World Series Baseball 2K1

by Sega

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004S99O
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 4.9 x 0.4 inches ; 2.4 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: April 26, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (208 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #32,744 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Editorial Review

Sega has had great success with its previous sports titles for the Dreamcast, so everyone was waiting for them to hit one out of the park with the release of World Series Baseball 2K1. In many ways they have, but the game suffers from enough bugs and has so few options that true baseball fans will be crying foul.

Stadiums and players are rendered in glorious high-resolution detail, to the point where it's easy to recognize a player by looking at his face. Similarly, most of the animations look terrific--especially diving catches and quick across-the-body throws. We also enjoyed the pitching and batting interface, which is more complex than that found in most baseball games but becomes a lot of fun after a little practice.

Unfortunately, the game is all downhill from there. Once a ball is hit, players are forced to sit and watch the computer field it. The lack of control is absolutely infuriating, especially since Sega hyped this game's realism from the beginning of its development. The crowd sounds are anemic and there is no color commentary, which is just as well considering how terrible the play-by-play announcer is. If you really love baseball, you'll really hate World Series Baseball 2K1. For casual fans who prefer flashy graphics and a fun pitching/batting contest to thorough stat tracking and the ability to field the ball, this game is a home run. --T. Byrl Baker

Pros:

• Gorgeous stadiums
• Nice TV-like presentation

Cons:

• No fielding
• Stuttering animations
• Lacks fun extras

Product Description

World Series Baseball 2K1

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Sega has lost its credibility., August 4, 2000

By A Customer

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: World Series Baseball 2K1 (Video Game)

Together with NHL 2K, Sega has demonstrated that it's willing to push a product out the door without working through its glaring problems. They bank on the game's superior graphics while its gameplay and managing features are simply abysmal.

You can't play defense. You must wait for the fielder to catch and then you get to control where to throw. Whoopee. I could forgive them for this if the auto-fielding looked realistic. But, inexplicably, it's so lame. You see, pitchers don't field six or seven pop-ups a game by making over-the-shoulder-catches. Every throw to first isn't a leaping toss off the wrong foot. Catchers don't wait three seconds before gently tossing to second to throw out a would-be base stealer. It's like the fielding was programmed by someone who doesn't understand the kinesics of real baseball players.

It makes matters worse because it's not a matter of technology. Sega just doesn't appear to have the baseball smarts to capture the feel of the game. Really. When was the last time a pitcher fielded a grounder in short left? I've never seen that. Oh, and you can't check the other team's line-up during a game. I'd like to know who to expect up at the plate in terms of reliever match-ups. The play-by-play announcing pre-dates the PlayStation's capacity. The pitching is the only redeeming feature of the game. But it's not worth it. Sega has not delivered on the promise of this system. After the PlayStation 2 converts the Dreamcastaways, we may never know what the system was truly capable of.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars eye-candy, that's it!, July 24, 2000

A Kid's Review

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: World Series Baseball 2K1 (Video Game)

Well Sega Sports did it to me again, after waiting close to 5 1/2 months for this game to come out , I was a very disappointed overall with this game.

While the graphics of the players and the renditions of the 3-D stadiums are the best in the video game industry, that's were the fun factor ends for this game. That's roughly right after the introductions. If you have .... to shell out without hestitation then go ahead, however if you have played other video baseball games such as EA Sports Triple Play 2001 or MLB 2001 on the playstation this game doesn't compare for the true feel of baseball be leery, of wasting your hard earned money.

What are the flaws? Too many to list, to be honest with you. Here's just a few. In season mode you choose only one team to compete for an either season unlike in NBA 2K when you have the option to choose as many teams as you like. 120 blocks of memory for one team, come on Sega?

Lac k of stats, the programmers forgot to put in a spot to let the viewer know what the particular is doing in the current game, it's not visible on screen or in any sub menus. All other baseball games on the market do this, why not Sega? The Computer controlls all the action from running to fielding at one speed, you can't control the speed of the player to overrirde and take control another major flaw. Only one boring announcer repeating the same phrases over and over again, if they would have spent more time like in NFL 2K on getting non-repetitous phrase it just adds to the realism. No errors, no injuries and weather effects, they claim are on the box I played for 6 hours and nothing ever changed.

The pitchers never tire, really no need ever to replace them, the pitching is a joke, using line icons you must memories represent s the type of pitch to throw rather than using the a,b x,y buttons. X and Y are never used in the game. Why? Seeing that you really never control the players there's no scaling the walls or making diving catches. The baserunners automaticallly run which becomes a chore to remember to press the "b" button to return to the base. Other wise it's a quick doublplay. I had a hard time hitting the baseball as well, you have to hold down the "R" trigger and then with this little bulleye icon chase the baseball within the strike zone to make contact. If you get it right the baseball is hit solidly however to many times it's popped up or ground out to the infield. The Crowd is a wallpaper of 2D people, what happen to the 3 -D rendered people that would react to the situation to the game like in NBA 2K? More realism lacking.

If you want true baseball fan stay away from this game you will truly disappointed, I like stats and the realism of warming up pitchers, knowing Sammy Sosa is 2-4 in the game. That my pitcher is getting tired. All the things that makes spending .... well worth the money. This game should cost .... for what it has to offer as a baseball game If you like slick graphics then this is your game. It's just not a baseball game.

In closing Sega better regroup it's sports games, because if they don't Playstation 2 is right around the corner and if they keep producing garbage like this, NHL2K was a bust , also they will I feel, be out of business (see Sega Saturn). Right now noone else can produce the quality of the graphics they are producing but they must remember that once the novelty of cool graphics run off the gameplay is what takes over. Withoutit, it is just a boring game. This review was written by an adult of a 12 yr old.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars WSB 2K1 delivers.... something that all gamers will hate, August 10, 2000

By A Customer

= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars  = Fun:1.0 out of 5 stars  = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: World Series Baseball 2K1 (Video Game)

A week ago, I saw a commercial for WSB 2K1. It looked awesome. Since NHL2K, NFL2K, and NBA2K were all pretty good games, I figured that the latest one from Sega would be even better. So last night I rented it. I admit, WSB2K1 does have the best graphics of any game I have ever played. But everything else just plain sucks.

Before I actually played a game, I went into the Customize menu to make my team a little bit better. The set-up to trade players, was not good at all, however. It took me about a half hour just to put together a pretty good team. At least I hoped they were good. After this, I went looking for the options menu in order to configure the controller. But wait... there wasn't any controller configuration option. In fact, there were barely any options to choose from. At this point, I was beginning to feel distraught. Hopefully, I could figure out how everything went together after a few innings of play. So I set the difficulty option to "amateur", and I put my loaded team up against the Marlins. The opening of the actual game was impressive. I hoped that the gameplay would be of its equal. Pedro Martinez was my pitcher, and the first batter up was Luis Castillo. But what.... what do I do to pitch? I noticed a little analog stick picture with lines pointing out it. I pointed the analog in one of their directions, and then hit the red button. Ba-boom, Pedro winds up and the picture disappears, but wait, a new thing appears. It is rectangular power bar. When the power meter got up to the top, I hit the red button again. Luis takes a swing and delivers a hit. I figure that now I have to make my closest fielder run and catch the ball. But I'm wrong. After almost 5 seconds of delay, I guess the defense realized the ball had been hit and reacted. Too late though, the ball had already slowly rolled through the infeld and past the infielders. Three more Florida Marlins come up, each one getting a hit similar to this. I think to myself, "what is wrong with my fielders.... they are moving really, really, slow. Even I could've caughten those balls." Now I was starting to think that something was wrong with my pitching. I might've actually been right.... I was able to get the next two guys to pop out. But the seventh batter of the inning came up, and, well he popped it up, way up, in the infield. It was almost perfect for the first baseman to catch if he had just stood there. But wait, he wasn't moving to catch the ball. And then he took off for first base, leaving the ball dropping onto the infield! I couldn't believe it. I was screaming at him to catch it. And then I realized that the second baseman was slowly running over to catch it. I was now, very, very, upset.

After a few more minutes, I was able to get the third out and now I was up to bat. The score: Marlins 4, Tigers 0. The best players in baseball absolutely sucked in the field. At this point I was still optimistic. Maybe my inexperience was my problem, and that with some patience I might become good at this game. My first guy up to bat was Alex Rodriguez. The pitch came, and I hit the red button. A-Rod didn't do anything. What the heck? The next pitch comes and I tried the same thing. Still nothing. On the next pitch, I tried the other buttons, including the R button. Now I had figured out what button to use to hit. Using my experience from previous baseball games, I swung at the next pitch when you actually are supposed to swing. Swish- a strike. A-Rod had swung about 2 seconds after the catcher caught the ball. My next two batters did the same thing. My next time up at bat, I actually got a hit. However, I am pretty sure that it was pure luck that had gotten the bat to hit ball. But yet, my players still sucked and I failed to even foul off the ball the rest of the time I played. This time, though was only for another five minutes. Because when I was playing defense in the top of the third, I got so fed up with the extremely poor gameplay capabilities that I threw the controller on the floor and it broke. I turned off the Dreamcast in disgust and threatened the game cd's life. I finally coaxed myself into letting it go. It was a rental, you know, and I would've had to shell out a lot of money for it.

Later in the day, I brought myself back up to trying WSB2K1 again. This time though, I decided that I would just simulate a season. Besides the graphics, this was the only other good feature of the game. Each time you simualte a game, it shows you a nice box score that includes the winning pitcher, the losing pitcher, who recorded the save, and who hit home runs, and actually the number of home runs those players had hit so far in the season. But yet, I was still disgusted in the fact that almost every game, the score was 3-0, 1-0, 2-1, 4-3, or something really low. And that winning pitcher almost always pitched a 5-hitter or lower. I ended up winning the world series, but after my previous experiences with playing the game, this accomplishment seemed diminished.

I have now been writing this review for almost one hour. One hour is how long it took me to realize that whoever thought up the gameplay function for World Series Baseball 2K1, didn't like the people who would be playing the game. The graphics are outstanding. The gameplay makes you want to kill yourself. Sometimes in a game, the positives will outweight the negatives. ......And this is not an understatement, this is the plain truth. This is the worst game I have ever played. Please, don't buy it. Don't encourage Sega to make more games like this. This game brings shame onto everyone who made it, and especially to those who promote it. Do not buy it. Do not rent it. Do not believe the hype or the commercials. This game... sucked!

Graphics: A+ Gameplay: F Fun/Excite.: F Overall: D- (The graphics give it a passing grade... barely)