High Heat Baseball 2004

by 3DO

Product Features

• New Motion-Captured Player Motions and Animation System
• New Franchise Mode, unrestricted multi-season play.
• Complete minor league system (AAA and AA,A team)
• Multiplayer, unbalanced, and CU trading
• Realistic player management features

Product Details

• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00008JQGR
• Item Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: March 4, 2003
• Average Customer Review: 2.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #15,289 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #7 in Video Games > PC Games > Sports > Baseball
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

As usual High Heat Major League Baseball 2004 isn’t quite as pretty as most of the competition, but the game does have a nostalgic look that’s quite stylish--kind of like the difference between now-torn down County Stadium and the new Miller Park that replaced it in Milwaukee. A major area of improvement is in player animation. The players aren’t stiff anymore; they move like human beings. A bit of graphics sheen was applied to the stadiums too, and while not the best, High Heat is finally a good looking game. Unfortunately, audio is merely okay. The problem isn’t limited to dry and dull commentary. High Heat 2004 pretty much has the same soundtrack as High Heat 2003 and, the music often does not match action on the field.

High Heat 2040 adds some 30 new pitches to the game, and the pitcher/batter interface so crucial to this game’s success (it’s the best in the business and it feels like real baseball) is still in place and looking good. High Heat plays a solid game of baseball that just feels right.

For perhaps the first time in the series (it’s been running the bases since 1999), High Heat 2004 was first developed for the PlayStation 2 and then ported elsewhere. That doesn’t make much of a difference for most console versions but buyers of the PC version will be disappointed. The port is sloppy. There’s no mouse support and significant blurring at high resolutions (the menus don’t scale). PC users are used to accessing all the stats, info, batting orders, etc., at the touch of the mouse. I can’t imagine why this happened, because previous High Heat PC games have had mouse support. The PC version also is plagued with minor stability issues and, worst of all does not have any kind of multiplayer. High Heat games have had multiplayer since 2001, and the omission of multiplayer in 2004 is a tragedy.

High Heat 2004 for the console systems is a great game, certainly the best looking one yet in the series, but the PC version is much weaker than it should be.--Andrew S. Bub

Pros:

• Good looks, great gameplay
• Best pitcher/batter duel available in a baseball game

Cons:

• Bad commentary
• PC version inexcusably marred by bugs, no mouse, no multiplayer

Product Description

High Heat, Major League Baseball 2004 (PC CD-ROM), Product #5321001

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars High Heat 2004 Gone to the Dark Side, April 30, 2003

By 

Manuel A. Calcagno (College Point, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: High Heat Baseball 2004 (CD-ROM)

I must agree with most of the other user reviews criticizing High Heat 2004.

Incredibly, THERE IS NO MOUSE SUPPORT for this supposed PC Game!
Whoever made the decision to sell out High Heat PC users this way should be fired immediately!

Not only is there no mouse support but the menu interface is a complete nightmare! It's literaly an ordeal just trying to set up and start a game!

I will never understand why a company will take a very good PC product and just tear it down for game consoles! 3DO has sold PC users out for game consoles!

Just like NBA Live 2003, High Heat 2004 has gone over to the dark side! It's no wonder that there is no demo. Five minutes with this intolerable interface would convince any PC User not to bother.

The graphics are better and the game is still fun to play but the terrible interface and many missing features ruin it.

The sound and color commentary have improved little, if at all.

I think it's time to send a message to companies like EAsports and 3D0 who sell out PC Users for consoles!

If I wanted to play a Playstation game, I would buy a Playstation!

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Dumb baseball for dummies, April 9, 2003

By 

M. Vatter "mvatter" (Puget Sound USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: High Heat Baseball 2004 (CD-ROM)

This game is a major disappointment. Compared to previous versions, it's been gutted. Don't throw away the 2003 edition.

Here's a partial list of missing features:
- There is no save and exit for any game in progress - you must finish a whole game in one sitting. No more quick plays before bed!
- Historical stadiums are gone. I thought the 3DO guy was a baseball fan.
- No mouse support and bad navigation.
- Can't bring up opposing pitcher's pitch selection.
- Settings for exhibition games don't "stick" - you have to set them up each time you play.
- Other reviewers noted missing 1-pitch and manage-only options.

In addition, F1 help is worthless - it's just rudimentary navigation instructions - and the players still don't look like themselves.

On the positive side, the graphics and animations are good and the choice of pitches is greatly expanded.

Out of the box, I didn't have any sound except for the sound of the ball hitting bat or glove. 3DO responded with help on this problem within 3 days, but who expects to have to turn off their sound card hardware support to run a new game?

3DO should start with a full PC version next year and dumb it down for Xbox, PS2, etc., next year instead of giving everyone the dumb version. Maybe the real baseball simulation is how the dumbness of the sim emulates the dumbness of MLB.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unbelievable but rather expensive, March 6, 2003

By 

"egocentrius" (Minneapolis, MN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: High Heat Baseball 2004 (CD-ROM)

For many years, I searched for a decent computer baseball game. I can still remember back in the day, playing Tony LaRussa Baseball. A few years ago, I found out about the Triple Play series, and played that for a while. But although Triple Play has some cool features, it really doesn't represent the game very well (e.g. Ron Coomer getting bunt hits, Brad Fullmer hitting 90 homeruns). So I moved over to the High Heat series. High Heat Baseball 2003 was spectacular when it came out. It seemed to do well in every aspect of the game. My main complaint was that the audience looked so [...] and the stadium graphics were OK but not great.

This years edition is a different story. Stadium graphics are stunning, the crowd is arguably the best that you can find in any sports game (a very emotional crowd that changes moods all the time). Although the gameplay was great last year, 3DO raised the bar even more this year. There are hundreds of different pitches, 2 new modes (2 on 2 showdown and franchise), and smoothly designed plays.

However, I am quite dissapointed in the fact that 3DO didn't get around to getting different play-by-play announcers. Not that the ones in the game are terrible, but they aren't great either and I was hoping very much to get some better ones.

All in all, it seems like the game could have easily come out as a[n] upgrade of HH 2003. But I'll settle for what they have now. It's a bit expensive but it is an excellent baseball game. I doubt any of the major upcoming sluggers will be able to beat it.