| Publisher: |
Developer: |
Genre: |
Players: |
ESRB: |
| Acclaim |
Acclaim Studios Austin |
Sports |
1-4 |
Everyone |
All Star Baseball 2003
Reviewed by: Joel
The baseball season has begun and like always there are a number of different baseball games on the market. Accliam's All Star Baseball makes it's first appearance on the XBOX and it is a beautiful one.
Gameplay: Acclaim made some major upgrades to the All Star Baseball series, so that All-Star Baseball could be the best baseball game on all consoles. Some of the big upgrades include: Fully Licensed by the MLBPA, All Major league stadiums, deep franchise mode, all new player models, hall of fame team, and an excellent new expansion draft.
The franchise mode is one of the best, most complex franchise mode I have ever seen on any sports game. In the franchise mode, you don't just make it through a single season, you get to handle minor league players, make trades, and balance a budget. As the season progresses other teams will be trading players, and signing free agents. This is an excellent simulation, of what a normal baseball franchise goes through.
With all these upgrades you come to think how can you go wrong? Well the AI is very good but is like real baseball, very slow at times. Acclaim has tried desperately to tweak around the AI and they have done an excellent job of making the game as realistic as possible. The biggest problem I have with the gameplay, is the difficulty. I found it very hard to get the bat on the ball.
One thing that I found a little odd was the fact that you can take as big of a leadoff as you want, and the computer doesn't try to pick you off. The little things like that give's All-Star baseball some room for improvement.
Although there were a few more minor glitches in the AI I felt that the AI was pretty solid.
Graphics: All-Star Baseball 2003 is an excellent looking baseball game. The new player models look fantastic. Most of the players are like an exact replica of the real thing. Acclaim really takes advantage over the XBOX's capabilities but leaves some room for improvement as well. Acclaim added a few little features that are nice. The umpires, actually make the safe and out calls, which is a nice little feature. On the downside, and yes there is a downside, there isn't any collision detection. Well infact it's the lack of the collision detection. You could be running for a fly ball and run through the other player and catch the ball. These are the little things that can add up, and hopefully will be cleared up in 2004.
Controls: The controls match that of most baseball games. The A,B, Y, and X buttons throw the ball to that base. You can easily change from a normal swing to a power swing, which comes in handy in various situations. This being the first baseball game I have played on the XBOX I found the controls to be extremely easy.
Replay: Well I have come to find that All-Star Baseball 2003 has followed to path of all sports game. This path is the road of bad commentary. Although All-Star Baseball 2003's commentators are correct with there calls most of the time, there is still the repetitiveness like most sports game. Although the commentary is bad, in game sound is pretty good. The crowd cheers, the crack of the bat sounds as close to real as it is going to get.
Sound: Sound: Currently No Rating.
Overall Presentation:
Scores:
Gameplay:  9
Graphics: 9
Controls:  8
Replay: 9
Sound: 8
Total Score: 9
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