High Heat Baseball 2003 - PC

I bought High Heat Baseball 2002 and I was blown away with how great it was. The graphics, and the realism of the game play are way beyond any baseball game on the market. I haven't seen much on High Heat 2003, but that sure (...) doesn't matter. I'm gonna order this game before I read any reviews, see any screen shots, or talk to any of my friends. If it's even CLOSE to as good as 2002 is, I gotta have it. This is a game that your not taking a chance on, it's a guaranteed winner.

I bought the High Heat 2002 game and was reasonably satisfied. I played it on Win 98 and had a few problems, but nothing that took away from the experience of the game. This year's 2003 offering is even WORSE than last year's! I'm using XP and 3DO must have not put any effort into testing or troubleshooting the game with XP. There are several major bugs that cause stuttering audio, random (and excessive) program crashes, and game play problems. Try to draft a team? Good luck, you'll wind with some people you didn't select, replacing guys you did and have no idea where they went. Expect a patch? Good luck! 3DO issued 1 patch for HH2002 and it looked like they were aggressively persuing further patches to upgrade the product. Instead, they gave up and let the customers suffer with the program. This year, they look like they're not even bothering with 1 patch! The company puts a sub-standard product in stores, dares people to purchase it and doesn't stand behind it at all. Don't waste your money, you'll be disappointed. Bryan M. Bowie, MD

I am a long time fan of High Heat and have bought every year's version. This was not a pc game but a poorly executed console port. If I wanted to play a console game, I would have bought the console version. But, to get a console version that plays on the computer, well, is insulting. As others have written, there is no mouse support. I could live with that, if the interface was easy to use. This interface attempts to be cool, which only leads it to being difficult and not at all intuitive. Often you get to a place and have no idea how to do what you want. The help key is not very helpful, either. Without a mouse, it is hard to find what you want, or to get out of the wrong place, that you will find yourself often. I felt insulted by this game. I should have listened to the reviews that downgraded the game. I actually found the play at times fun, but the game crashed 2x out of 3 games. Not good. That it crashed during the only enjoyable game I had, well, was not reasuring. The addition of new pitch types was a good change. The circles to assist fielding are WAY to large and intrusive. The game often required six or more imputs to get it to accept the pitch selection. (Yes, my sidewinder was calibrated, and works fine with other games.) This totally interrupts the flow of the game, and is very frustrating. The player graphics look like they were taken from an arcade game and not as realistic as some past versions. Some of the animations are really entertaining. Overall, I was very disappointed. Getting a console game, wrapped in a pc package to me is unethical. The menus are flat out awful. If you want a console game to play on a pc, well, this is fair. As a pc game, it is poor.

This is a tough review to write, because I loved the 2001 version of High Heat with Sammy Sosa on the cover. The plain and simple fact is that this is the same game with a few tweaks and improvements, but not nearly enough to warrant a new version. Things that have changed for the better from the 2001 version: The players look better, and seem to move with more fluidity. There are lots of new animations on play in the field, for example, the first baseman will move to different sides of the bag and will scoop throws depending on where the throw comes in from. The addition of mound visits is great for me, as I never had enough time to warm up a reliever when the current pitcher was getting shelled. The brief clips of walkup music for home batters are nifty, and I understand you can pop in your own music (with a bit of work) if you don't like the generic sounds 3D0 shipped with the game. I have yet to really get into the tune file and tweak, but I see more foul balls and a bit more realistic contact now. Bunting for base hits is much harder than it used to be, and the addition of base coaches and calls to first/third base umpires on checked swings add cool bits of realism. Things that are bad: The Windows XP problems are crippling many users. 3D0 either needs to eschew support of winXP or provide better tech support on how people who are not power gamers can get the game to work on their systems. I use win98 and had no problems, but others have had problems on all OSes. There are also some bugs, including one that causes the announcers to often repeat their words. Other users have reported the incorrect logging of error stats, and double plays that include seven names in the box score thanks to the new "throw the ball around the horn" animation. The announcers are TERRIBLE. Ted Robinson was worse in the 2001 version, but these guys are almost as annoying. The worst part, though, is the script the announcers are given, which is not only uninteresting and unrealistic, but contains many phrases that are re-treads from the 2001 version. A suggestion for the 2004 incarnation: Hire Jon Miller to do the voice acting for the announcer, and let him write the script. He's got the best voice on TV, and his diction is perfect for the task. Another gripe: the stadium announcer mispronounces many names. The rosters for the Exhibition games are more accurate than the rosters that are present once you start a season. As a Giants fan, I was baffled to see no Ryan Jensen, Damon Minor, or Yorvit Torrealba on the 2002 roster... this is inexcusable from a game that prides itself on it's realism. I can forgive software limitations of making a baseball game (sometimes the computer gets a game it WILL win, and there's nothing I can do), but there's no excuse for 3D0 to have the parameters incorrect. The stadiums don't look much better than they did two years ago, and the fake ads are annoying. I understand the practice of game developers putting their names into the signs as a kind of "Kilroy was here" vanity plate, but I don't think it's appropriate. They would be better served having their names placed into the name generator for rookies. Shouldn't all the sponsors who have their signs in ballparks nationwide be champing at the bit to have their logos placed in-game? This is one case where I'd like to see more corporate sponsorship, as it's how real life is. The home run derby has no replays. That was the whole POINT of the HR derby for me in the 2001 version, I liked watching the ball fly out of the park from various perspectives... nothing like watching a Vladimir Guerrero shot travel out of the Polo Grounds, exactly the same trajectory that Josh Gibson once hit one. I would never play the derby for the scores, as there's no mystery there. In HH2001, it was Guerrero. This year, Bonds hits every pitch farther than anyone else in the game. This is not only inaccurate, but it removes any competetive level from the derby, and without the replays, it is merely repetetive button-pressing plus boring re-tread commentary. In all, this is a full-version game that would be a free update on most other games I've played (E.G., Diablo 2, Half Life, Quake 1 through Arena, etc). 3D0 has the best franchise out there in terms of gameplay, so I understand why they rest on their laurels, but a game this unchanged in 2 years has no excuse for not running on XP, not fixing ALL bugs, and charging [too much]. I recommend it, because it's still the best baseball game in town, but I'm disappointed with the effort.