I was never really big into sports titles. I think this was because I wasn't really into sports growing up despite always looking forward to gym class (the one class where you don't hold a pencil with a paper in front you). There were exceptions, though. I really enjoyed Double Dribble on the NES and later on, NBA Jam was a basketball game I could not get enough of. As time went on, I found out those were arcade style sports games and not simulators, hence why I gravitated to them and was probably why I liked Extra Innings as a tyke.
During one of my family's many trips to Blockbuster Video (RIP), we rented some SNES games. I believe we rented two games, one of them being Extra Innings and I'm pretty sure that was my dad's pick. The SNES cart was decorated with a realistic looking baseball player swinging his bat. With that image firmly in my mind (back in those days, we could see the SNES cart while the game was playing), I thought we would be in for some sort of hyper realistic baseball experience. I was still willing to give the game a go in spite of this.
Booting up Extra Innings completely shattered any thoughts of playing realistic baseball the video game. It had a title drop (which was probably the first time I ever heard one in a game) and displayed with the title were two cheerleaders and a baseball player, all three of which looked very cartoonish. Ah, a classic case of covers always lie. Not that I felt betrayed or anything. That just made getting into the game that much easier.
Everything about Extra Innings had a cute look to it. The field view after you hit a ball, the menu screen and it was all so inviting to a player like me who always felt intimidated by real world sports. Music was very jovial and got stuck in my head. To this day, I can still recall most if not all of the music. Two of my favorite scenes involved players at bat. When you scored a home run, the player would run to home with the peace sign up while the cheerleaders cheered. When you were struck out at bat, your player would take the bat and snap it in two over their leg and as a kid, that never failed to make me laugh.
When I was 15, I picked up a used copy of Extra Innings. I still have the game to this day. Now a days, I can see it a slow, bare bones arcade style baseball game. That said, I'm still happy that my dad rented this game all those years ago. In spite of it being sluggish and lacking in features compared to other titles in the genre, I can still have some fun with it.
Screenshots take from mento, calaggie from Giant Bomb
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