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All-Star Baseball 2003

After a failure with All-Star Baseball 2002, Acclaim Sports was set out this year to make up for the shortcomings in the previous version of the was-N64-exclusive game. Its newest version sports endless features, great sound and many other satisifying features but with frustrating gameplay at times. The end result was a game better than its previous version but not the best it could have been.

All 30 Major League teams, including logos' and uniforms;
More than 900 players;
Official stadiums, with active dugouts and bullpens, real time scoreboards and jumbotrons, with stadium features;
All-new player models, featuring 3-D Cyberscan technology, giving All-Star Baseball 2003 the most realistic representation for player faces ever seen in a video game;
Future throw technology allows players to make incredible super-smooth catches and throws like never before;
Innovative 3D batting interface and power/contact swing selection;
User control over check swings;
Never-before-seen broken bats;
Season awards like the MVP, Cy Young, Rookie Of The Year, and Gold Glove;
Incredible gameplay depth with 10 game modes, including Exhibition, Season, Career, Franchise, Expansion, All-Star Game', Series, Manager, Home Run Derby' and Batting Practice;
Franchise Mode allows users to play and build their favorite team for up to twenty consecutive seasons;
All-new Expansion Play allows baseball fanatics to choose a city, stadium and team logo, and add that team into the Major leagues for season play;
All-new Expansion draft, whereby users will draft from a pool of unprotected players and build a team of free agents and minor leaguers;
First time ever -- official in-game player trading cards, which enable users to collect, trade and unlock cheat codes throughout the game;
More than 50 stadiums to choose from, including 8 classic and 10 expansion stadiums;
Cooperstown Hall Of Fame team, featuring favorite sluggers from the past, such as Mike Schmidt, Reggie Jackson and Yogi Berra;
Seven authentic stadium camera angles for television broadcast views;
First time ever -- a 3-man broadcast booth with Bob Brenly (Manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks, the 2001 World Series Champions), Thom Brennaman and Steve Lyons.

As you can see, All-Star Baseball 2003 has many features, but, unluckily, there is a catch – you won't be able to play many of them, such as expansion, season, etc., with your regular memory card. This forced the developer to post notices on each feature that required more than 59 blocks that it wouldn't work for the memory card out now. But no fear – there is a solution that you may like. I went out and bought a Nyko 2X memory card, allowing me to play modes such as Season, etc. This worked out great – it was only 15 dollars and the regular official memory card was 15 dollars to. There is also a 16X memory card out now, Interact's Mega Memory Card, which costs 30 dollars, but it's safe to assume that after you buy that, you won't need another one for a while.

The graphics in All-Star Baseball 2003 really aren't that mind-blowing. The faces for each player are great – the player models were made with 3-D Cyberscan technology, allowing each player to look very realistic. The crowds are equally impressive as you can see their faces (which look very real), any action they are doing and what they are holding very clearly. The problem really comes down to the graphics as a whole, which could have been much better. The fielders were done very poorly and the graphics were something that could have beem done on the Nintendo 64. There are some close-ups in the game where you can see players making impressive plays, but those are usually few and far between. Yeah, it's a sports game, but I expected more.

But don't let the graphics get you down – the sound is very nice. The commentary was done by a 3-man broadcasting booth with Bob Brenly (Manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks, the 2001 World Series Champions), Thom Brennaman and Steve Lyons, voices you'll recognize if you watch baseball on TV. They're loaded with facts to give you, remarks, and more. The voice acting itself is absolutely perfect – it seems like you're watching the game on TV (except the graphics lower the realism). Unluckily the music isn't that great, but there is not much need for any music anyway – the only real music you'll hear is on the menus, which isn't that bad.

But even though the sound is perfect and the graphics is enough to get by, the gameplay is really what hurts this game. For one thing, batting is extremely tough and tricky. Balls come at you very fast and you have limited time to decide where to move your cursor in order to hit the ball. On top of that, you'll be in a hurry to decide where to hit the ball in the field using the C-stick, which is very annoying. By the time the ball comes at you, you'll barely have enough time to get a good hit. There is an easy batting feature where you can get rid of the cursor altogether, but that isn't satisfying enough. Next up comes the pitching. Honestly, I found this the worst feature in the game, not because it wasn't done well but because it was incredibly boring. All you do is move the ball with your cursor somewhere in the strike zone to throw to, and this simply bores me. For one, the whole time I'm pitching I'm in a hurry to bat again (the batting usually lasts a short time and the pitching can take a long time). Also, you're obviously in danger of the player hitting the ball or that ending up in a rally. The fielding isn't very good. The infield is okay but sometimes it is very tough to see where the ball is hit if it is gone to the outfield, and by the time you do, you won't be there in time to reach the ball as the players are pretty slow. When you do get to the ball, many times you'll have to deal with tired players throwing the ball a short distance which could ultimately end up in the batter getting a run. Also, I found the controls difficult to master in the way of throwing to bases, and often found myself throwing to the wrong base. All this leads to a very frustrating simulation that many won't want to spend weeks just to figure out. Thus, the learning curve is very tough and you probably won't want to play an entire season. But, if you do master the controls, it could get fun. I know many people who have purchased the game who really liked it – admittedly it was tough at first for them but they began to like it. This really all depends on your patience and willingness to master the controls.

Nevertheless, anyone who purchases the game and enjoys it will be very please to find out of the games' many features. You have Exhibition, Season, Career, Franchise, Expansion, All-Star Game', Series, Manager, Home Run Derby' and Batting Practice; on top of that, you have a nice playing cards feature and trivia game, among other things. The playing cards feature REALLY helps the replay value – a lot. When you do certain things in the game – such as retiring a side, hitting two homeruns with one batter, having a certain number of RBI's, pulling off a diving catch and many, many more things – you get a certain amount of points. These can be used to open a pack – in order to open a baseball pack you'll need 10 play points. Your ultimate goal in this mode is to collect the hundreds of cards there are to collect. I was pretty frustrated with the instruction booklet though – it said you could hook up to a Game Boy Advance game to send some to, Acclaim's site said you could, but when I called them to confirm it, they said it didn't hook-up. But actually a hookup would be a very nice touch to the game, so maybe they'll keep that in mind for their next version of the game.

Also, as I said, batting is pretty frustrating, but apparently Acclaim realized some would have trouble with it and added a Batting Practice mode to the game. Although it didn't help too much with my game, it was a nice addition. You also have the Home Run Derby to practice on, but I didn't really appreciate this feature too much. It could have been much better for many reasons, but it did what it was supposed to. Finally, there are modes such as season and franchise which is what it suggests – in season mode, you can play a complete season, and in franchise mode you can have your own franchise.

This game gets an N-Philes score of C.

Overall, All-Star Baseball 2003 had quite a few shortcomings but partially made it up with the many features in the game. If you happen to like the game you won't have any problem finding something to do. I was personally very disappointed being a very big baseball fan, but it's not my type of baseball game. If simulations aren't for you, I'd try Midway's MLB Slugfest 2003, which is basically NFL Blitz but baseball. Either way, this is a pretty good baseball simulation that, in the end, does what it needs to do.

Posted in: Reviews