All-Star Baseball 2002 Review

A swing and a miss.

Well, baseball season has ended and the ground outside is beginning to freeze

over. Quite an interesting year, don’t you think? Bonds broke the home run record,

the A’s managed to lose both the playoffs and Giambi to the Yankees and Acclaim

has decided to ship All-Star Baseball 2002 over to the GameCube. Bet you

didn’t see any of those coming…

The All-Star Baseball franchise has been around for some time. But

while Acclaim has managed to deliver some insane

pitches in the past, they certainly dropped the ball for this season. With

plenty of AI faults, some bad camera work and the most boring announcer this

side of Fenway Park, someone needs to make sure this error is recorded.

The front end is familiar, with enough modes to keep you busy until next season.

There’s Quick Play (with computer selected teams), Home Run Derby, Batting Practice,

Team Management (the fantasy draft), and MLB Play. MLB Play breaks down into

even more modes including Exhibition, Season, All-Star Game, and Series. Take

each of those modes, slam them together and you get a whopping total of eight

modes. That’s more baseball than you’ll ever need.

There are a few other nice little bits, including Hall of Fame Teams and a

Player Creator. If there’s one thing ASB 2002 has going for it, it’s

thoroughness.

At first, the gameplay seems decent enough. Pitching is made comfy with ye

olde pitching cursor for you to move around on screen and, as usual, different

buttons throw different player-specific pitches. Some pitchers have more to

choose from, some have less. It all depends on your man.

Batting is just as simple with a triangle-shaped batting cursor hovering over

the plate. Just hit the big green button and smash away or just hit ‘X’ and

give that little round sucker a bunt. One nice feature of the batting game is

the ability to tilt the batting cursor. This makes it much easier to hit the

grounder or fly ball you’re going for. You can also hold down the ‘R’ trigger

and try to guess at the next pitch location. Guess correctly and you just might

be the hero. It’s all really easy to handle due to the simple, intuitive control.

I just wish things were always as simple as they seem, because once you get

into the game, you’ll only be dealt a decent hand that gets screwed by one of

the game’s numerous faults.

Easily the most annoying problem with ASB 2002 is the lame AI. The

outfielders must have passed through Dr. Frankenstein’s lab, since they seem

to be missing any type of brain matter. Picture this: A ball flies out down

the left field line and manages to go over the head of the left fielder. The

ball rolls to a stop in the corner and the left fielder stops cold. I’m not

sure if it’s some kind of sensory overload or the “sun” getting into his eye,

but the LF just stops and stands perfectly still. This leaves the ball for the

center fielder, who has to come trotting over to the 3rd base line from half

a field away. Brilliant.

Outfielders often stand by as pop flies drop at their feet. This even happens

during night games, but I bet it was that pesky “sun” again. Who let their brains

out?

Equally frustrating is the game’s camera work. Just forget about catching

foul balls because you’ll never see which player you’re controlling. The baseline

cameras almost never include fielders. You’ll just have to get lucky in order

to swing someone over in time.

The visuals are nothing special, featurng very plain stadiums and the occasional

disproportionate player. The player modeling is subpar. Everything just looks

drab. Even the bizarre cut-out crowd looks bored. Make sure have a few pillows

handy.

Keeping with the whole dull theme is the announcing, which is as boring as

the visuals. You’ll hear the occasional player factoid or update on the game,

but absolutely nothing else. No color, no excitement, no fun. This is partly

due to having only one announcer, I guess, which was a bad design decision.

The only bright spots are some of the player animations. Several of the catch

animations are pretty smooth and add realism, particularly when they flow into

one another. I once witnessed two fielders going for the same ball with one

jumping over the other to make the catch. Pretty neat.

But once again, the good is mangled by the bad, as the transitions between

animations stink. Even scooping up a simple grounder can get messed up. One

second he goes to pick up the ball, the next there’s a jerk and the player is

magically lined up for a ball that would have otherwise gone past him. This

can lead to irritating moments of having to wait for the player to finish his

cheap animation before he throws the ball, costing precious seconds and potentially

ruining a play.

As it stands, All-Star Baseball 2002 is just a ho-hum game with some

annoying AI and marginal presentation. Despite its plethora of modes, it’s simply

not very fun. This team must be in its rebuilding phase, since the greatness

of past ASB games is nowhere to be found. Maybe next season they’ll

make it to October.