thunder Blade
| System | Virtual Console - Genesis |  |
| Cost | 800 Points | |
| Players | 1 | |
| Controllers | Wii Remote,Wii Nunchuk,GameCube | |
| ESRB Rating | Everyone | |
| Released | Year 1989 |
Click here for a video preview
Imagine playing the SNES version of Star Fox, only instead of an Arwing fighter you get to pilot a helicopter. That's the basic gameplay of Super Thunder Blade, a shooter played from the behind-the-tail view. Swarms of enemy helicopters, jet fighters, and tanks come into view on the horizon and shoot balls of firey death at you, and you need to avoid their shots while gunning them down with your own. Your machine guns and homing missiles fire automatically, so it's really just a matter of keeping your finger on the trigger and dodging the incoming attacks.
Trying to find a safe spot among all the sprites on the screen is difficult, especially because the advancing horizon scrolling is a bit jerky. (Mode 7 scrolling, this ain't.) As a result, it's very easy to die in this game. Truth be told, it's a little boring, too. There's not much in Super Thunder Blade to recommend it to anyone. So I won't!
Thanks to VG Museum for some of this week's classic screenshots.
I've never heard so much praise for that game in one paragraph before. Truly one of the gems of the N64 library? On the N64? Really? Yoshi's Story is one of the gems of a console that had Super Mario 64, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark and two of the very best Zelda games? 
