High Heat Major League Baseball 2003

"As close as your going to get to the real thing."

Overview: I have been playing baseball video games since the days of Bases Loaded back on the good old NES. This is the first game that I have played, where virtually all elements of the game of baseball have been done right. I should mention that I have never played any other version of High Heat baseball before this one, and now I am sorry that I did not find this series sooner.

Graphics/Sound-----7
Nothing particularly great about the graphics, but at the same time there are no graphical elements that take away from the enjoyability of the game. The players look realistic enough and their animation is fairly good as well. I especially like how the second baseman jumps away from the bag as he is making the throw to first to complete a double play. For those of you who don't live in South Florida like I do, you probably have never heard of the play by play man in this game. He is Dave O'Brien and he does the real play by play for the Florida Marlins on TV down here. His voice is very easy to listen too and it is not very intrusive. Another thing I love is that the color commentator gets very few lines in. I think that's a good thing because you expect some repetition out of your play by play man, but listening to the color man saying the same thin over and over and over is very annoying. Fortunately, that does not occur in this game. The game could have gotten an 8 or perhaps a 9 in this category except for the fact that I have seen better graphics and sometimes the sound skips like a broken record. Don't let that scare you though because it is more than made up for.

Gameplay-----10
Absolutely incredible. You could not get a more real experience unless you physically play the game.

Batting: Very simple. You swing and aim or you can bunt. Perhaps being able to angle your batters body would be nice, but it really isn't necessary.

Pitching: I love this interface. You can choose whether or not the pitch will stay in the strike zone or not. I should mention that just because you choose strike does not mean you will throw one, but the odds are good that it will be in the strike zone. Same thing with a ball, however here there is only a small chance you will throw a strike if you pick ball and you pretty much have to groove one over the center of the plate to do that. All of the major pitches are in there, although I am unsure about the knuckler, I have yet to face one or play as a knuckler.

Fielding: Yet another perfect element. You are given two styles of throwing. One is holding X and choosing a direction, the other is to designate one button per base. I prefer having a button for each base because I tend to throw to the wrong base from time to time by mistake. It also makes turning double plays much easier.

Speed-----10
Load times are quick and 9 inning games can be completed in half an hour. I credit 3DO for not showing us the throw from the catcher back to the pitcher. Some people might gripe about this and say it isn't real enough, but all that extra throwing really adds up.

Stats and Menu Layout-----4
The stats seem to be kept ok, but viewing them is a pain in the butt. Also negotiating the menu is a bit tedious until you get used to it. Also the font they used is really boring and is hard to read for someone with crappy eyesight like me.

Intangibles-----10
Including the double switch gets a major thumbs up with me. A lot of baseball games fail to include this or make it hard to execute. Also, those of you who have played baseball games for a long time know about the computers tendency to not throw you a walk. EVER. Depending on the pitcher, you may see 1 ball for every 5 strikes, or you might get a 4 pitch walk. I was thrown 10 STRAIGHT balls. After that the guy settled down, but it opened up a big inning for me. I have done all of my playing on the easiest difficulty level so you may notice fewer walks as the difficulty increases. However, its a big thing for me to actually get walked by the computer. I really have not experienced this in any other game before. Also, home runs seem to be hit at a normal pace. I believe this is affected by difficulty as well. Also there are sliders for which you can adjust various aspects of the game to your tastes. There's a lot more that I could say here, but I can tell you that I'm having a hard time finding things wrong with this game. There is the concern about last years schedule being used, but I will not fault 3DO for that because of the way Bud Selig and the stupid owners kept throwing that contraction idea around. I believe it was announced in mid-to-late January that contraction was ruled out for this year and you could not expect 3DO to fix a mistake like that in such a short period of time. I've heard that you can edit the schedule using a game shark so owners of that product have an added bonus right there.

Difficulty Levels: The easiest levels should not give you much difficulty, and I've heard that the hardest are beatable without being too cheap so that's not too bad.

Season length can be set from 1 to 162 games. How's that for customability!

Replayability-Massive is all I can say. You can try to beat it with 30 different teams so it should definitely keep you busy for a long time. I recommend buying the game.

Final Thoughts: If you're looking to play a baseball game that gets the job right, High Heat is for you. It's problems do not outweigh its good points. I did not mention the 2v2 or home run derby because I'm not into those things. If your really into those things and unsure about buying the game then rent it first.

Final Score: 9 out of 10

PS Don't bother averaging the 5 scores above and telling me I made a mistake. I weigh some thing with more precedence than others.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/21/02, Updated 02/21/02