Triple Play 2001

Stepping Up To The Plate...

Last year on the PC, EA used player models that I found to be disturbingly unrealistic. The torsos and legs of most of the players were very, very round and seemed both indistinct and way too cartoony. This season, on the PSX and PC, the graphics are not nearly as round as they were last year. This season�s models are definitely looking significantly better. The differences in height and, to a lesser degree, body shape are more pronounced and the facial textures do give a rough likeness of their real-life counterparts. Still, the player graphics don�t seem to come as close as other EA sports titles (read: basketball, hockey, soccer) in capturing the likeness of individual players.

After a batter connects with the hardball, the camera switches to a familiar view that allows you to see everything taking place on the field. You�ll notice that the ball is no longer round but becomes square. A square baseball?! Blasphemy! Sadly, no matter what resolution was used the ball always sported four corners. On the PC, this is a crying shame as once you pump the resolution past 640x480 this shouldn�t happen. On the PSX, this is a little less painful because of the less sharp but impressive imagery. Admittedly, a square baseball may not seem too awful a sin to endure (unless you get hit with one), but for purists, the very sight of such of such a thing is a bad omen of things to come from TP2001.

Swing Time

The absolute biggest crime committed by TP2001 is, quite sadly, not the absurdly high number of stolen bases to be seen in a season. Oh no, that would be good for a cheap laff or two. Rather, it�s the fact that this game doesn�t seem to have much of a grip on the mechanics of baseball. Without claiming to be great historian, stat master or even a rulebook owner, I can say fairly comfortably, that Triple Play is the perfect game to spend an afternoon with while trying to knock every ball out of the park and not much else. If that, dear reader, is you, then consider TP2001 to be your little slice of hardball heaven. Sadly, that�s not me.

On more than one occasion did I see pitchers hurl without any consideration of a particular batter's average or the pitch count, thus killing off all sense of realism. So, if you can, imagine Sammy Sosa (whose PC baseball game I�d recommend) facing down Maddux: It�s the bottom of the ninth, two outs and bases are loaded. Sosa�s hit a single and a double previously and seems unstoppable. So what does the computer serve Sosa with a 3-1 count? A fastball. Straight over bag- and it�s hit foul. So, with the count at 3-2, with the game on the line and a guy who has a few homers in time, what does the computer choose next? How about a curve that hugs the sides of the strikezone? Nope, another fastball. As straight as the day is long. Unfortunately, I kept greeting three consecutive fastballs with three leftfield fouls. Whether the balls are hurled high, low or outside the box, the general feeling I get is that EA used a truly primitive random number generator to decide which pitch should be offered. In the real majors only Pedro Martinez can pull off such wild pitching- and this sir (or ma�am) is no Pedro Martinez game.

Depth perception for batters is probably where the game falls apart the most. Too often, it�s just too hard to see just how far the ball is from the plate before the ball breaks. This alone is reason to make folks just keep swinging away literally blind.

The interface for handling the actual pitches is also somewhat vague. Basically, you choose a pitch from a list of four or five options and then decide to throw the ball high, low or in between. The feeling of having even the slightest amount of pitch control isn�t there. It�s a functional method at best, that seems to result in what seems like millions of foul balls being produced per game- but don�t expect to feel especially satisfied at the end of the season even if you post an ERA under 4.00.

The bottom line here is that TP2001 does not care which pitch you use, what the count is when you use it or who the pitcher is facing. When a human faces a PC controlled pitcher, just remember- Swing, swing, swing! If the ball comes within a few "inches" of the plate, thanks to a screwy and disturbingly unrealistic physics model, chances are, if its not foul, it can be turned into a homer.

Interestingly, the same gripes I have with the PC intelligence and lack of pitch control seem to make it a more interesting game on the PlayStation. Maybe it�s because nobody expects as realistic a simulation of America�s pastime on the PlayStation. Maybe the notion of "sit down and play" has more appeal on the console. Whatever the reason, the PlayStation pitching duels do feel similar to those on the PC, but, because the arcadey-ness of a PSX game is so much more important, these anomalies can be more easily forgiven. Yes, the homerun stats are a bit high through the league, and yes, the foul balls are quite plentiful, but for the beer(gut) and pretzels crowd, this is probably the "funnest" baseball game for the system.

Basic gameplay really hasn�t evolved very much over the past few years. Tragically, everybody (and I mean everybody!) in the outfield still seems to have a rifle for an arm and they use it with pinpoint precision. When you consider the off-the-wall stats the game seems to make for the batters, such superhuman performance for fielders barely raises an eyebrow. But still it�s so much more noticeable on the PC than the PSX.

Heavy Hitters?

Among the highlights of this year�s release is the Home Run Legends mode. What�s that? Basically you take the biggest bats of all time and pit them against each other. Big League Challenge is basically Home Run Derby without getting the brand name license. While the notion of pretending to be Ruth, Ted Williams or Hammerin� Hank could�ve been fun, in both the console and PC versions, humans have a very slim chance of actually wining. The computer will keep blasting balls out of the park for an astronomically high number of homers at game�s end. Unfortunately, I couldn�t get more than six or seven homers per inning. There is also a so-called Extreme Mode that allows you to try to aim your homers at specified targets set in bizarre settings (bedrooms, medieval, construction sites) at targets in the outside the wall to score points. This is fun in itself and while it is simplistic, the worst that can be said is that it draws attention to some of the limited play by play dialogue of the game.

Highlights�

Jim Hughson and Buck Martinez are back for another season of play by play and commentary. In general, they do a pretty good job of providing some of the best two-man announcing in electronic sports. Their speech is timely with the on-field action and gives a good feeling that they are virtually watching the virtual players of the virtual ballparks making all of their plays- virtually.

The play by play does complement the wonderful sound effects of the game. Everything from the roar of the home crowd after a game winning score to the silly thunderclap the bats make when they connect with the ball sounds great. Sadly, I think sound is the best produced aspect of the total TP2001 experience. And yes, the famously poor remix of Steppenwolf�s Magic Carpet Ride that is featured in the game does indeed suck with cyclone-like fury.

Strike Four

Sports fans who like a little intelligence with their glossy graphics and awesome sounds will be quite disappointed with TP2001. Showing almost zero baseball smarts, Triple Play 2001 makes for a game that almost entirely consists of wildly swinging on every last pitch and watching the foul balls sail into the crowds. Who needs souvenir day?

Simply because the PSX version is more blatantly arcade, much of the sins of its big PC brother can be forgiven. The game�s graphics and high playablity make it a worthy purchase just on those points alone. No matter what is said though, doubtless EA will sell the most units of any baseball game available. So while it would proper for me to say, "Maybe next year EA," does it really matter?

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