Well PSX sports fans, the second baseball game arrived for the PSX this 
week with little hype or expectation. As a matter of fact, I almost 
decided not to get this title due to several magazine’s less than 
positive outlook on this product. I’m glad I didn’t listen to them. Here 
are some of my thoughts on this title.

Graphics: Polygon baseball. I think it looks great. Animation is smooth, 
nice running , fielding , catching, diving, swinging etc.... Some special 
players batting stance styles are honoured.

Sound: Solid sound. Nice announcer, very professional speaker, gives the 
game a nice TV atmosphere.
Cracks of the bat are nice, you can hear the stadium announcer faintly in 
the background announce each batter. 

Playability: Pitching/Defense is straight forward. Each pitcher has a set 
of pitches he can throw. If you try to call a pitch he cannot, you see 
the pitcher “shake of” the sign. Nice touch. After the batter hits the 
ball the game scales/scrolls very smoothly, then you line up the ball and 
snag it. The only catch here is there is no marker telling you where to 
run to catch a fly ball. I personally like this feature, it makes me feel 
the game is more realistic by making LEARN how to judge fly balls. 

When the ball is in the air, any of the 4 buttons will dive/jump, again 
nice touch , no more pressing the wrong one. After you get the ball each 
of the 4 buttons represents a base to throw to. This is GREAT. No more , 
“oops I thought I threw it to second” comments.

Batting: This is HARD, but worth it. Basically you have a box to line up 
on the ball and hit (kind of like WSB , but not quite) If you choose 
POWER swing, the box is much smaller. Each player’s box is sized 
according to their skill. Thus, I play as the ChiSox, so Frank Thomas’ 
box is bigger than Karkovice.
When the pitch starts, you see a star that helps you line up where to 
hit, then you go at it. The only tip that has helped me hitting is I look 
at the Pitcher’s view (there is a pitchers view window in the upper 
center of the screen), because the catcher sets the glove where he wants 
the ball just before the windup starts, this helps me a lot. Batting 
takes a LOT of practice , but you will get the hang of it.

Speaking of practice, this game let’s you practice just about anything. 
In hitting, when you hit the ball, it tells you what type of hit it would 
be in a game (1B, 2B, etc..) Baserunning practice lets you try out the 
forward/back controls, defensive practice, offensive practice, pitching, 
...well done. As a matter of fact I recommend about 200 ball batting 
practice before the 1st game.

The dimensions of the field relative to the player are great. It is much 
bigger than most games, but that is the only way to achieve realism. If 
you hit the ball against the wall, you will definitely have more than a 
single here. Also, gap shots are entirely possible as are Texas 
Leaguer’s. The perspective is a lot closer to reality than a lot of other 
sims.

CPU Opponent: It plays well. My first game I lost 28-0 (on Veteran). I 
can usually turn on a baseball game and thump the CPU, not here. As a 
matter of fact I have played 6 full games and have yet to win. 
It also plays smart & fun. Smart in that pitcher covers first when 
needed, etc. Fun, in that the CPU will try to take an extra base on you , 
get in a rundown, bunt. It  is hard to quantify , but it plays a more
diverse style game than most CPU.

MLBPA is here so you have all the players. MLB is NOT. Thus, city names, 
no team names. Also there are 8 made up stadiums, most are similar to a 
major league park somewhere.

Price: 49.99 is RETAIL I believe. This is a fair trade-off for no MLB 
license, I think.

Summary:
If you like an arcade baseball game, just want to whack home runs, this 
game is NOT it. Avoid at all costs.

If you love baseball and baseball video games, pick this up. It is worth 
it. You need to give it a few days to learn the batting. I’d bet you like 
it more and more each game/day.

Back to the game.....


Timmer