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High Heat Baseball 2000 (PC) ReviewRelease Date: April 1999 Background Info
However, not all was perfect in High Heat 1999. Once again, let's cast our minds back to a simpler time. When a baseball game could simulate the swing of a highly trained professional athlete by having a model come in and swing...a tennis racquet...awkwardly...maybe two or three times. Yes, the graphics in HH99 were so bad as to be distracting (at least until you got used to them). Surely, this had to be a priority for the good folks at Team .366 in this year's game, right?
Graphics : 85
Audio : 84
The crowd noises are, once again, very welcome and very entertaining. They get excited and noisy during a home team rally, they boo the pitcher when he's getting shelled, they even heckle the players on easy plays (during infield pop-ups, there's frequently somebody yelling "Drop it!" or "I've got it!" which always brought a smile to my face). Plus, the old, loud, drunk bleacher bum from last year must have renewed his season tickets, as he is here to loudly express his (indecipherable) opinions especially during the later innings.
Nothing special on the audio, but nothing too negative, either.
Interface/Options : 70
I found making substitutions a little difficult, however, especially when making a double switch. Frequently, I would go into the bullpen and then realize that I didn't know when the pitcher was due to hit next. Unfortunately, there was no way (that I saw) to quickly check the batting order from that screen. Yes, it's my fault for not checking first, but I wish the game were a little more flexible about it. Also, when I did know that the pitcher was due up and I started a double switch, the indicator of who was due up when looking at my line-up was very unreliable-sometimes it was there, sometimes I had no idea who was coming up when.
Another bug I encountered was that the game kept forgetting options I had selected. The only "assist" I used was automatic defensive positioning (because I got tired of manually putting the infield at double-play depth, for example). HH2K also gives you a really cool option for alternate throwing controls (discussed below). Whenever my team went on the road, or started a home stand, these options would no longer be selected. In other words, changing between home and visitor status cleared all of the gameplay options I had set.
Also, one of my least favorite crashes in any game occurred with HH2K and I suspect it's a problem with the interface. I was beating Houston (whom my Cardinals were fighting with for first place in the NL Central) in the eighth after coming back from an early deficit. My pitcher really got tired, so I went into my bullpen and selected a reliever. I mistakenly double-clicked instead of single-clicking at one point and the entire game crashed, hard, dumping me out to my desktop-which it also had messed up. It moved icons and resized the whole thing and I couldn't recover. I ended up rebooting and then manually replacing everything just the way I like it... I am not certain if this was an HH2K interface problem or not, but it seems likely and it was really frustrating.
Of course, all of the above comments refer to taking the controller in hand and actually playing the games as they occur. When we turn to the simulation-only mode, serious problems emerge. This has to be one of the most ill-conceived and infernally difficult to use interfaces I have ever seen. Players get called up from the minors to the bigs without my input. The batting order changes, without my input. Players get injured, come off the DL-and have nowhere to go. The manual is singularly useless in providing any help in these matters, also. Here's a puzzle for you worthy of Myst:
To be honest with you, I've never been much of a sim-head. I find watching the computer process games I'm not involved in to be incredibly tedious. I enjoy actually playing the games. I don't want arcade baseball, mind you: I want realistic baseball action in a game which I am directly controlling. From what I've seen, this is not possible with the sim engine provided with HH2K.
Gameplay : 92
The alternate throwing control option (mentioned above) is one of my favorite options. Basically, this switches you from standard D-pad plus button throwing into button-only control. The normal throwing arrangement is that you press the D-pad in the direction you want to throw and then press the throw button. With the alternate throwing control option on, four of your gamepad buttons (arranged in a roughly diamond-shaped pattern) allow you single button access to each of the three bases or home plate on the diamond. I really think this is a better way to control throwing, especially because I could use the D-pad to move my fields while at the same time getting my thumb ready for the throw in. I think it definitely cuts reaction times a little.
The picture is completely different, unfortunately, if you want to have the game run things for you. The simulation engine is very flawed and nearly impossible to work with. The stats, limited though they may be, seem believable and accurate. Trying to manage your roster, though, is a tedious exercise in frustration. The trade AI seems fairly intelligent, as I could never manage any of the "Are you serious?" types of trades that all too many baseball sims will allow you (i.e. two minor league pitchers for a very successful major league closer such as Rick Aguilera...oh, wait-that really did happen). I couldn't get the M's to agree to trade Junior for anybody I put on the block, for example.
Oh, yeah, and the Minnesota Twins (who currently have, if I'm not mistaken, 15 rookies on their roster, won the AL Central. Then, in the first round of the playoffs, they beat the wild-card Cleveland Indians (or, as the idiotic Minneapolis StarTribune refers to them: "the Cleveland American League baseball club"-doesn't that just roll off the tongue?). Then, for the ALCS, they faced the also-surprising Texas Rangers (who knocked off the Yanks in the first round). Not only did the Twinkies beat the Rangers, but they then proceeded to defeat the Houston Astros in five games to win the World Series. I will make you this promise now: if Tom Kelly can lead this useless bunch of rookies to the World Series championship this season-I will actually eat the CD that this horrible simulation shipped on. That's how unlikely this outcome really is.
Difficulty : 93
Additionally, the opposition AI is smart. The substitutions the managers made almost always were smart and correct. They would pull pitchers as soon as they were no longer effective (including once in the first inning as the Cards exploded for 8 runs-early shower that day...). If they were on the losing end of a blowout, they would not hesitate to pull their starters for the rest of the game to avoid injuries. I don't recall ever seeing such intelligent management in other games I've played. Mind you, the subbing isn't perfect-one of the bugs that really bit me once was that the opposing manager pinch hit for his pitcher late in the game. I was extremely happy to see the pinch hitter come up because the pitcher was a sidearm hurler and I really have a hard time judging balls and strikes with them. My joy at seeing the pinch hitter was somewhat short lived as he hit a home run against me. "Oh, well," I thought, "at least the pitcher's gone." Imagine my dismay when I came up the next inning-and the same pitcher was on the mound! Terrible, terrible bug (I ended up winning, I'm sure you'll be relieved to hear).
Overall : 90
Reviewer's Equipment
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