I know Viper is going to attack this however there are things in here he cannot deny. I have given up on the High Heat series based on my PC experiences. I just dont understand why so many people love High Heat. They talk about gameplay so much. Perhaps they need to play a text game then?? Here are my biggest gripes for the past few years. There are more but I thought I would list my top ten..
1. 4 straight years and they have yet to get Dodger Stadium right. They forget about the small fence down the line, and make it the same height as the rest of the fence. And the crowd stands overlap in the bleachers and look terrible. The stadiums still look the same from High Heat 2000 and the banners and ads look like they are from High Heat 99.
2. Hissing. Overall poor sound quality. In the 2003 version not only did they not fix the mono-sound hissing but they added something new. Sound skipping! And never fixed it in a patch. Despite consumers being angry about it. Also, if your going to make a crowd noise for a computer baseball game that loops over and over its best not to have that woman screaming
every 30 seconds. When you loop something, dont stick a sound in there that
stands out so much. I swear you hear the stupid woman screaming in the background once or twice every batter.
3. The colors just arent right. This goes back to High Heat 99 for PC. The greens and reds have a weird hue that dosent look real.
4. Recently in High Heat 2002 they added a mono-like swish sound when you pitch the ball. Despite complaints from many consumers they left it in High Heat 2003 and according to the videos it's in 2004 as well. With of course, no way to turn it off.
5. The disgrace of a release, High Heat 2003, they pretty much made a High Heat 2002 roster update and REMOVED features from the game! Gone was Nomo's and other's pitching and batting stances. Not to mention GONE were foul balls. Pitch counts were lowered to make the game more exciting making relievers useless. Nice upgrade 3DO.
6. The fielding markers still look terrible. As far as art goes, the people working on the High Heat series have no clue. Every year PC users have to change the markers with their own artwork because they either look like annoying spinning helicopters or in this years version a neon bright yellow halo with orange stripes! What?
7. When pitches are made to home plate there was only 12 ball frames with gaps too large between each frame. Of course this was more noticeable on breaking pitches when the ball moves down towards the bottom of your screen. Think about it thats 12 animations. Thats a ball appearing every five feet! It never looked smooth and looked more like dots rather than a smooth traveling baseball. And yes it was never fixed for 4 years.
8. And then if you happen to make your camera zoom back enough you can see on high pitches the catcher never catches the ball!. He reaches up and the ball goes right by him but its really in his clove. Again, never fixed for 3 years.
9. Even the sunsets (even though they look beautiful) are unatural
looking. But what about those bats?? Two straight years we are treated to bright yellow neon bats and blue bats??
10. Numerous scoring bugs in 2003 that weren't patched nor even addressed by 3DO.
You see gameplay is usually very good from High Heat games. Thats not the problem. And Im sure some of you will rip me and say gameplay is most important. However aren't some of things I mentioned a part of overall gameplay?
What makes anyone think 3DO will improve their products at all? I can see the occasional bug however leaving things in year after year that annoy most gamers (and yes I mean MOST, Im a High Heat message board veteran) and then removing features that gamers liked is not a way to keep sales up. I know many others like myself who have given up on the High Heat series for PC or the Xbox. Its a shame because it really could have been a good series but they screwed everything up.
1. 4 straight years and they have yet to get Dodger Stadium right. They forget about the small fence down the line, and make it the same height as the rest of the fence. And the crowd stands overlap in the bleachers and look terrible. The stadiums still look the same from High Heat 2000 and the banners and ads look like they are from High Heat 99.
2. Hissing. Overall poor sound quality. In the 2003 version not only did they not fix the mono-sound hissing but they added something new. Sound skipping! And never fixed it in a patch. Despite consumers being angry about it. Also, if your going to make a crowd noise for a computer baseball game that loops over and over its best not to have that woman screaming
every 30 seconds. When you loop something, dont stick a sound in there that
stands out so much. I swear you hear the stupid woman screaming in the background once or twice every batter.
3. The colors just arent right. This goes back to High Heat 99 for PC. The greens and reds have a weird hue that dosent look real.
4. Recently in High Heat 2002 they added a mono-like swish sound when you pitch the ball. Despite complaints from many consumers they left it in High Heat 2003 and according to the videos it's in 2004 as well. With of course, no way to turn it off.
5. The disgrace of a release, High Heat 2003, they pretty much made a High Heat 2002 roster update and REMOVED features from the game! Gone was Nomo's and other's pitching and batting stances. Not to mention GONE were foul balls. Pitch counts were lowered to make the game more exciting making relievers useless. Nice upgrade 3DO.
6. The fielding markers still look terrible. As far as art goes, the people working on the High Heat series have no clue. Every year PC users have to change the markers with their own artwork because they either look like annoying spinning helicopters or in this years version a neon bright yellow halo with orange stripes! What?
7. When pitches are made to home plate there was only 12 ball frames with gaps too large between each frame. Of course this was more noticeable on breaking pitches when the ball moves down towards the bottom of your screen. Think about it thats 12 animations. Thats a ball appearing every five feet! It never looked smooth and looked more like dots rather than a smooth traveling baseball. And yes it was never fixed for 4 years.
8. And then if you happen to make your camera zoom back enough you can see on high pitches the catcher never catches the ball!. He reaches up and the ball goes right by him but its really in his clove. Again, never fixed for 3 years.
9. Even the sunsets (even though they look beautiful) are unatural
looking. But what about those bats?? Two straight years we are treated to bright yellow neon bats and blue bats??
10. Numerous scoring bugs in 2003 that weren't patched nor even addressed by 3DO.
You see gameplay is usually very good from High Heat games. Thats not the problem. And Im sure some of you will rip me and say gameplay is most important. However aren't some of things I mentioned a part of overall gameplay?
What makes anyone think 3DO will improve their products at all? I can see the occasional bug however leaving things in year after year that annoy most gamers (and yes I mean MOST, Im a High Heat message board veteran) and then removing features that gamers liked is not a way to keep sales up. I know many others like myself who have given up on the High Heat series for PC or the Xbox. Its a shame because it really could have been a good series but they screwed everything up.
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