World Series Baseball 2K1

"All-In-All A Decent Baseball Game When You Have No Other Options"

I'll get right into it.

Graphics - What can I say, for a game almost 10 years old, the graphics are phenomenal. The players models are pretty close; there are skinnier/smaller and more fatter/taller players in real life than the game models offer, but it's close enough. Even the faces do a good job of matching up to the real face. The animations are really well designed. The stadiums are really great, and if we ignore the crowd, they are actually very very accurate to real life. If I cared about the crowd at all, it'd say it's lame that they use the same few 2D models and just scatter them across the seats. But I don't.

Sound - Very generic voice acting. One guy almost soley saying people on base, the score, the count, and a basic play-by-play. When he tries to pronounce custom characters he just says the initials, which feels pretty awkward. If a custom player fields a ball, he calls them by their first name initial. But what do you really expect for this unless they just say his number and skip their names. Crowd just cheers and boos accordingly.

Gameplay - People seem to have the same thoughts as me with everything up until gameplay. First off, hitting. You can get the hang of it pretty easily. There's really no telling where the ball will be pitched, but I usually just swing at every pitch. You pretty much need to commit right away because of the somewhat long swinging animation, but just hit the trigger and follow the ball as it flies down to the plate. I've gotten several home runs per game on Legend Mode so I must be doing something right.

Next, pitching. It's another pretty straightforward system. First you choose the pitch, and the pitcher will nod when you've selected something (you can change it again if you want). Up is fastball, downright is curve, etc. Next you tap A and while the pitch is charging, aim the invisible pitch aimer in the batters box to wherever you want based on how you tilt the analogue stick. Less tilt = closer to the center. If you're going to throw anything besides full power, might as well throw it outside the batters box and pray he swings, because on Vet Mode they'll most likely slam it out of the joint.

Fielding. This is where it all starts to become unglued. Almost every players AI is as dumb as a brick. Good thing they didn't put any errors in this game, because the poorly responding fielding system well makes up for it. For the most part, they hit a fly near any player, it will be caught. There are some times where a fly to the infield will hit an unfortunate deadzone where no players AI are sent over to catch it and it'll drop in harmlessly for a base hit. The diving system usually works fairly well, however sometimes players will dive too early where they could seemingly grab it, sometimes a line drive is hit past their thigh but they'll dive over anyway, out of the way of the ball. If you're quick with outfielders, you can have them throw it back in without "stopping" and they move in one fluid motion. Infielders are usually the same way if their Defense stat is high enough. Some players will be able to throw it from a knee, others nice little jump throws, etc. A lot more than you'd think, line drives are hit straight through the pitcher which hurts a lot. He will almost never grab it and it'll always roll out into center field for a base hit.

Baserunning - Easily the worst aspect of the game. Baserunning is slow, unresponsive, and just flatout flawed. Players speeds are ok, sometimes a bit too slow. If you hit a ball far enough for a double, good luck with that. Trying to make them circle first base is a patient process of pointing to second base and rapidly tapping A until he cooperates, in which you may barely make it. If someone hits a popfly while you have people on base, forget it, they are all out. Especially if you have multiple baserunners. Each player will automatically run to the next base even if the ball flies 20 ft straight up. Getting them to run back, which I'm led to believe is B + which base you'd like each runner to go to, it near impossible. By the time you manage to get the first guy running back to his base, the ball with have been caught and you've yet to send the others back. Same goes for other multiple base hits. Instead of the baserunners sprint and rounding the bases, each player will stop at the next base and wait for you to desperately tap A trying to send them to the next base.

The last thing I'd like to say is stealing bases. Unless the player is about halfway or less to the next base, forget about it. The fielder on the base will take an unnecessary amount of time catching the ball and gently gliding downwards to perform the tag. This happens in almost every way if someone is going for extra bases as well.

Conclusion - It is still a very addictive game. All the factors that make the game handicapped also add a level of unsureness to the game. Do I have to worry about overthrowing the ball? No. Do I have to worry about my guy running a lap around the field before he runs over to the ball? Oh yes.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/28/09

Game Release: World Series Baseball 2K1 (US, 07/17/00)