The perfect game for everyone up to the hardcore fan. (World Series Baseball 2K1 (DC))

Member Name: DaChild

Product:	World Series Baseball 2K1 (DC)
Date:	02/09/01 (26 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great graphics, plenty of lifespan, fun to play

Disadvantages: No manual fielding, no home run derby, not available in UK

World Series Baseball 2K1 is produced by Sega Sports, who are well known for producing faithful recreations of American Sports on the Dreamcast. With the highly successful NBA and NFL games, can they do it again with the MLB?

In a word, yes.

World Series Baseball 2K1 is up to date for the start of the 2000 MLB Season. This means with approximately 1 hour's work, you can update the rosters to be similar to today's teams. Obviously, some rookies are missing, most notably Ichiro, but the game is over a year old, and there is nothing you can do.

The game allows you to play an Exhibition Game, a Season or skip straight to the Playoffs. You can play a short season of 13/15, 26/30 games (depending on the league you play), or longer seasons of 52, 104 and a full 162 game season. This provides plenty of depth to the game.

The first thing that will strike you is the visuals. All 30 MLB stadiums are recreated in perfect detail, and although it's all static (it's always 12:57 at Tropicana Field), it looks excellent. Baseball fans will be able to identify players by face as well - the detail is stunning.

But what about the gameplay? Well, it's good and bad. Firstly, the good: Pitching. WSB uses a good pitching method, where you select a pitch using the 3D Stick, then aim the pitch, and stop the power bar where appropriate. It works well, and you feel quite in control. However, when the opposition gets a hit, you notice the first problem.

The fielding was automatic - players ran to the ball and you told them where to throw it. I wanted to field myself, so I went back to the options.....but couldn't change it. There is no Manual fielding option in World Series Baseball, and this is frustrating because the computer misses some plays that you are certain could be made.

Then we come to batting. Batting uses a different style to most games. You pull the R trigger, then release it to swing. This feel
s ok, until you realise that the "Early" and "Late" advice on when to swing seems a bit random. It feels very sluggish at times.

The game is hard. Very hard. It wll take you a long time to start winning on Amateur, and then there's still Rookie, Pro, All-Star and Legend to conquer. However, you do feel that turning up the difficulty only makes it harder to hit away from fielders, and increases the chance of the computer hitting it so it cannot be fielded. It almost feels on higher difficulty levels like you have very little control.

All in all, WSB 2K1 is a good game. You feel with another month in the development house it could have been brilliant, but if you want a good baseball game to enjoy casually, this is for you. However, a slightly dodgy batting system and no manual fielding will deter hardcore fans who like total control.

This game is only available in the US, but it is worth getting a disc to play import games to play it. The game can be found for $20 (£13), and you can get import disks for under £5.

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