High Heat Now A Strike
Written: Mar 21 '01 (Updated Mar 21 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Best sports game ever, bar none.
Cons: Some glitches, Sammy Sosa.
The Bottom Line: The best baseball game out there for it's gameplay and simulation value.
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| ParisLemon's Full Review: Baseball 2001 for Windows |
High Heat Baseball 2001 is by far and away the best baseball game ever. I just downloaded the demo of the new Triple Play 2002 (only called Triple Play Baseball now for some reason), and it was so horrible. Of course I've been spoiled, I've been playing High Heat 2001 since it's release last Spring, and haven't really stopped since. Sure after baseball season I started playing a little Madden 2001, but then I would always now and again pick up this game and play, it's just the best.
Sammy
As Sammy Sosa says right on the box "This is the best baseball game.". Why would they use a quote like that? It just makes Sammy Sosa look like an idiot who has obviously never played his own game because he can't go into more detail then that. I'm not sure why High Heat decided for their year 2001 version of the game to call it "Sammy Sosa's High Heat 2001", I guess they thought that using his celebrity would sell more copies, but to me it just made the game seem a little cornier. This was especially true after last season when Slammin' Sammy was complaining in the media about wanting to be traded to earn the money "he deserves". However, this year's version is going back to being called just plain "High Heat Baseball 2002" and Vladimir Guerrero is on the box this year. High Heat decided to use him this year when they found out as legend goes that Vladimir and his brother Wilton were actually using High Heat to scout the major league picthers!
Game time
High Heat's gameplay is second to none. Practically everything about the game is true to life. No one hits nine hundred foot homeruns or homeruns to the moon like in Electronic Arts' Triple Play. Great players play great, good players play well, and bad ones ride the bench or go to the minors. The pitching and batting are really easy to use and learn, as is the fielding. However if you are not too keen on fielding, you can set the computer to do it for you, or at least help you out. You can aim where you want you pitches to go, and depending on how good your pitcher is, they'll go there (or won't). One of the few glitches in High Heat comes when outfielders in some parks sometimes run through walls after making plays. Now it's not like they run through them to make catches, then only do after they throw the ball back into the infield, and in the distance you see them dissapear in the outfield walls occasionally. But hey, that doesn't affect the realism of the gameplay.
Stats Galore
The statistics in the game are excellent. I don't know about for the other systems like Playstation but on the PC, just about every category that means anything is kept track of. At the end of each game there is a stat sheet that details the major stats, and goes play by play through all the scores and outs. Franchise mode is my personal favorite thing about High Heat 2001. With all the great statistical categories, it keeps track of everything for something like five thousand years into the future if you play that long (which would been nearly impossible I think). At the end of each year they give out the typical awards like MVP and Cy Young (called Pitcher of the Year here) and also rookie of the year for each league. They also announce who is retiring (which usually happens when players reach around 38 to 42 years old). You can choose whether or not to draft your new recruits yourself or have the computer do that and put them in your minor league system. The trading capabilities are pretty good, you can make it so the computer won't allow uneven trades, or turn that off and bolster your roster, though I feel this feature could be managed a bit better. Also I think incorperated the salary issue might be a neat part of franchise mode, even though there is no salary cap in baseball, it would make it so the small teams couldn't sign the big players (hey, like it is now!). High Heat also includes all of the major leaguers previous stats throughout their careers. A few players like Andres Galarraga didn't have any at first (since he sat out 1999 battling cancer), but with the updated patch his are back as well. There are also updates for the mid season 2000 rosters available on 3do's website (www.3do.com).
Rendering
The stadium and player renderings are pretty good. Not the best graphics in the world, but more then adequate for a baseball game. The stadiums are all there including some news ones that at the time weren't open yet like Miller Park for the Brewers and PNC Park for the Pirates, but the stadiums lack some realism because they don't have all the decals and things found in the actual ballparks. You can actually download this from one site (I think it's highheat.com) that allows you to get the most accurate renderings of the ballparks that are available. Same is true of uniforms, many change throughout the season like the Devil Rays who must have changed like ten times already, but these are also downloadable at highheat.com I believe. The player renderings aren't too shabby, although some aren't very accurate. This is supposed to be fixed in High Heat 2002.
Levels of Play
The different levels this game has are really great. Like homerun derby! This is really fun for multiplay, you each pick any player in the majors, and compete in any ballpark. It's really fun to choose pitchers sometimes and see if anyone can hit one out. High Heat keeps track of the top 20 highest scores in the derby and the top 20 farthest homeruns. Myself, I can only seem to hit ones like 480 or 490, my farthest being 517, but hey that's true, cause in real life most people don't hit 500 foot homers, although some like Mark McGwire do quite a lot. You can also choose to play playoffs only, or the typical exhibition game. Playing someone over the internet or network makes for a really enjoyable time! Even at around 100K a second DSL though it's kind of choppy, so on a modem it's really slow.
High Heat baseball is for everyone, the baseball fans and fanatics alike. Triple Play is nothing compared to this fine example of a game. It doesn't take that powerful a computer to run it either. I recommend at Pentium II class 300 mhz or so at least. Whether you're looking for gameplay or statistics, this is your all around game. It's not only one of the best baseball games, it's one of the best games.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
ParisLemon
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Member: Matthew Glenn Siegler
Location: La Jolla, CA
Reviews written: 172
Trusted by: 116 members
About Me:
Moves.Tech.Sports.
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