Acclaim makes baseball, and baseball makes Acclaim money.
Written: Jun 07 '02 (Updated Oct 16 '08)
Product Rating:
Pros: There is loads of features to delve into.
Cons: You'll need a large memory card in order to play the game.
The Bottom Line: All-Star Baseball 2003 is authentic in many ways, but still has a few flaws that need to be worked with in order to make this the perfect sports title ever.
ChromeKiller's Full Review: All-Star Baseball 2003 for GameCube
Baseball is a sport driven to most American-made men as moths are to burning light bulbs. This is the kind of sport that boys grow up with, and some come to love from their childhood and up until the time that they get old and weary, resting on their fitting little grave. It's a game. But to many, it's more than that. Through Acclaim's eyes, I think that I can see this passion. It's a form of entertainment that's adored by millions, and not every game developer can capture the true essence of a sport this big like Acclaim has.
Right off of the bat and into play time, you can sort through up to ten gameplay modes. This includes the likes of Quick Play (between two computer selected teams, you'll play a standard baseball match) and MLB Play. In this option, you'll get five modes to choose from, which are Exhibition (similar to Quick Play, you'll be able to choose between two teams in one game's match up), All-Star Game (amongst the best players in both the National and American leagues, you'll compete with the toughest of challengers for one huge game), New Season (from spring session until the dead of fall, you'll have the chance to run through an entire baseball season with any team that you want to), New Series (forget about the entire season, and move right up to the end of the World Series by stepping up to the plate with your team through up to seven challenging games), and Manage Saved Games (this lets you modify your saved games through the memory card window).
Continuing, there's Expansion Mode where you'll select a city, a ballpark, and a name for your franchise club, which you can then staff the club to go 20 seasons with it. Franchise Mode is a brand-new option to the game, letting you round 20 seasons with your own creation of a ball player to become either a superstar, or a flop. It's up to you. Player Cards is another new optional mode that allows you to use the points that you've collected while playing a game in one of the MLB modes. With the earned points, you can then buy up to 500 baseball cards of famous player faces, saving you the trip of going out and getting them from a novelty store. Home Run Derby is a mode where only home run hits count. Anything less isn't worthy of this feature's time. Finally, there's a Special Features mode where you can access such attractions as a baseball trivia game to find out if you're up to the knowledge of your sport history, and a batting practice option that allows you to hit the ball as long as you want until your swinging skills can't get any finer.
Taking position in any of the playable modes and controlling the characters comes off as quite a second nature. If for example you're playing a rounded game, in your pitching stance all that you'll need to know is how to move the round cursor to the location where you want to throw the ball. Then by selecting how you want to toss it around, whether it is a curve ball, a slider, a cutter, etc., the ball will follow suit. It's just as easy to catch a ball, with markers surrounding your characters and the vicinity that the ball is placed or landing in reveals just where you'll need to head to, following up with either one of the face buttons will throw the ball to the closest base. Hitting the ball, on the other hand, I've found rather difficult. The target cursor represents a triangle covered by an angle switcher, which if you rotate it around, will allow you to swing the bat in the direction that it's facing. But it does take much practice to know how the target system operates for those not used to playing the game of baseball in its virtual world.
From being able to choose from over 900 players amongst all 30 of the Major League teams, modify the lineups, check for weather stats, select from up to 50 stadiums to play ball in (including classics like the original Yankee Stadium), All-Star Baseball 2003 still requires a massive amount of memory storage. Nintendo's standard Memory Card 59 contains a mere 59 available slots to fill. Some features, such as saving an entire Season game, require over 100 blocks, as do a number of others. Before buying the GameCube version of All-Star Baseball, it's best that you have a larger memory card, like a third-party version, ready for play in case you don't have room - because you're sure as hell going to need it.
One sure thing about the game, though, is that Acclaim has depicted the sport of baseball for anyone's eyes to see as almost as real as it looks on television. Every player acts just like a real human would, or more like a human baseball player I should say. Their animations are fluent and flawless, by how they'll grace the plate, take a stance, tighten their grip, and even tap their cleats with the upper portion of the bat. While the individual character models could use a little more detail in the facial expressions, it's outstanding in how they each player has wrinkles in their clothes, and outfits to match their real life models. Setting aside from that, the backgrounds of the game proportionally aren't enough, for instance, in the stands. The people placed around the stadium are like cardboard cut outs during a batter's arrival movie. It's also noticeable that other visual attributes, such as the playing field and billboards, aren't produced to what they're fully capable of in appearance. Overall, the best part of looking at the game is its players, and I guess that's all that really matters anyhow.
If anything, anything at all has to be the worst aspect in the game, it's the background noises. Added in to make you feel like you're at the ballpark, you'll constantly listen to fans chanting and chattering gibberish. What they yammer though I wouldn't exactly call Ear Heaven. The same pattern ensues in repeating itself over and over, which eventually becomes not only a nuisance, but also a reason to buy cotton balls to plug up your ears. However, during the gameplay, the announcers save you from pure torment with very detailed dialogue. If you strike a player out, gain a ball, trick a batter with a fastball, or even slam a home run, they'll catch on quick and repeat the action orally like you'll hear it anywhere else in the official sport. More accurate than anything else, the game announcer comments make you feel right at home in front of the tube, laid back with a soda and a bag of chips.
Considering how good the game's announcers are, the sound continues to mirror the game's lifelike counterparts with accurate in-game noises as they come. The thump of a ball hitting a glove... the crack of a bat after that high flying swing... the footsteps of you running along the outfield homing in on the ball.... These sounds and more are the the mixture of noises within the latest All-Star game, and won't disappoint on their operating angle throughout any particular point in its duration.
By the boatload, All-Star Baseball 2003 is jam-packed with more gameplay options this season, better graphics, and a few extra special surprises for just about any hardcore baseball fan out there looking to really get into the game. Given the fact that it also bears up to four-player support, there's no rhyme or reason that you shouldn't want to give the latest All-Star game a run for its money, especially since this game will last you long overdue until the next hitter arrives.
Developed by Acclaim Studios Austin under license from Major League Baseball Properties and the Major League Baseball Players Association, The All-Sta...More at eBay
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