I really enjoy this game.  The announcer gives depth to the game with
his ultra context-specific remarks...truly a shock, given the
wonderful graphics and on-the-fly stat. calculations which occur
behind the scenes...this is what I call 'making good use of available
RAM', baby!!

There are numerous problems, as there were with BOT9.  But it has so
many more elements of what I like about baseball that it overshadows
BOT9 and any other baseball game, nay, sports game, which has come
before it.

Two of the most exciting events while playing this game for me, so
far, have been:

	1)  Hitting a grandslam (!) with my Custom Player, Rick Brown.  That
was really great...won that game 5-3.

	2) Snagging a wicked grounder with my shortstop and ripping it over to
first base for the winning out...the guy on third would've been in for
the winning run (I was playing the field from the fielders'
perspective, OF COURSE!).

First, a couple of options which really thrill me in this game:  the
on-the-fly changeable views (by pressing 'select'), the smashingly
tremendous voice acting -- such diversity, the well-rendered
ballparks, the create player feature, and, MOST OF ALL, the point of
view options which allow for a hit ball to be reacted to from the
fielder's perspective.

The Virtual Stadium system is the best, most immersive sytle of sports
perspective I've ever encountered...the viewpoints are continually
shifting...and if you don't like them as they are, you can change them
immediately with a simple button push.  It's a dream come true, I tell
ya.

There is a replay feature!  The sound effects are all terrific.  The
field motion, contrary to what many have said, is rather smooth and
seemless.

Contrary to what many have been saying about this game, there are MANY
different shapes and sizes of bodies.  Sure, they don't look exactly
like their counterparts in real life, but Randy Johnson is tall and
slender and so is TP '97's Randy J.  And the bodies are shaped
according to what they're capable of, best I can tell...I created a
player who is fast, a good hitter, and a powerhitter...so I got
someone medium-height to stocky, well-muscled in the legs, and
broad-shouldered...cool, just like me.

There are pithcers who go sidearm, 3/4, and overhand.

But there aren't very many, or any, sign. style
stances/swings/pitches, although Hideo Nomo does seem to wind up more
than the rest...maybe it was my imagination.

}}}}}}}}}}}} This game gets an 'A -' rating. {{{{{{{{{{{{{{

The minus added on to the 'A' is for the following reasons:

-no batting cursor option

-no way to figure out except by trial and error what pitches the
pitcher is good at throwing (or bad)

-no easy save/load system -- there are too many button presses
maneuvers to be made for a simple game load/save.

-the pitchers can all throw every pitch -- but not the same ones as
well as others, which is actually kind of interesting

-while it is QUITE possible to see how pitchers are doing,
recovery-wise ONCE THE GAME HAS STARTED, you cannot do so BEFORE you
select your starting pitcher...what you do is press 'start' then pick
'rotation' then press left-right...there will be a screen for amount
of rest needed...but this option should be available BEFORE a game is
started

-I also don't REALLY prefer being able to put movement on the ball
once it has left the pitcher's hand...this is kind of fakey...but it
doesn't bother me tooooo much in this game

The baserunning is far too complicated for beginners but is actually a
fairly flexible system once one has become VERY familiar with it

-Another detractor is the fact that the 2-player triangle cursor is
PINK.  Pink?  EA, are you...you know?  C'mon, baseball isn't about
frilly lace and pretty colors.  That was a poor color choice, IMO

Anyhow, that about covers it.

This game is better than watching the real thing, at this point.
THAT, my friends, REALLY says something, as I enjoy baseball a lot.

Good job, EA.  Could've been better, but isn't that the way it always
is....

Rick Brown
brow0130@gold.tc.umn.edu