All Star Baseball 2004 for Xbox

by Acclaim Video Games

Product Features

• All-new legends take to the field - Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Ty Cobb and more
• Play as famous Negro League players like Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, and Buck O'Neill
• Brand new Scenario Mode where Derek Jeter introduces actual MLB footage to set up game situations
• Pick-up games let you put together a team of your favorite players
• All new stadiums and Panoramic Tours where Derek highlights facts and features of each stadium

Product Details

• ASIN: B000083DZS
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches ; 5 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #38,979 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

All-Star Baseball certainly lives up to its name. It offers the largest stable of former greats, some 50 in all, and it even offers many of the standouts and stars from the old Negro Baseball League. Its obvious Acclaim decided the best way to deal with the competition is to match it in terms of baseball prowess, but at the same time, outdo them in terms of extras: All-Star throws shovelfuls of extras. Extras like a trivia game, stadium tours, and DVD content. It even includes classic ballparks, just in case you really miss Shibe Park. There are seven fantasy ballparks in currently baseball-free North American cities, and you can pick and choose from over 30 mascots, making the expansion team options all the more interesting. All-Star also offers a deep franchise mode that rivals text simulations like Over the Top Baseball.

Baseball lives and dies by the pitcher/batter duel and All-Star has you covered here. How? By offering every option the competition can muster. You can use a cursor system (like MVP Baseball), a timing based system (less realistic, but good for new players), and a system like High Heat where you have to watch the ball carefully (most realistic). Each system works but the cursor-based option could is sub par: the information regarding where and when to swing appears too late. The gameplay has other flaws. Fielding feels soft, unresponsive and slow, and the AI is stupidly aggressive at times: stealing when it shouldn't and slugging when a sacrifice is called for.

All-Star has good graphics--not the best available but very good and the animations are all smooth and lifelike. You can even identify many players by their batting stance alone. The audio is a standout, specifically the commentary, which is accurate, insightful, and even includes entertaining side conversations about the rules and quirks of the game.

All-Star isn't quite the best baseball game you can buy for your console system, but it offers the best overall package if you aren't sure what you want. Good gameplay, good graphics, lots of options and extras, and a nice range of hitting options. Play ball! --Andrew S. Bub

Pros:

• Nice range of pitching/batting options
• Good graphics
• Terrific Audio

Cons:

• Uneven, overly aggressive, artificial intelligence

Product Description

All-Star Baseball 2004 is the game with all the tools -- it's the realistic baseball simulation that plays like an MLB broadcast! Rookie Mode prepares you for your attempt to make it in the big leagues!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good but...., March 3, 2003

By 

Cheffy "Chef" (online, or in a hallowed out tree) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All Star Baseball 2004 for Xbox (Video Game)

Would have gotten 5 stars if it were Xbox live compatible... At least you can get the rosters downloaded.

Graphics are pretty decent, it's much better than previous seasons.

Sound is a little weak, announcing is pretty good, but the crowd noises sound like they are coming through a tunnel. Bat cracking, pitching, sound of the ball hitting glove are nice, very realistic.

Gameplay... Oh man. It could have been so much better than it is, but it's still pretty good. Infield control is incredibly tight, but when it comes to fielding the outfield, oh jeez, forget it. Unless you get under that ball, it's going to take a bounce to the wall, and you will be running in circles trying to pick the ball up! What happened here? Good question.

Franchise mode is deep, stats are tight, home run derby is fun, the batting practice is very good (you'll need it at first).

Overall, it's a good game, not the best, I think High Heat 2k4 is going to be tops this year as far as a simulation of Baseball, but I am enjoying my season so far, I'd wait and see if you can get this on sale if you MUST have a baseball game NOW. Otherwise, I can recommend it, but I can't stand behind the recomendation. I enjoy the game, but others with a taste for arcade ball won't really be very happy, and there could be quite a few stat/sim heads that won't like this either. It's a middle of the road baseball game.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great baseball game except for:, March 19, 2003

By 

J.Phillips "Sportsman" (Maple Valley, WA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All Star Baseball 2004 for Xbox (Video Game)

Except for the ball popping into the fielders glove from about 4 feet away. This game almost got five stars except for that annoying glich. When a ball is hit to a fielder the ball will be about 4 or 5 feet away and all of a sudden it is in the glove.
The Good:
This game is really fun to play with a tremendous amount of features that should make any baseball gamer happy. The graphics are awesome, from the players faces, fans in the stands, the intros, and all the animation. The play by play is the best it feels like you are listening to a game on TV. A couple of new features, one is the ability to go to the mound for a visit, when you do this a box opens and it shows you his pitch count, who is up next, and a message from the pitching coach telling you if he should be left in or pulled and if your player in the pen is ready. A cool little feature is when you ask you bullpen to warm up a player you hear a phone ring, the added realisms like this is what makes a game good or great. I also enjoy the realism of the umps, the ump behind home plate yells out strike or ball, the field umps pull their hand up hard and yells "Out" or swing the arms and yells "Safe". The next great feature is the franchise mode, you have low and high minors, contracts, injuries, trades, and much much more, let me just say it is very deep. Finally game play is simply amazing.
The Bad:
The only thing that I would say is bad, is the interface when you are in the gm screens, I think it is supposed to look like it did a few years ago when everything was done in handwriting. All of the stats and info looks like it was written by hand, and even though I give the game designers a low five for creativity it does make it hard to read.
The Ugly:
I told you already at the top of this review, this quirk needs to be fixed.
Finally:
This game is much improved over last years installment and will give all baseball fans an enjoyable season.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Much, much better than last year's version, March 8, 2003

By 

James L. Hendricks Jr. (Portsmouth, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: All Star Baseball 2004 for Xbox (Video Game)

I just purchased the game today, and much to my surprise you will start your franchise off with..spring training?! This year you have an umpire calling strikes and balls (!), the short music openings when the home team goes up to bat, the plays look much more real life too...andI've just started playing the game. pLUS, you have the bonus modes, like how would you have managed game 6 of the World Series last year? And there's the content download on Xbox Live (if Acclaim could have made it Live playable...), so you'll get the stats and rosters for March 1st now.

my only complaint so hard--where's Hideki Matsui? But no biggie, I'm sure e'll be added soon enough.

This game just FEELS alot better. So Acclaim has done a great job. Can MVP. WS2k3, HH, and Inside Pitch measure up?