High Heat Baseball 2002 Review

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(More customer reviews)If you are looking for a PS2 baseball game to buy, then ask yourself this question. Do you enjoy a low scoring, well-pitched games? Do you like situational hitting and working the count? Do you like bring in a lefty to get out the opponent's lefty slugger? if you answered yes to these questions, then high heat is the only way to go. Let me point out some things that make this game the most realistic baseball game EVER!!!
1. Depending on your pitcher's control, throwing strikes especially the tough corner ones is not automatic. You can choose to throw down the middle but opponents will tee off on you or you can work the corners but if your pitcher is not a control pitcher like Greg maddux, then you will walk batters. Thus, the gameplay revolves strongly around throwing strikes to get ahead in the count as a pitcher or letting certain strikes go and waiting for the mistake pitch out over the plate to drive as a hitter. This is an awesome aspect of the game which baseball players can appreciate.
2. The computer's AI is incredible. Let's say you are messing around and throw to the wrong base, the computer runner will often take advantage of that and take an extra base.
3. Never have I seen a game where the computer puts the runners in motion with a full count with two outs. What does that mean? Well let's say a runner is on first with two outs and full count and the computer hits a gapper. When you pitch, the runner immediately runs because this is what will happen in a real baseball game. So the runner will score. If the count wasn't full, the runner most likely will not score. such a situation is indicative of the importance of the whole ball count thing I was talking about. Other realistic situations include infield fly rule (which prevents your stupid human opponent from dropping a fly ball on purpose to to get cheap double plays when you have runners on 1-2 or bases loaded), passed balls, dropped third strike and throws that are not always right on the money. So if your outfielder throws home, depending on their attributes, some balls might be frozen ropes to the catcher but more often than not, it will take a hop in front of the plate, leading to the catcher receiving the ball high and allowing the runner to slide underneath a catcher's tag
4. You can double-switch just like they do in the NL.
5. Defense is realistic and there are no cheap hits due to poor fielder AI. For instance, let's say there is a fly ball right between the shortstop, left field and center field. All three fielders WILL run towards the ball regardless of who you are controlling. So let's say the computer set the initial defender that you are controlling to CF, but because you thought you were controlling the SS, your initial control was "UP", causing your CF to move away from the ball. In other games, the ball will then drop and the batter might even get a double. Not in this game! Because your SS and LF were automatically moving towards the ball, you can switch off and still make the play.
6. I recently rented triple play and found that the variety of batted ball trajectory was laughable. If I swung on time, the ball was hit out for a HR or if I was late, the ball would just be slice into the opposite outfield crowd. I think I kept swinging late on a fastball and literally hit the ball to the same section in foul territory about fifty times in a full game. Too bad I wasn't sitting at that spot. THAT IS NOT REAL BASEBALL. HH2002 features a plethora of different batted ball trajectory such as dribblers, line drives to infieders, sharply batted balls that can be turned into double-plays, gappers, routine pop-ups, slices that land on the foul line and head into the corners for exciting triples. I could literally go on for another 10 pages about the realistic nature of this game.
7. The boxscore is incredible, presented exactly in a format like the newspaper's. There are stolen bases, Caught Stolen Bases, errors, number of strikes/balls thrown per pitcher. Strangely, you can't sort the stats by category leaders so it's hard to tell who is leading the league in HRs or strikeouts. One glaring stat glitch is the game's inability to record saves properly.
NOW the warning. If you thought my above descriptions made you say "I could care less", then don't get this game, because you will be hugely disappointed by the rudimentary (for PS2) graphics and lack of additional features such as create-a-player, home run derby, etc. (As described in other reviews, there is a bull-pen glitch, which I chose to take out of the equation by turning the pitcher warmup feature OFF). This game is for real baseball fans only.
(I'm in a middle of a season and my record is 32-15 with the Dodgers. Kevin Brown is 5-2 with an ERA of 2.33 and Gary Sheffile is batting .380 with 13 HRs. In any other game, I'll bet my record will be 45-2 because it's so easy for you to take advantage of computer and Gary Sheffield (or your team's slugger) will have like 40 HRs because you can pretty much hit one per game. the realism is thoroughly enjoyable and I am looking forward to a close pennant-race with the Giants or the Rockies. In other words, I won't win my division finishing 30 games ahead of the 2nd place team as I have done many times playing ASB or Triple play on N64 or PS.)

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The critics' favorite PC baseball game, High Heat Baseball, has come to bat on the PS2. This graphically rich simulator with down-to-the-pinstripes detail is also among the system's most configurable titles. A tuning feature will allow you to adjust the variable elements of the game, such as error frequency, and the not so variable, like physics. High Heat Baseball 2002 includes updated 2001 rosters, and with the game's player editor, you can add to (or subtract from) a laundry list of abilities. Beyond that, the game's create-a-player feature lets you build your ballplayer from the mound up.

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