World Series Baseball 2K2

"Is it good? Yes. Is it flawed? Most definitely."

There is no doubt that this game had a lot of hype behind it since it is developed by Visual Concepts. However, this offering is a decent first offering and not the true baseball sim people have been looking for on next-gen consoles for years. But fear not behind the shoddy animation is a decent gameplay system.

Game modes:
Your standard stuff here with Exhibition, Season, Playoffs, Franchise, Create a Player (one of the most useless things to put in a sports game if you ask me, unless it is to include a player not in the game) and Network play. The Franchise mode looks rushed from my view but then again I haven't seen a console game come close to being as accurate to the Baseball Mogul series for the PC so I'm not surprised. The Network play is not a favorite of mine for any of the sports games due to the fact that I have dsl but no broadband adapter even if this game supported it and I refuse to play on 56k modems ever again.

Pitching: Depending on your viewpoint this can be the most important part of the game. The system is based on selecting from four pitches (or three if you have a relief pitcher on the mound). Now first off the speed of the pitches on the whole are a bit slow when compared to other games but after a few games you will get used to it. Fastballs will certainly reach the batter sooner than a curve or changeup will. Adding to the realism factor of pitching (and to a lesser extent with hitting) are hot and cold zones. This gives you a better idea of how to pitch to a batter as you can also see how you pitched to certain batters in their last at bat. The computer also adjusts during the at bat if you tend to stay inside or out and will make defensive swings with two strikes against it. The pitching animations as a whole are quite good especially when compared to other parts of the game. Overall, I think this is the best portion of the game.

Batting: Roughly the same mechanics as any other baseball game except for the fact that the physics tend to be more realistic and the already mentioned hot zones. If you make contact underneath the ball you will more than likely pop out. If you have the settings on rookie though you might get a few homers off of bad swings.

Fielding: The weakest aspect of the game. Every player fields with the same animation. If you're looking to make diving stops at short you'll more than likely be disappointed as the dive feature is useless. More often than not you will over jump the ball and the batter gets at least a single. While I know VC had about 10 months to make an entirely new game would it have killed them to make the ''magnetic'' attraction of the ball to a glove look somewhat more realistic. At least with the NFL and NBA series the size of the balls makes it less noticeable. Also I have not seen any throwing errors unless caused by my own mistakes. This detracts from the realism factor a bit but not too much.

Audio: Average but I'm not a big fan or critic in this area so I don't have much to say about it. The announcer (from High Heat 2001 on the PC) is as bland as usual and blows a few calls such as a home run being called a foul ball. But, this is chalked up to a lack of lines to distinguish certain plays.

Instant replay: First of all it is difficult to focus on the ball and more importantly, you cannot focus on the ball. Any game where you can't focus on the ball itself is a joke. If there was any evidence showing VC rushed this game this is it.

Overall: This game is not as bad as people have made it out to be. While yes it is extremely easy to trick the cpu base runners into getting caught on the bases, the core gameplay is sound. Recommended for baseball fans.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/22/01, Updated 08/23/01