Ninja Baseball Bat Man is a 1993 beat 'em up arcade video game developed and published by Irem. The object of the game is to recover various artifacts stolen from the Baseball Hall of Fame, a task prescribed to them by the Commissioner of Baseball. Each stage takes place in several parts of the United States. Each player chooses from among four characters: Captain Jose, Twinbats Ryno, Beanball Roger, and Stick Straw. Up to four players can play simultaneously. Gameplay Like Irem's previous beat 'em up arcade game, Undercover Cops, Ninja Baseball Bat Man features playable characters with several different fighting moves that sacrifices health in order to annihilate every enemy on the screen. The game allows players to perform combos, throws and dash attacks against several enemies. When a player's health bar flashes red, more moves can be performed as long as the player does not restore or completely lose health. There are items throughout the game that include American and Japanese food for restoring health, alternate weapons such as baseballs and shurikens, or items that call cheerleaders to either obliterate enemies on screen or drop a large amount of food. There are also mini-games after each boss before the final one is defeated. Development Irem America opened its U.S. office in 1988 in Redmond, Washington, headed up by Frank Ballouz (founder of Fabtek, a thriving video kit company and former North American publisher of several arcade machines by Seibu Kaihatsu and TAD Corporation) and National Sales Manager Drew Maniscalco. During this time, Drew created the "Ninja Baseball Bat Man" video game concept (including the English title, plot and characters) and licensed it to Irem America in 1991. To illustrate the characters' sketches, Drew hired Gottlieb's well-known pinball artist, Gordon Morison. Drew's concept came up after he read the top-grossing films during its time in a USA Today newspaper. One was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; the other was one of the Batman films (possibly Batman Returns). After that, he started creating his own superhero influenced by what he saw in the USA Today newspaper. During the development of his concept, he liked the word ninja, because of it sounding mysterious to him. He gave the protagonists baseball bats and baseballs as their main weapons, as well as dressing them in baseball uniforms, because Drew is a baseball fan. Drew thought the baseball bat idea was also probably influenced by