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Hi, all! My name is Keyz and I am addicted to "Bad News Baseball" (Hi, Keyz!!). I am also a huge fan of Tecmo Super Bowl and have enjoyed the mods for many wonderful hours. The work that has gone into that project has inspired me to modding and it is time for me to give something back. That I am doing in the form of a guide for team replacement for Bad News Baseball, which has been deemed by many to be not only the most enjoyable baseball video game on the NES, but in video gaming of all time! When it comes to changing stats, several members have come up with a comprehensive thread covering that located here (http://tecmobowl.org/forums/topic/51349-player-statsabilities-for-bad-news-baseball/), so I will not be rehashing that myself. This is purely for replacing team names, graphics, color, and player names. I will be posting (for lack of a better term) articles throughout the coming weeks as I am still working my way through my first complete mod. With that, here we go. STEP 1 - I LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN COMES TOGETHER This is something I really wish I had known before I started. It pays to PLAN! Before you change a single bit of hex code or change a single pixel, you will want to plan your new participation and how they are organized. Here is a spreadsheet I came up with for just that purpose. This is essentially the information you will want to have at the ready before you dig into the ROM. Here is a breakdown of what is going on here. POSITION - This is the number of the team position on the select screen. Position 1 is San Francisco (S.F.). When you press down on the cross, the Position 2 team is Toronto, Position 3 is Detroit, and so on. TEAM - This column lists the teams you are adding to the game. REPLACE - These are the original teams you will be replacing as they match up with their Position in the team select screen. 8 CHAR. NAME - This column give you a place to come up with an 8-character version of the team name that will represent the new teams in the game. HELM. COLOR - This is the descriptive term for the players' helmet color as well as the color of the sleeves and shoes. You want this to be the darker of the two colors as it also represents the color of the "outlines". HELM. CODE - This is the hex code of the helmet/sleeves/shoes color according to the standard NES color palette (see below). UNI. COLOR - This is the descriptive term for the players' uniform color UNI. CODE - This is the hex code of the uniform color. When you review my spreadsheet, you may ask "Why do you have new Toronto in a different position than the original Toronto". Originally, this was because I noticed, when it came to coming up with the graphics for the "scoreboard", Tecmo though it was best to save bytes by recycling the first block over an addition team several times. Apparently, the game would have burst into flames had they done it any other way. Mmm-hmm. Anyway, there are 3 pairs of teams that share first-block scoreboard graphics: Toronto/Texas, Detroit/Boston, and Oakland/Chicago. THEN I also noticed that Detroit and Oakland share the second block graphic. C'mon, Tecmo! Quit trying to make things harder for us enthusiasts! Anyway, it turns out that it is a lots simpler to just alter a few graphics that aren't used and change some hex code than it is to try to plan the team placement around the graphic allocation. And about the Toronto question, I just didn't feel like reorganizing considering that changing team name text takes about 30 seconds anyway. Sorry, I tied sort of a long tail onto that kite. One last note about planning: When it comes to team colors, don't feel inclined to match player uniforms with the real life ones. Real life clothing is rarely anything other than white, gray, or black. With helmets being the only real distinguishing color left, there is a good chance you will end up with 2 teams that have the same color scheme. With that in mind, be creative. Incorporate teams' tertiary colors when needed. No one will fault you for not creating true to form counterparts. Leave that for the next-gen consoles. That about wraps it up for planning. My next article will be replacing team names, and after, planning and replacing team logos.

Yes, in Tecmo XI I did take the "bait" of CIN, although I did it in full awareness of the matchup considerations you list above (which I discovered in said "black book"), and figured you wanted me to take CIN, but...... I took them because TB only has one MAN-defender at DB1, and CIN has two at LB1/DB4, and thus in taking CIN I make my offensive strategy a chess-match of either going at Haddix with runs, or NOT, which is a chess-match I have trained to be very good at as an aficionado of the off-set I (altho I didn't run pure I-form in this game in order to go at Haddix more)...... and on defense, I would have the versatility of Francis/Fulcher, which I feel is preferable to iso-haddix.......... as it turned out, you won 28-17, however you scored late after I turned it over on downs, and in essence it was a very even game........ and as you agreed with me after the game, what it all basically came down to was that you out-tapped me, running iso-plays with Anderson for a few big-gainers, and I delayed the tackles on those plays as long as I could hoping for some drone help from either Francis or Fulcher, but NOPE TB blocked everybody up and held their blocks the entire time which was what you expected, and what I was hoping would not happen with a few condition changes and/or drone love, but alas. I consider this a very goood and even matchup and really not sure who I would take if called on me again.

I was recently watching my Midwest Tecmo games on the stream and was reading the comments from my CIN/T.B matchup call. The comments were consistent with what I hear a lot from folks. Even veteran players. Here's my breakdown on why I love it. I baited my man @manyo360 in the round of 32 in Madison some years back. Manyo, is this in the black book now? Tampa Bay's weaknesses are: OL, DL, LB and that's it. Throw in an All-Tecmo defender with a top 5 DB unit combined with a 31ms QB and a 94HP RB/TE. There's good value to eek out here in the right hands. Cincinnati's weaknesses are: DL, LB, and WR. In this matchup Cincy's impotent DL cancels out T.B's shitty OL (which is the fear, usually. no one wants Vinny running for his life with that low PS). Yeah, Francis has 69HP but coincidentally T.Bs best lineman is at OL4 sporting a healthy 50HP to keep Francis in check under average conditions. I call this the Paul Han(d)s Gruber effect. The shitty WR's of Cincy against a top DB squad in Tampa Bay make throwing into coverage very dangerous. Get up early with T.B in this matchup and it's very hard for the Bungles to come clawing back. If your opponent does not take the bait and picks T.B you still have the "better" team in the Bengals. Brooks, Boomer and Fo-Rock can always get it done in the right hands. Also, at a quick glance these teams are similar with mobile QBs and single stud DBs. So as far as playbooks go.... choose wisely. Watch it at 7:54 - I'm the Bengals. AJ didn't take the bait. I go on to win this tournament.

How the hell did image ONE not make the flyer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!??? :I

I said it on facebook, and I'll say it here............................Grip, why the hell isn't that Johnny Johnson running over the Portland sign!!!??? His uniform woulda' even matched the "OLD TOWN" light up sign.