Home Run

Home Run

Atari 2600 - USA - 1st edition.

Developer Atari Publisher Atari, Sears, Roebuck and Co. Published 1978-??-?? Platforms Atari 2600 Genres Action, Sports, Single-screen Themes Sports Multiplayer Simultaneous versus Distribution Commercial

Home Run is a baseball-themed sports video game developed and published by Atari in 1978 for the Atari 2600.

When the Intellivision was released in 1979, their marketing team compared their launch title, Major League Baseball, with Home Run, starting the first console war.

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	Yes. Game 1, hard difficulty.
Finished	2024-07-08.

My family bought a used Atari 2600 bundle from a garage sale in the mid-1980s and this game was included in the titles. I remember thinking it was kind of fun, but never being very interested with it at the time. When my brother and I would alternate between games, I would sometimes ask him if he wanted to play this game with me, but he told me that it would count as my game, so he would get to choose the next game, and wouldn't necessarily choose another 2-player game. This always frustrated me when I was seven years old, because I felt like it should also count as his game since he was playing too (I now agree with him). After we replaced our Atari with an NES, my mom forced us to give our 2600 to our cousin, and I never got another copy of the game in any of the subsequent Atari bundles I bought.

I don't remember if I ever beat the AI when I was a child, but, considering my age, I doubt it. I replayed the game as an adult and beat the AI in game 1 (only one fielder) on my first attempt. It took me two more attempts to beat the AI on hard mode with a final score of 4 to 13.

Review

3	3	2	1	2

Best Version: Atari 2600

Good

• When playing in two-player mode, the game isn't entirely objectionable, and even fun for a little while.
• I like how you're given a fair deal of control over the ball when pitching. You can not only curve the ball, but also adjust its speed.
• Letting players choose the layout of their fielders is a nice variation.
• At the time, an AI still wasn't fully expected, so, it's nice the developers took the extra step (even if it is poorly designed).
• If you bean the batter, they get a free base, which is unexpected considering how primitive the game is.
• The ability to handicap a superior player is a welcome addition.

Bad

• For some reason, when playing against the AI, the player has to use the second controller.

Ugly

• Although the game captures some of the fundamentals of baseball, its so abstract, it's missing everything else. As previous reviewers have noted, the game has more in common with stickball than baseball. For example:
  • The fielding team can only have a maximum of three players who move in tandem.
  • From a fielding standpoint, every hit is treated as a grounder.
  • You can only get a home run if you hit the ball straight and it is not caught.
  • You can't control individual runners, only all of them at once. They will keep running the bases until the ball is fielded, or you can make all of them stop at the next base by pressing your button. Those are your only options.
• The AI is both relentless and terrible. It will properly field every ball, making it impossible to get a home run, but it alsomakes no direct attempt to stop runners. Instead, it just fields the ball and returns to second base, forcing an out if there is a man running to second. If a man is running from second to third or third to home, the AI will just watch them go, even if they had time to tag them out.
• The game is media challenged. The graphics are little more than stick men, there is no music, and the sound is horrible. There isn't any title or opening graphics, and no winning fanfare.

Media

Cover Art

Cliff Spohn painted a fantastic collage of various baseball related scenes, but, as is the norm with Atari, the cover promises far more than the game can deliver.

• 

  Atari 2600 - USA - First edition.

• 

  Atari 2600 - USA - 1981 revision - Uses a different text color.

Documents

• 

  Manual.

Documents

• 

  Game 4 uses three fielders.

Videos

Review.

Commercial with Pete Rose.

Play Online

Atari 2600

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	There are no women.
Bechdel test?	Fail	There are no women.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	The players don't have a clear race.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no queer characters.

Credits

Role	Staff
Programmers	David Rolfe, Robert Whitehead
Box Art	Cliff Spohn

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
English (North America)	Home Run
English (Sears release)	Baseball

Links