All Star Baseball 2004 Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I have played All-Star Baseball since N64 and this is by far the best to date. After the terrible 2002 and the improved-but-rough 2003 installments, this one is a pleasant surprise!
Gameplay:
The best feature is the much, much deeper FRANCHISE MODE, which follows the option/waiver rule--you can't just move players up and down the major and minor as you please-if a player has no more option left, you have to pass him through waiver, and likely some other teams will pick him up. You can also control the 40-man roster, trading block (let other teams know who you are interested in trading), sign long-term contract DURING the season, decide on coaching, scouting budgets, and high-and-low minor leagues.
In-game features:
The main gameplay is pretty much the same as 2003, but many details has been inproved.
INSTANT REPLAY: TV-like angles with more than a dozen to choose from and whenever you want, even to see if a check-swing has gone too far!
CHECK-SWING, REALISTIC ERRORS, EJECTION, CATCHER STOPS THE HITTER FROM CHARGING THE MOUNT, and OFF-THE-LINE THROWS: They probably learned quite a bit from High Heat Baseball, but it looks so much better.
MOUNT VISIT: Shows the condition of your pitcher (rattled, fatigued, etc.) and the coach's suggestion.
BETTER A.I.: It's much harder to get a triple because the CPU finally has learned not to throw everything to the second base from the outfield. CPU's pitching has also become tougher and it's possible to draw lots of walk if you are patient.
BETTER GRAPHIC: It's no Slugfest, but overall it's much cleaner and some faces are really life-like. Also the batter's head will follow the ball in the HR replay.
FASTER PACE: Again, don't expect the pace like Slugfest, but this is much finer gameplay.
Few things to complain about:
SLIGHTLY OLD LINEUP: I wish they could have waited for a month so they could at least include Matsui. If anyone can find Kevin Miller please tell me!
SOUND: Very minimum crowd noise and effect. The commentary is somewhat dry and repetitive. But VERY GOOD voices of the umpires (they are different).
ONLY ONE BATTING/HITTING CAMERA: There are simply no option to change this.
CPU Hitting: is a bit weak and too selective in general.
BASE STEALING: Too easy, as long as the pitcher does not use slide move. And many never do.
EJECTION: You can choose to pitch "bean ball" (usually above the neck) and that pretty much means ejection. But there are quite a few time I pressed the button (R1) by mistake--because R1 was the button to get a closer look at the runner on first for previous All-Star games--and was ejected in the first inning and had to start over. Also if you pitch very inside just twice, it's an ejection. Your hitter might also get hot too easy after being hit, and that also result in ejection. I think it's too sensitive.
LOOK ALIKE: Most players are not so different from each other in the batting box or pitching mount, but so do many other games. And you don't get the ritual dance of Nomar!

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