Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best one to date, March 1, 2003
I have played All-Star Baseball since N64 and this is by far the best to date. After the terrible 2002 and the improved-but-rough 2003 installments, this one is a pleasant surprise! Gameplay:
The best feature is the much, much deeper FRANCHISE MODE, which follows the option/waiver rule--you can't just move players up and down the major and minor as you please-if a player has no more option left, you have to pass him through waiver, and likely some other teams will pick him up. You can also control the 40-man roster, trading block (let other teams know who you are interested in trading), sign long-term contract DURING the season, decide on coaching, scouting budgets, and high-and-low minor leagues. In-game features:
The main gameplay is pretty much the same as 2003, but many details has been inproved.
INSTANT REPLAY: TV-like angles with more than a dozen to choose from and whenever you want, even to see if a check-swing has gone too far!
CHECK-SWING, REALISTIC ERRORS, EJECTION, CATCHER STOPS THE HITTER FROM CHARGING THE MOUNT, and OFF-THE-LINE THROWS: They probably learned quite a bit from High Heat Baseball, but it looks so much better.
MOUNT VISIT: Shows the condition of your pitcher (rattled, fatigued, etc.) and the coach's suggestion.
BETTER A.I.: It's much harder to get a triple because the CPU finally has learned not to throw everything to the second base from the outfield. CPU's pitching has also become tougher and it's possible to draw lots of walk if you are patient.
BETTER GRAPHIC: It's no Slugfest, but overall it's much cleaner and some faces are really life-like. Also the batter's head will follow the ball in the HR replay.
FASTER PACE: Again, don't expect the pace like Slugfest, but this is much finer gameplay. Few things to complain about:
SLIGHTLY OLD LINEUP: I wish they could have waited for a month so they could at least include Matsui. If anyone can find Kevin Miller please tell me!
SOUND: Very minimum crowd noise and effect. The commentary is somewhat dry and repetitive. But VERY GOOD voices of the umpires (they are different).
ONLY ONE BATTING/HITTING CAMERA: There are simply no option to change this.
CPU Hitting: is a bit weak and too selective in general.
BASE STEALING: Too easy, as long as the pitcher does not use slide move. And many never do.
EJECTION: You can choose to pitch "bean ball" (usually above the neck) and that pretty much means ejection. But there are quite a few time I pressed the button (R1) by mistake--because R1 was the button to get a closer look at the runner on first for previous All-Star games--and was ejected in the first inning and had to start over. Also if you pitch very inside just twice, it's an ejection. Your hitter might also get hot too easy after being hit, and that also result in ejection. I think it's too sensitive.
LOOK ALIKE: Most players are not so different from each other in the batting box or pitching mount, but so do many other games. And you don't get the ritual dance of Nomar!
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not bad... for a Yankee, April 26, 2003
OK, I'm a huge baseball fan, and a Red Sox fan, so here goes...Not a bad effort. For a benchmark, I use my favorites: Earl Weaver Baseball for the Amiga, and World Series '95 for the Genesis. First off, the graphics are OK, not great. I have to admit that the graphics for World Series 2K2 for the Dreamcast were as good, if not better. However, the strategy is far superior. I love the mound visits, the defensive changes, and the fact that you have to warm up your pitchers. There are a few minor glitches, however. I've hit a few balls that were caught in foul territory, yet I was able to run my baserunners around the bags because the fielder just hung on to the ball. Oh well. Also, there are a lot of pop-up outs. Note to Acclaim -- cut down on the infield flies. They don't happen 6 times a game. Plus, as a Red Sox fan, it's near sacriledge to assign David Ortiz the number 27. That's Carlton Fisk's! You may have heard of him -- he's a Hall of Famer.
So far, I've played some very realistic games. A 10-8 win, a 7 -4 loss, a 3-2 win. Nice, old fashioned nail-biters. The GM features are well done, and are a nice added dimension. Also, it's nice to be able to strike out opposing batters for once. In most games, the computer never swings at balls, and never misses at strikes. However, batting is very difficult on the normal level. Pitches come in extremely fast, and it's difficult to adjust. I guess it will come in time, though. I was surprised that Fenway has the Monster seats, yet Kevin Millar is nowhere to be found.
I wish there was one option that I haven't seen since Earl Weaver for the Amiga -- the ability to DESIGN YOUR OWN STADIUM. I wish a game would allow for this. Maybe someday, before I'm old and gray. All in all, 4 out of 5. Not perfect, but pretty darn good, and I'm a stickler. I traded in Zelda for this, because Zelda was too 'kiddie', and I was itching for some longball. I haven't been dissappointed.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Improvement from 2003...., March 20, 2004
This new and improved All-Star Baseball 2004 game is slightly better than 2003. The gameplay has gotten better, the pitching is pretty much the same, the hitting is a lot more realistic and the new different gameplay selections are great. A new feature to this game is: Scenario Mode, which is where you play a certain part of a game like Mariano Rivera on the mound in the bottom of the 9th with the bases loaded and no outs and your objective is to retire the inning without the opposing team scoring any runs. Like all of the previous All-Star games, you have CREATE-A-PLAYER. This updated feature is so much better than any other one in the previous games. You have over 300 faces to choose from, a lot more batting stances and also when you work on your player's ability points, there is no limit. Remember in 2003 where you only could use 20 points? Well, in this game, there is no limit so you can make your character the best in the game. Tip: Don't give your player all A+'s becase the game will freeze near the end. The best new feature to this game, which I love is the In-Game Save capability. So if you're playing a game during your season, you can save where you left off during the game, so when you re-load your season, it'll bring you right back to where you were. GREAT! In Season mode, a lot of different things have been added. In the General Manager's offive, there is a numerous amount of things you can do from: trading players, high minors and low minors rosters, disabled list, trading block (you recieve trade offers from other teams for the player you select), and Player Editor. What is Player Editor? Instead of just editing your created player, you can edit anyone in the major leagues as far as ability points, looks, batting stances, etc. For pitchers you change their pitches selection to your favorites. But, don't make it too easy and have all of your team A+. It makes it too easy. There is a couple things that have gone down or haven't been improved too much. One is the pitching. Yes, it is a lot easier to hit the ball because it has slowed down since 2003. But, it is a lot more diffucult to get strikeouts when pitching. It makes your pitching stats more realistic to real pitchers today. But the cathces still has some flaws in it. Not as often, but you see it happen sometimes where there is a pop-up and the ball is ten feet to the side of your fielder and he still catches it. Things like that. Overall, this a fantastic game. Many things have been improved, things have been created for better and funner gameplay and it worked. This game is definitely a must buy.
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