Designed and written by Ian Morrison and David J. Anderson for Platinum Productions, with music by Robin Muir, and loading screen by Frederick David Thorpe. Originally published for the Sinclair ZX Spectrum by Imagine Software in 1985.
Commodore 64 version written by David A. Collier, with loading screen by Frederick David Thorpe. Originally published by Imagine Software in 1985, and re-released in North America as "The Slugger" by Mastertronic in 1986.
Amstrad CPC, Commodore 16 and Plus/4 versions have no detailed credits. Amstrad CPC and C16/+4 versions published by Imagine Software in 1985.
IBM-PC conversion written by Randall Don Masteller, and published as "The Slugger" by Mastertronic in 1986.
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INTRODUCTION & GAME STATUS
Quite possibly the first baseball game that I ever played was this classic from Imagine Software, just released around the time the company was being bought by Ocean Software at the end of 1985. If I have understood correctly, World Series Baseball and its only sequel, the Spectrum-only World Series Basketball, were the last titles published under the original Imagine flag, so now being the game's 40th anniversary, I thought it a good time to finally make its comparison.
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DESCRIPTION & REVIEW
Baseball is one of those sports, that has been turned into a video/computer game from the earliest days of video gaming, with DEC's Baseball from 1971 on the PDP-10 system being practically the first playable one. Still, it wasn't until Nintendo's Baseball from 1983 that the game reached true enjoyability, which probably acted as a catalyst for making the sport a properly viable arcade game. One of its most unlikely reincarnations came from the United Kingdom in the form of Imagine's World Series Baseball, which shows its disregard for understanding American sports by including a half-time cheerleading show number.
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| The American cover art for the Mastertronic release. |
Apart from certain unorthodox elements, World Series Baseball is one of those games that offer a whole lot of nothing but nostalgia for gamers today, since sport games in particular evolved so much between 1985 and 2005, that for any sports fanatic that wants to have a simulator-like sports gaming experience, old games are best served as memories. For a baseball game from the mid-80's, though, World Series Baseball is one of the more recommendable ones, since it's a solid step in the evolution, and I would even go so far as to say, the best one of its kind on the ZX Spectrum, if not quite as good as Nintendo's earlier effort. Whether or not this holds true for the other 8-bits will be seen during the course of this comparison.
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LOADING
Not counting the somewhat unexpected PC version, we have a rather large collection of tape versions of World Series Baseball to dig through. Obviously, the game was released later in disk format as well, when Ocean released some compilations, such as Game, Set & Match, in disk format, but cassettes are what we're interested in.
AMSTRAD, original: 3 minutes 56 seconds
AMSTRAD, GS&M: 4 minutes 14 seconds
COMMODORE 16: 7 minutes 9 seconds
COMMODORE PLUS/4: 8 minutes 19 seconds
C64, original: 3 minutes 11 seconds
C64, Ocean/Hit Squad: 3 minutes 54 seconds
C64, Erbe/Hit Squad: 10 minutes 3 seconds
SPECTRUM, original: 3 minutes 20 seconds
SPECTRUM, Hit Squad: 4 minutes 22 seconds
SPECTRUM, Erbe: 4 minutes 39 seconds
All the non-PC versions load up normally, as one would expect for games to load on their respective platforms, except the C16 and PLUS/4 versions. Both of these actually need to be first booted up with the LOAD"",1,1 command, and once the booting program has loaded in, the rest of the loading is activated by typing in SYS 1536. Naturally, the instructions provided with the game's inlay tell you so, but in case you ever wondered and had not thought of looking therein, that's how it goes.
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| Loading screens, where available. Top row, left to right: Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, IBM-PC compatibles. Bottom row: Commodore 64 variations. |
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PLAYABILITY
In most versions, immediately upon booting up, you are taken straight to the overhead view of the baseball field, and you have no clear idea what to do, if you don't have an original version of the game, which would have the instructions. The original SPECTRUM version is the only one to have a clear start: it boots up to a title screen (which is basically the same as the loading screen), which can be passed by pressing any key, and you are then taken to a proper options menu. From the menu, you can actually view the instructions on how to play the game; alter controls to suit your preferences; choose the number of players (one or two); change the number of innings between three, six and nine; and finally, select the difficulty level from easy, fair and hard. When you decide start the game, you get a chance to name your team, but if you decide against naming, you will be Player 1.
The way the other versions handle the options is through a series of key prompts shown in the large display at the end of the field. The C64 version asks for the number of players, with the chosen number being shown on the screen; F3 selects a single-player mode, and F5 goes for two players. Player one uses a joystick in port 1, and player two uses port 2. The next item to choose is team colours, again chosen with F3 and F5 for home team and away team. F7 starts the game. In the C16 and PLUS/4 versions, the only thing you can select is whether there's one or two human players playing, by using F1 and F2 to highlight, and F4 to select, even though it says F7 on the screen.
The AMSTRAD version requires you to press ESC to get out of the demo mode and restart the game, but that might take a while, because the demo mode seems to take a lot of processing power, so pressing the key doesn't register most of the time. Once you have managed to get into the options, you can logically use the keys prompted for each thing. If you choose to play on keyboard, you're out of luck, because there are no keyboard controls mentioned in the manual, nor do you get a chance to define the keys. I managed to find the fire button, which is Shift, and comma (,) and dot (.) are left and right, but the up and down controls are yet to be found.
Running the PC version starts with what's basically the loading screen, which is practically unnecessary, but stays on the screen for about 10 seconds or so. I tried to skip it by pressing all the keys on the keyboard, but the screen just switched to the credits sequence on its own accord at some point. After the credits, the game automatically gives you the game options, which are chosen similarly to the C64 version by pressing the designated keys for each given option: the number of players with F3 and F5, game speed with numbers 1 through 8, and again, F3 and F5 to choose team colours, and F7 to start the game. Because of the game's age, it's probably appropriate to use the slowest speed (1), and adjust your DOSbox's CPU cycle speed accordingly to make the game playable.
As you probably are well aware, playing baseball is like two halves of the same coin - the other side is the perfect opposite of the other. How it basically goes in World Series Baseball is thus: when you're the one at the bat and trying to score runs, you will only need the fire button to do anything, but you can adjust your speed and height of bat swing by using the joystick during the ball's flight. The game's instructions also mention something about stealing runs, that moving the joystick up or down while the ball is in the field can move one of the runners, if you want to try to advance him to the next base.
There is a lot more to do when it's your turn to pitch and try to "out" the other team. (It feels weird to me to see it written like that in the manual, since the term in Finnish baseball is to "burn" the player, but I'm going to continue using "out" here for the sake of accuracy.) When you're pitching, you can vary the speed of delivery by moving the joystick left or right, and the height of delivery with up or down. These have to be selected before actually throwing, so do your selections before pressing the fire button to throw the ball. If the hitter strikes, you need to throw the ball back to the pitcher before the game can commence. If the hitter manages to get the ball moving, the game will automatically choose the field player, which is calculated to be the closest to where the ball will land, for you to control. Unless you catch the ball straight on, it's an "out" for the hitter, but if you need to pick the ball up, the player does it automatically upon walking over it. Then, to throw the ball to any of the bases, you keep the joystick to the direction of the base from the pitcher and press the fire button, and if you want to throw the ball straight to the pitcher, you keep the joystick to the middle while pressing the button. To "out" a running player, the player at each base needs to have the ball in his possession and at the correct spot at his designated base to be able to "out" the player, or if a field player is holding the ball, he can try to reach a runner between bases and tag him there. I'm not completely sure if all this works as intended in any version, because I haven't been able to pull off all these actions while I've been writing this comparison.
While the basics of gameplay are there, and should be uniform for all five (or six) versions of the game, we do have more immediate problems than anything regarding the rules. What makes the SPECTRUM version playable during your batting turns is a combination of the CPU player's reaction time to where the ball is flying, the field players' running speed compared to the ball's flying speed, and the running speed of the players who are batting and running. It's all in good balance, and the CPU field players catch the ball mid-flight just as rarely as any reasonably good human player would. While you're pitching and fielding, though, the same balance of running and ball-flying speeds applies, but also, the pitching controls and the visibility and flight time as viewed on the big screen are perfect and adequately visible at necessary times.
In the C64 version, the batting turns are horrendous. Hitting the ball itself is not the problem, but rather the running and ball-flying speeds are unbalanced, and the ball always seems to fly straight towards any CPU field player, so even if you could manage to get the ball far enough to make it necessary for someone to throw it to a base you're running towards, there is a high probability that you're still going to get an "out". Whenever the CPU player takes the turn at batting, they're more than likely to not only hit the ball far from any one of your field men, but hitting a home run happens about 66% of the time that I have witnessed. Also, your field men have a ridiculously bad throwing technique, often throwing the ball to either the top-most base instead of, say, the right corner, or the pitcher instead of the bottom base. Another problem I found that sometimes, when the ball goes clearly to a foul area from a CPU player's hit, it doesn't register as a foul. It's just ridiculous, but while it's certainly a cheap approximation of the SPECTRUM original, it's not completely unplayable, either. Because the American C64 re-release is still the same game that was released in Europe, it gets no separate entry.
When I found out that there are actually two separate versions for the C16 and PLUS/4, I didn't expect the differences between the two to be so vast. Neither did I expect both of them being so much more unplayable than the C64 version, which I thought was already pretty bad. Since I played the PLUS/4 version first, I shall do my report on that one before C16.
I began my turn at the batting side in the PLUS/4 version, and it was the quickest turn I had ever had in any virtual baseball game. All three strikes for a player came within three seconds, and the next two batters didn't get any better, apart from maybe a Foul or a Ball, both of which were hardly slower at getting dismissed as a Strike. All in all, I think my first turn on the batting side took me just about 12 seconds. The biggest problem is the speed at which the ball is thrown at you, and you only have about three microseconds to hit the ball, once it reaches your end on the big screen. Once you do, it's really a game of chance to hit the ball, rather than anything to do with practice and accuracy. So far, not good at all. When it suddenly became my turn to pitch, it actually wasn't much better for the CPU, though the CPU team did have some luck getting some team members on bases, but because the way the ball flies and your field men run and throw, it was actually easier to fight against the CPU team here than in the C64 version. But if you don't have much of a chance getting runs, then what's the point?
The C16 version actually has a more sedate speed when the game is playing the pitching-and-batting animations, than the PLUS/4 version. Speaking of animations, though, there is a considerable lack of them compared to the PLUS/4 and C64 versions, so it became much easier even to hit the ball here, once you figured out the time frame where you would need to hit it. For once, the players' and ball's speeds are a bit more balanced, and running the bases is almost as possible as in the SPECTRUM original. Unfortunately, the field playing, while certainly clearer with the highlighted players than in any other version so far, if compared to the rules in the original instructions, is equally incorrectly made as the C64 version, because the game hardly ever automatically selects the field player supposedly closest to the area where the ball lands. Somehow, though, the C16 version feels overall better to play than the more evolved PLUS/4 version.
In the AMSTRAD version, the balance problem between running and ball-flying speeds from the COMMODORE versions, continues. At least the time you get to prepare for the eventualities is similar to what you get in the C64 and SPECTRUM versions. What I found supremely annoying is, that you need to push the fire button to swing the bat at exactly the moment when the ball has just reached your exact location, so I imagine the idea behind it is, that the ball doesn't move from that point forwards while your bat is on the swing. Doesn't feel logical to the least, but that's how it works here. When it's your turn to do the pitching and fielding, the AMSTRAD version works surprisingly well. The automatic field player selection for when the ball is flying seems to work more or less as intended, and the controls feel surprisingly good. In this version, I have had more success at "outing" the CPU runners than in any other version apart from the SPECTRUM original. Overall, it's still not nearly as playable as the original, but so far, it's the closest one.
Finally, the apparently unfavourable DOS version. Just to give you some context, The Slugger's PC version's native setting would likely be an Intel 80386-based computer with EGA graphics, but even that seems to make the game run too fast in DOSbox, so I always take down CPU cycles a few notches to make the game playable. You start the game on the pitching and fielding side, where this version plays surprisingly faultlessly. The running and ball-flying speed balance is tolerable, if not good; the ball's flight paths have a fair randomness and reach to them, making them relatively easy to catch and/or throw to bases; and the collision detection is much more accurate than in any of the game's versions released since the original. The only thing that's still not quite as intended is the automatic field player selection when the ball starts flying, but at least it's not nearly as bad as in the COMMODORE versions. Batting, on the other hand, is a bit uncomfortable due to the lack of smoothness in the close-up animation, but at least with adjustable speed in DOSbox, you can make it easier for yourself to hit the ball. It's just that the ball gets very difficult to see within the clouds, and the batter gets shown so late in the animation that it's hard to focus on when to hit. Still, it's much better than in any of the COMMODORE versions, and even slightly better than the AMSTRAD version. Probably because The Slugger was modified for American gamers, the cheerleaders were dropped from the game, making it a more fluid experience without waiting around for nonsense, but it does take away some of the original game's unique charm.
There is a considerable contrast between the original SPECTRUM version and all the others, already in the amount of given options, some of which actually add to and alter the game's content significantly. As if that weren't enough, the playability is so much more balanced in the original compared to most versions, that there can be no doubt about the winner for this section. The bottom half of the Playability comparison is uncommonly completely occupied by the three COMMODORE versions, and the somewhat unfathomably disliked PC version is actually quite a bit better than expected.
1. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM
2. IBM-PC COMPATIBLES
3. AMSTRAD CPC
4. COMMODORE 64
5. COMMODORE 16
6. COMMODORE PLUS/4
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GRAPHICS
Because the game is played entirely in one screen, and the vast majority of details are shown in the close-ups on the big screen at the back of the field, there shouldn't be too much to talk about here. But like IK+ showed us in the previous comparison, there are games that can surprise you, so let's see what we have here.
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| Title screens/sequences, where available. Bottom row: IBM-PC compatibles. Top row, left to right: Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC. |
As you can see, the SPECTRUM original does a clever thing by repurposing the loading screen by showing the results of the previous game at the bottom left corner, although in the screen that is shown after loading, you see the two surnames of the people responsible for the game in the place of team names. The C64 and AMSTRAD versions have the game title shown on the large screen at the back of the field, with the AMSTRAD version having a bit more graphics on it. The PC version actually goes on to feature a title sequence after the somewhat unnecessary loading screen, with three pages shown on the close-up display before the options appear. Neither the C16 nor the PLUS/4 version actually feature a title screen; they start up straight into the options.
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| Options screens. Top row, left to right: Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Commodore Plus/4. Middle left: Amstrad CPC / Middle right: Commodore 16. Bottom row: IBM-PC compatibles. |
All the other versions go through the game options one by one inside the big screen at the back of the field, with the number of options being the most notable variable. The C64 and PC versions give you the chance of altering both team colours simultaneously, while the AMSTRAD version lets you change only one team's colour at a time, so it looks a bit different. The C16 and PLUS/4 versions only have one option screen, which is for choosing the number of players.
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| In-game screenshots from the Sinclair ZX Spectrum version. |
Although I included only two colours in the above screenshots, you can select your team colours before starting the game. The selectable colours are: white, black, blue, red, purple, green and yellow. Oddly, though, while playing, the only colour you see worn anywhere on the field is the colour of the team out on the field. However, this doesn't translate to the close-ups, so whatever the primary colour is at any given time, the colours shown in the close-ups are black for the pitcher and white for the batter. All this can be a bit confusing, but at least the animations are all rather smooth and well-animated, so it's all very easy on the eyes. The info panel at the bottom is clear enough, but rather uninteresting to look at, with only black text over yellow background.
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| In-game screenshots from the Amstrad CPC version. |
Probably the most woeful thing about the AMSTRAD version is the flickery animations, which are sometimes a bit unstable in their running speed. It is even more inconvenient in the close-up view, where the ball can easily get lost in the clouds already without the flickering. In a vain attempt at hiding the problem, you are given - if I have counted them correctly - no less than 26 colours to be chosen for the teams. While certainly an impressive amount of colours, it is a bit unnecessary, when you can have only two teams on the field simultaneously. The info area is now split into two clearly defined halves - the left side has innings, strikes and outs, and the right side has team scores, all in yellow text over black background.
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| In-game screenshots from the Commodore 64 version. |
Teams have 16 available colours to choose from, which is really the limit of the C64 palette, so it's only to be expected. The C64 players are slightly better featured than the chunky AMSTRAD ones, yet equally shadowed. What's more important, though, is that the animations are smoother and lacking almost entirely of flickering, but the close-ups are still difficult to look at. Finally, the info panels have some colour here with each item on both sides of the screen written in a different colour. The font is a bit on the ugly side, but it still works fine.
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| In-game screenshots from the Commodore 16 (top row) and Plus/4 (bottom row) versions. |
When I first played the C16 and PLUS/4 versions back-to-back, I didn't really notice much of a difference between the two. When I combined these screenshots into one set, I was shocked at how much I had missed previously. In the PLUS/4 version, there's a lot more background graphics (mountains and buildings in the distance), the animations are more animated and the big screen has a lot more information than in the C16 version. Also, all the colours are slightly different, and the info panels are inverted. What struck me as the most peculiar thing about these two versions compared to all the others, is that the baseball field now finally has the correct amount of sanding, instead of just the top half or even none. Unfortunately, it's the big screen close-up bits that make these difficult to enjoy, because of the lack of animation frames and lack of time to react.
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| In-game screenshots from the IBM-PC version. |
Remarkably, the PC version is modeled after both C64 and PLUS/4 versions. The EGA graphics allow for 16 colours, so you basically have all of that to choose your team colours from - a possibility that was not included in either the C16 or PLUS/4 version. The players, field and its surroundings look pretty much exactly as they appear in the PLUS/4 version, with some colour alterations, but the info panels' font is taken from the C64 version, which is now lacking the special colours. The animations have been made just about as nicely as what you get on the C64, although there is some noticeable flickering going on, so the big screen view is still slightly problematic. All in all, not nearly the worst.
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| Screenshots from the cheerleading sequences where available, left to right: Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC. |
This time, the SPECTRUM version wins this round fair and square, in practically all terms except for one - the team colours are the same for both, and change priority for the team doing the field turn. There's just so much more content, and the animations are smoother, which makes a whole lot of difference. From the others, the C64 and PC versions are the smoothest-running ones and nicest looking, and the C64 version tops the PC version by the power of cheerleaders. The AMSTRAD version looks otherwise rather nice, but the animations are not very smooth and it suffers the most from severe flicker. The C16 version is obviously the least presentable, but considering the hardware, it's no wonder; the PLUS/4 version meanwhile tries hard, and on surface looks similar to the PC version, but feels unbalanced and hurried in its animations.
1. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM
2. COMMODORE 64
3. IBM-PC COMPATIBLES
4. AMSTRAD CPC
5. COMMODORE PLUS/4
6. COMMODORE 16
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SOUNDS
Now we come to the unavoidable part, where the SPECTRUM version gets trumped (excuse the expression) by one version or another, by simply having an actual sound chip available to play music and effects through instead of a single channel beeper. That said, things aren't as grim as one could imagine.
Once the game has eventually booted up, the slightly altered loading screen greets you with a beeper version of the German-American composer Abe Holzmann's classic march tune "Blaze Away!", originally published in 1901. The options menu has a couple of different sound effects to go nicely with the screen transitions, and the second tune in the soundtrack comes on when the game is allowed to start - this one being the obvious U.S. national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner", only in a thankfully abbreviated version, cutting off after the first third of the melody. More beepy and choppy sound effects are played during play, when you hit the ball or a run is completed, but otherwise, the innings are rather quiet. Not even during a home run do you get anything out of the ordinary in the SPECTRUM original. When the cheerleaders come in to dance between some of the innings, they dance to the tune of John Philip Sousa's "The Stars and Stripes Forever", another classic march used in American military and sporting events. This is what you will have to make do with in the original SPECTRUM version.
Just to get the worst out of the way, the PC version has no real sounds that utilize the beeper to any extent, just a tap noise when the ball is hit or caught, and neither of the sounds always register properly.
The second worst is the COMMODORE 16 version, which only features randomly booming audience noise and tap noises for the ball being hit or getting caught. So basically, just one step up from the PC version. Unfortunately, the PLUS/4 version doesn't upgrade on the sound department at all, so these two get a tied second-to-last place here.
With only the AMSTRAD and C64 versions left, I suppose it's only fair to continue with the former, seeing as the C64 usually has an unfair advantage with the SID chip. In terms of sound effects, you basically get the same set of sounds as in all the others that have more than one sound effect: a tap noise and some audience noise. So far, the AMSTRAD version's audience is the best defined, with a fade-in and sometimes a fade-out. Compared to the SPECTRUM soundtrack, the title screen's "Blaze Away!" and the cheerleader part's "The Stars and Stripes Forever" have been kept in, and upgraded with a three-voice arrangement. The national anthem has been left out, but it has been replaced with a shortened (and cut-off) version of another Sousa march, "The Washington Post", which plays only during home runs. I suppose all that qualifies as a win over the original.
In terms of the quality of the music's instrumentation, the C64 version isn't all that much better than the AMSTRAD version. What it does deliver with instead, is all four tunes that were available in the previous versions in glorious three-voice SID goodness. Additionally, there are three noticeably different sound effects here: an audience noise that sounds like a slowly fading ocean wave, a "thud-swish" for hitting the ball, and a crash noise for "outing" a runner. What I find a bit sad here, is that even without too much of an attempt, the C64 version's soundtrack is easily the best of the three that even have a soundtrack.
1. COMMODORE 64
2. AMSTRAD CPC
3. SINCLAIR ZX SPECTRUM
4. COMMODORE 16 & PLUS/4
5. IBM-PC COMPATIBLES
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OVERALL + VIDEO
In the end, what we can prove here, as we have done time and time again, is that the platform on which the game was primarily developed on/for, at the very least has the most optimal version of the game, if not clearly the best. While the C64 version "shines" with its soundtrack, it's hardly something to put more value on than, say, gameplay. And here are the often stupidly mathematical results:
1. ZX SPECTRUM: Playability 6, Graphics 6, Sounds 3 = TOTAL 15
2. COMMODORE 64: Playability 3, Graphics 5, Sounds 5 = TOTAL 13
3. AMSTRAD CPC: Playability 4, Graphics 3, Sounds 4 = TOTAL 11
4. IBM-PC: Playability 5, Graphics 4, Sounds 1 = TOTAL 10
5. COMMODORE 16: Playability 2, Graphics 1, Sounds 2 = TOTAL 5
5. COMMODORE PLUS/4: Playability 1, Graphics 2, Sounds 2 = TOTAL 5
The winner is the ZX Spectrum, as clear as it has any reason to be, even with FRGCB's scoring system. I don't necessarily agree too much with the spots 2 to 4, because the PC version does play notably better than the C64 and CPC versions, but it is woeful in the sound department. If you want to have an optimally good version of World Series Baseball, with good gameplay, nice graphics and good sounds, you're out of luck, because the best you can do is go with the Spectrum original.
Here's a video accompaniment for this comparison, compiled by yours truly, to point the obvious a little bit further:
Because I do enjoy World Series Baseball for what it is, particularly the Spectrum original, I do kind of wish I could make a comparison of the game's only sequel - World Series Basketball - but as it is, the sequel was only ever published on the ZX Spectrum.
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| Screenshots from World Series Basketball (Spectrum-only) |
That's August 2025 wrapped up right there, I hope you enjoyed this one! Thanks for reading (and watching); see you next time!
I had (and have) the US Mastertronic version of World Series Baseball. It wasn't a bad game at all, but it did get a few things wrong. Baseball obviously doesn't have cheerleaders, but, more importantly, it missed the very basic rule that if the home team is leading after the top of the 9th inning, the game should end. Instead, the home team ALWAYS plays the bottom of the 9th. Very odd in a game that otherwise is solid.
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