High Heat Baseball 2002

Pros • Solid controls • Buku options	Cons • Ugly visuals
Bottom Line This is as real as baseball gets without going to the stadium. When I was about four or five, baseball was a pretty simple sport. Hell, with “ghost men” all you needed was another buddy and you had yourself a game. The older I have gotten, the more I have come to appreciate the complexities of the game of baseball. Things like pitcher rotation, sacrifice bunts, and the batting order just add more depth to a game I used to think was all about smacking the ball as hard as you could. The only videogame on the market to accurately capture the strategy and brilliance of the sport is High Heat Baseball 2002. For true disciples of the sport, you can’t go wrong with 3DO’s terrific offering.

High Heat Baseball is all about the options. Every game under the sun offers exhibition, season, and playoff game modes, and High Heat is no exception. What makes this title stand out is the number of options that players can customize throughout the season. You want an unbalanced season with inter-league games? Not a problem. You want to cap the number of division games? Not a problem. Four-pitcher rotation? Customizable batting orders? Switch hitting? All of these and more can be yours at the press of a button, something that no other PS2 game can boast.

Once you have gotten through the tome-like options section and actually started the game, you will notice the solid game controls. Instead of a batting icon, which most modern baseball games use, High Heat has gone back to a timing based swing. When the pitch comes in, just hit the X button and push the analog stick in the direction you want the ball to go. I’ll be the first one to admit, with no batting icon, I thought this game would be a score fest like Triple Play. Surprisingly, 3DO got the timed swing down perfectly and batting is complex enough to provide a good challenge.

Things are ultra-realistic on top of the hill as well. Each pitcher can have up five different pitches, which is more than many games allow. After you have selected which ball to throw, you pick the general area that you want the pitch to land. The actual outcome will depend on several factors including pitcher accuracy, muscle on the ball, and pitcher fatigue. This is more realistic because again a power pitcher like David Wells doesn’t have the finesse and ball placement of my man Glavine.

The only chink in High Heat’s otherwise impenetrable facade is the horrid visuals. The player models are clunky and drab. While that may be a forgivable offense, the flaws in the animation are not. Forget smooth animations as most of your ball club moves around like Frankenstein on crack. The jerky animation is only made more apparent by the skipping framerate. If visuals are the most important component of your sports world, then this is not the game for you.

In a marked improvement from last year’s audio crimes, 3DO has really beefed up the announcer’s booth. The Florida Marlins’ announcer Dave O’Brien does the play-by-play and Ray Fosse of the Oakland Athletics handles the color commentary. This announcing team, if a little dry, certainly gets the job done and for the most part is pretty accurate. The rest of the sound effects, including crowd noise is colorless at best, with no particular peaks or valleys.

Usually I don’t like games that make you think too much, and if managing a baseball team doesn’t require some brainpower, I don’t know what does. However, High Heat Baseball 2002 really does capture the essence of the sport. If you are looking for the most authentic title on the market, then this is it.

Info & Screenshots