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Review
By: |
Big Jim |
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Date: |
23/05/2001 |
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Released: |
14/03/2001 |
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Publisher: |
3do |
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Developer: |
3do |
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Platform: |
PC |
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Rating: |
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For the past few years the benchmark for
PC baseball games has been 3DO’s High Heat series. Since 1998, HH has been making avid
sports gamers drool with awe and has been mentioned as one of the best sports games ever.
After raising the bar yet again with the breakthrough "Sammy Sosa’s High Heat Baseball
2001", 3DO is back with "High Heat Baseball 2002", and just when you thought it couldn’t
get better, it has.
HH2K2 maintains the same deep stats and rosters and superior game play while adding some
quality features that make the game a must-have upgrade from previous installments as well
as a mandatory addition to any software library. For those who have been playing HH2K2 for the
past few years know all about its rich features, including full
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25-man rosters and minor
leagues from AAA to A ball. Now 3DO has added a 40-man roster in September to its assortment
of features, so on September 1, when the big league rosters expand and you want to call
up that .350 hitter from AAA without losing an important bench player, you can.
Also new this season are such features as umpire arguments, dropped third strikes, snap throws
from the catcher and player ejections and subsequent suspensions. All these features are the
garnish to a great game underneath. Without these features, the game would still be great
, but it just adds to the realism, with them included.
It really is a thrill the first time you start a bean-brawl war and the computer AI is right
there with you. An example: the first series of my new season pitted my Red Sox against Baltimore.
Boston was ahead, 5-0, until Jose Offerman (that’s right, there’s full MLBPA licensing)
cranked a 3-run bomb into the stands. Nomar Garciparra steps up to the plate and B.J.
Ryan promptly plunks him in the back, triggering an ejection.
So the next time the O’s come up to the plate, Hideo Nomo does what any good pitcher would
do: drill Brady Anderson between the numbers with the first pitch. That leads to another
ejection and both benches empty (which isn’t very graphic – the camera goes to an overhead view
and you watch little circles move around the mound for a few moments). After the game ends, I
find out that both B.J. and Hideo are gone for 10 games for their roles in the altercation.
Normally, a coach would be upset, but I found myself smiling at the realism the game has
included.
Other new features include cut-off men, rain delays and rain-shortened games, which are also
very welcome. You can see the rain get heavier as the game wears on until the umpire calls
for a delay. This is where strategy comes into play, because you probably don’t want your
pitcher to come back out after sitting around and stiffening up for an hour and 45 minutes
, so you should bring in a reliever. If you don’t, you risk injury and erratic play from
your starter - just like in the real game.
There’s also mound visits and countless new animations, such as first basemen digging the ball out
of the dirt, runners breaking up double plays, running through first base on close plays
, and check-swing appeals to the base umpires.
Base coaches and an on-deck batter have also been added. Also, arguing called third strikes
and close plays have been added as well, including a possible suspension if your player
gets too animated.
All the new stadiums, such as Pac Bell, Comerica, Enron, Miller, PNC Park and all the rest
are rendered flawlessly. There are also some old-time stadiums like Forbes and Shibe to
keep everyone happy.
Graphics are not breathtaking, but there are some improvements from last year. The faces
are more detailed, and if they have a distinctive batting or pitching style, there’s a good chance
it’s represented in here. Also, the polygon count has been increased, so you can tell the
difference between Randy Johnson and David Wells.
Injuries are also more detailed, so you practically feel it when Pedro Martinez goes down with a
pulled ribcage for 134 days.
The game modes include exhibition, season, career, home run derby, playoffs, batting and pitching practice.
There’s also a very in-depth online component to the game as well.
Surprisingly, there is some negative aspects to this game. The graphics aren’t all-that spectacular,
the commentary skips from time to time and there is the somewhat unforgivable matter of a few
glaring bugs.
A few times while playing the game (Fenway Park most notably), there were crashes to the desktop
after hitting a home run. Wrigley Park has a bug where an infield pop fly sometimes comes down
after a few minutes. There are a few other bugs that were reported, such as the 40-man
roster bug corrupting rosters and a suspension bug making it impossible to return the suspended
player to the active roster, and 3DO is currently working on more patches. This could be
good news and bad news for some people.
3DO has already released one patch for the game, however with the 11 things it fixed, it has somehow
taken away the ability for mound visits. This error will be resolved in a future patch, but
why take away a feature that was promoted? The mound visit option made it possible to stall for
warm-up time for a reliever or calm a shaken pitcher down – now it’s unusable.
Sadly, in this day and age, companies continue to send out unfinished games and patch them after
customers “beta-test” them. While 3DO isn’t as guilty as some companies, a game crashing
to the desktop would make many impatient customers go back to the store for a refund.
The two-man commentary team of Dave O’Brien of the Florida Marlins radio booth and Ray Fosse,
the Oakland A’s color man needs some work, occasionally repeating the same lines over and over
again. It’s nice the first time you hear it, but finding out the Boston Red Sox are thinking
about moving into a new stadium for the 180th time gets old.
Still, the good far outweighs the bad. For me, the game rarely crashed to the desktop and I’m
still addicted to it as ever. The design team has spent countless hours painstakingly making
this game as real as possible. Chances are if Tony Batista can’t do it in real-life,
he won’t be doing it in HH2K2.
One of the bonus things about this game is something called a tune file. This gives you the ability
to adjust the game play as you see fit. Think there’s too many gap doubles in the game?
Adjust it with the tune editor. If you don’t want to do it yourself, just go to one of the
many fan-sites and download someone’s hard work. It’s these user-created mods that bring
new life to the game.
It doesn’t end with the tune files. You can find stadium skins, player faces, updated rosters with
minor leaguers, and songs to play while your batter is walking up to the plate. After a few minutes
downloading things, you will be able to play in Fenway with the Citgo sign flashing. I recommend
anything by Vince or Debeau for the stadiums as well as the must-have Dangerz’s player editor.
The editor that comes with the game is fine, but pales in comparison to Dangerz’s hard work.
The most common question about this game is how it compares to EA’s Triple Play series. The answer
is simple – there is no comparison. Usually, EA sports has the luxury of being able to slap their
logo on anything and it will sell millions of copies. However, while games like NHL 2001, Madden,
and Fifa are usually worth it, for years Triple Play was a game they just couldn’t get right.
Until recently, Triple Play was marketed as a sports simulation, until EA was inundated with people
asking how they could justify Triple Play, with its 500-foot home runs and 30-26 scores of games,
as well as the venerable “living room stadium” complete with targets on the walls. Now correctly
labeled an “arcade-sim”, Triple Play still is the better seller of the two.
If you’re torn on which two games to buy, a good rule of thumb is if you liked NFL Blitz, Triple
Play would be the game for you. The graphics are substantially better than HH2K2, but the games are
all double-digit home-run derbys with your usually light-hitting number nine hitter going 5 for 6
with 4 homers.
However if you’re a stat-freak like myself and want realism in a game, then rush out to the store
and pick up High Heat 2002. I haven’t had this much fun playing a baseball game since Earl Weaver
Baseball for DOS.
The final verdict is that aside from a few problems with bugs, HH2K2 for the PC is simply the best
sports game on the market today – for any system. The game-play is rich, the options are deep, and
the rosters are top-notch. It attracts the casual gamer and the hardcore fan alike.
The bottom line is you should click on the link below and buy this game right away – then kiss your
free time goodbye!
Jim's Rating:
4 out of 5 Planets
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High Heat Major League Baseball 2002 >> |
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