What does "High Heat is realistic in terms of gameplay" mean?

[mjb2124]

Re: What does \"High Heat is realistic in terms of gameplay\" mean?

Muffin - I played HH, WSB and ASB. I don't know why, but HH just felt better (this is on PS2) than the rest. WSB was a close second though. My biggest gripe was that I found striking out the CPU to be WAY too easy. I used the Pirates and Kris Benson was averaging 16 K's per game. Kip Wells was averaging 14 and Josh Fogg was around 12. I tried a couple different levels and slider setting, but nothing seemed to help.

My only other gripe with WSB was the swing animations looked funny to me. It's not a big deal at all and I could certainly look past that, but thought it was worth mentioning.

Next year I'll probably be a fulltime WSB guy though. Not sure about the current state of HH, but I'm betting it won't be out next year.

[adembroski]

Re: What does \"High Heat is realistic in terms of gameplay\" mean?

It is realistic because, quite simply, it is realistic.

Lets take the most important aspect of any baseball game: The pitcher batter interface.

I've seen reviews saying that it's "starting to show it's age"... apparently the simple aim and swing system is outdated. Nevermind the fact that it is the most realistic recreation of how you hit a baseball on the market.

What do you do to hit a baseball? Figure out where it's going, and time your swing to meet the ball at just the right point. This is what you do in HH... in others, there are cursers telling you where the ball is going (which is mindbogglingly stupid... what's the point of a curveball then?) and the only thing you've gotta get right is the timing. EA actually does away totally with location, and it's nothing BUT timing.

Moving on... how about pitching. What does a pitcher do? He throws a ball at a spot. Sometimes he hits it, sometimes he doesn't. There isn't a pitcher on earth that has such control that he never misses the 4 inch target he's aiming for. In HH, you locate and throw the pitch... the ratings of the pitcher decide whether or not you HIT that spot. Just like real life, some pitchers you are better off NOT locating and just throwing the damn thing. This will generally get you shelled, but that's why those pitchers go down to AAA.

Anyways, on top of all this, if you think in terms of real life baseball.. if you make logical tactical decisions, it will work in your benefit... assuming the computer doesn't counter you well, which is also very possible, because the CPU Management AI is exceptional.

The ball physics are a touch floated, no doubt... this is a balence issue. They apparently haven't been able to get the ball speed and the player running speed just right so the ball speed LOOKED right. On the other hand, when I WATCH baseball, I notice that sometimes the balls do float like that... a rising linedrive that drops just beyond the infield generally looks kinda floaty.

[adembroski]

Re: What does \"High Heat is realistic in terms of gameplay\" mean?

It is realistic because, quite simply, it is realistic.

Lets take the most important aspect of any baseball game: The pitcher batter interface.

I've seen reviews saying that it's "starting to show it's age"... apparently the simple aim and swing system is outdated. Nevermind the fact that it is the most realistic recreation of how you hit a baseball on the market.

What do you do to hit a baseball? Figure out where it's going, and time your swing to meet the ball at just the right point. This is what you do in HH... in others, there are cursers telling you where the ball is going (which is mindbogglingly stupid... what's the point of a curveball then?) and the only thing you've gotta get right is the timing. EA actually does away totally with location, and it's nothing BUT timing.

Moving on... how about pitching. What does a pitcher do? He throws a ball at a spot. Sometimes he hits it, sometimes he doesn't. There isn't a pitcher on earth that has such control that he never misses the 4 inch target he's aiming for. In HH, you locate and throw the pitch... the ratings of the pitcher decide whether or not you HIT that spot. Just like real life, some pitchers you are better off NOT locating and just throwing the damn thing. This will generally get you shelled, but that's why those pitchers go down to AAA.

Anyways, on top of all this, if you think in terms of real life baseball.. if you make logical tactical decisions, it will work in your benefit... assuming the computer doesn't counter you well, which is also very possible, because the CPU Management AI is exceptional.

The ball physics are a touch floated, no doubt... this is a balence issue. They apparently haven't been able to get the ball speed and the player running speed just right so the ball speed LOOKED right. On the other hand, when I WATCH baseball, I notice that sometimes the balls do float like that... a rising linedrive that drops just beyond the infield generally looks kinda floaty.

[adembroski]

Re: What does \"High Heat is realistic in terms of gameplay\" mean?

It is realistic because, quite simply, it is realistic.

Lets take the most important aspect of any baseball game: The pitcher batter interface.

I've seen reviews saying that it's "starting to show it's age"... apparently the simple aim and swing system is outdated. Nevermind the fact that it is the most realistic recreation of how you hit a baseball on the market.

What do you do to hit a baseball? Figure out where it's going, and time your swing to meet the ball at just the right point. This is what you do in HH... in others, there are cursers telling you where the ball is going (which is mindbogglingly stupid... what's the point of a curveball then?) and the only thing you've gotta get right is the timing. EA actually does away totally with location, and it's nothing BUT timing.

Moving on... how about pitching. What does a pitcher do? He throws a ball at a spot. Sometimes he hits it, sometimes he doesn't. There isn't a pitcher on earth that has such control that he never misses the 4 inch target he's aiming for. In HH, you locate and throw the pitch... the ratings of the pitcher decide whether or not you HIT that spot. Just like real life, some pitchers you are better off NOT locating and just throwing the damn thing. This will generally get you shelled, but that's why those pitchers go down to AAA.

Anyways, on top of all this, if you think in terms of real life baseball.. if you make logical tactical decisions, it will work in your benefit... assuming the computer doesn't counter you well, which is also very possible, because the CPU Management AI is exceptional.

The ball physics are a touch floated, no doubt... this is a balence issue. They apparently haven't been able to get the ball speed and the player running speed just right so the ball speed LOOKED right. On the other hand, when I WATCH baseball, I notice that sometimes the balls do float like that... a rising linedrive that drops just beyond the infield generally looks kinda floaty.

[MuffinMcFluffin]

Re: What does \"High Heat is realistic in terms of gameplay\" mean?

Yeah, well, you have to remember that I played EACH AND EVERY baseball game that came out this year (including IP, and I don't even own an Xbox), so I can know what's right, what's included, or what's left out.

True, the cursor can be stupid because they show the initial location of the ball... that's the thing, the INITIAL location of the ball. For All Star Baseball, it's like that... so that if it's a curveball, that location will DROP. Plus, ASB needs that because of how long it takes to swing on that game.

Now on WSB, yes they have a cursor, but they DO use it the best out of any game. If you swing under it, you will pop it up. If you try to pull an outside pitch, you will more than likely hit a ground ball. HOWEVER, I think there are a little too many homers, and there is no such thing as foul tips on that game. Pitching on this game IMO is MORE realistic than HH. You can choose to have variable pitching on (Low, Medium, or High variable pitching) or off. you can choose not to see where you are gonna pich it, you can choose to have a strikezone or not, etc. Not to mention is the BTP cam a lot better on that game. Granted, HH has all of those options, but they do not do as well on those. They DO do better on the pitches however, yet they exaggerate some.

For instance, they have MANY pitches to choose from, and many move like they sho8uld according to the pitcher. Unless you choose curve or slider, there is a freaky ball trail with a freaky, slow, floaty movement.

MVP is an okay game, probably best pitching, because it wants you to focus on what you're doing. The hitting is quite lackluster though... it's IMPOSSIBLE to hit a ball, and if a pitcher throws a "mistake pitch" (they miss their accuracy zone and the ball location shows up), you're more than likely to hit a bomb of some sort. Plus, they have the broken bat thing all wrong. I agree that since they worked on timing, it is the best with that, but everything else is kinda blah.

SlugFest is SlugFest... every pitch is exaggerated, every pitch is hittable, but all in all, your zone on your swing doesn't match with the zone of the pitch, your hit won't go where you desired it to go. Great use of stamina with the turbo button, but it's just an arcade game. Let's move on.

MLB 2004 is a great game that makes you go back to the PSX days of how they considerably focused on gameplay. It has a terrific feel to it. Lots of good animations and such. If you've seen movies of the game, then you would see that it DOES show where the pitch is going to go, and they show it when the pitcher starts his windup. You have a batting cursor, and can alternate with hitting power and average. However, for some reason it is VERY hard to hit the ball. I've only hit two home runs on that game from the 5 games I've played with it. I know where the pitch is going to be, so why do I strikeout so much? That I cannot explain, but it's a good feel when you're playing it. If you do something good, you feel like you really accomplished something. The pitch speed is VASTLY exaggerated, as a 98 mph fastball feels like it's 110 mph, and a 82 mph curveball, well, it feels like that, but everything but the fastball is much slower. They don't have the use of foul tips either.

Inside Pitch has a weird feel of it to me. I can't really seem to hit the ball too well on this game either, but that's okay. Beyond the pitching and hitting, it's no better IMO. They didn't exactly nail the game on the wood right... so in a way I'm thankful that High Heat and IP are gonna be in a mixed bag together to combine good qualities of each. Unfortunately that's probably all they CAN do in the time they have.


So yeah, I guess HH has the best use of zone hitting, and number of pitches, and effectiveness uniqueness. I'm glad they added foul tips, but then besides all that, nothig else amazes me in terms of gameplay, beyond the features to make it seem realistic as it is.


In the end, I chose WSB 2K3 for PS2.

[MuffinMcFluffin]

Re: What does \"High Heat is realistic in terms of gameplay\" mean?

Yeah, well, you have to remember that I played EACH AND EVERY baseball game that came out this year (including IP, and I don't even own an Xbox), so I can know what's right, what's included, or what's left out.

True, the cursor can be stupid because they show the initial location of the ball... that's the thing, the INITIAL location of the ball. For All Star Baseball, it's like that... so that if it's a curveball, that location will DROP. Plus, ASB needs that because of how long it takes to swing on that game.

Now on WSB, yes they have a cursor, but they DO use it the best out of any game. If you swing under it, you will pop it up. If you try to pull an outside pitch, you will more than likely hit a ground ball. HOWEVER, I think there are a little too many homers, and there is no such thing as foul tips on that game. Pitching on this game IMO is MORE realistic than HH. You can choose to have variable pitching on (Low, Medium, or High variable pitching) or off. you can choose not to see where you are gonna pich it, you can choose to have a strikezone or not, etc. Not to mention is the BTP cam a lot better on that game. Granted, HH has all of those options, but they do not do as well on those. They DO do better on the pitches however, yet they exaggerate some.

For instance, they have MANY pitches to choose from, and many move like they sho8uld according to the pitcher. Unless you choose curve or slider, there is a freaky ball trail with a freaky, slow, floaty movement.

MVP is an okay game, probably best pitching, because it wants you to focus on what you're doing. The hitting is quite lackluster though... it's IMPOSSIBLE to hit a ball, and if a pitcher throws a "mistake pitch" (they miss their accuracy zone and the ball location shows up), you're more than likely to hit a bomb of some sort. Plus, they have the broken bat thing all wrong. I agree that since they worked on timing, it is the best with that, but everything else is kinda blah.

SlugFest is SlugFest... every pitch is exaggerated, every pitch is hittable, but all in all, your zone on your swing doesn't match with the zone of the pitch, your hit won't go where you desired it to go. Great use of stamina with the turbo button, but it's just an arcade game. Let's move on.

MLB 2004 is a great game that makes you go back to the PSX days of how they considerably focused on gameplay. It has a terrific feel to it. Lots of good animations and such. If you've seen movies of the game, then you would see that it DOES show where the pitch is going to go, and they show it when the pitcher starts his windup. You have a batting cursor, and can alternate with hitting power and average. However, for some reason it is VERY hard to hit the ball. I've only hit two home runs on that game from the 5 games I've played with it. I know where the pitch is going to be, so why do I strikeout so much? That I cannot explain, but it's a good feel when you're playing it. If you do something good, you feel like you really accomplished something. The pitch speed is VASTLY exaggerated, as a 98 mph fastball feels like it's 110 mph, and a 82 mph curveball, well, it feels like that, but everything but the fastball is much slower. They don't have the use of foul tips either.

Inside Pitch has a weird feel of it to me. I can't really seem to hit the ball too well on this game either, but that's okay. Beyond the pitching and hitting, it's no better IMO. They didn't exactly nail the game on the wood right... so in a way I'm thankful that High Heat and IP are gonna be in a mixed bag together to combine good qualities of each. Unfortunately that's probably all they CAN do in the time they have.


So yeah, I guess HH has the best use of zone hitting, and number of pitches, and effectiveness uniqueness. I'm glad they added foul tips, but then besides all that, nothig else amazes me in terms of gameplay, beyond the features to make it seem realistic as it is.


In the end, I chose WSB 2K3 for PS2.

[MuffinMcFluffin]

Re: What does \"High Heat is realistic in terms of gameplay\" mean?

Yeah, well, you have to remember that I played EACH AND EVERY baseball game that came out this year (including IP, and I don't even own an Xbox), so I can know what's right, what's included, or what's left out.

True, the cursor can be stupid because they show the initial location of the ball... that's the thing, the INITIAL location of the ball. For All Star Baseball, it's like that... so that if it's a curveball, that location will DROP. Plus, ASB needs that because of how long it takes to swing on that game.

Now on WSB, yes they have a cursor, but they DO use it the best out of any game. If you swing under it, you will pop it up. If you try to pull an outside pitch, you will more than likely hit a ground ball. HOWEVER, I think there are a little too many homers, and there is no such thing as foul tips on that game. Pitching on this game IMO is MORE realistic than HH. You can choose to have variable pitching on (Low, Medium, or High variable pitching) or off. you can choose not to see where you are gonna pich it, you can choose to have a strikezone or not, etc. Not to mention is the BTP cam a lot better on that game. Granted, HH has all of those options, but they do not do as well on those. They DO do better on the pitches however, yet they exaggerate some.

For instance, they have MANY pitches to choose from, and many move like they sho8uld according to the pitcher. Unless you choose curve or slider, there is a freaky ball trail with a freaky, slow, floaty movement.

MVP is an okay game, probably best pitching, because it wants you to focus on what you're doing. The hitting is quite lackluster though... it's IMPOSSIBLE to hit a ball, and if a pitcher throws a "mistake pitch" (they miss their accuracy zone and the ball location shows up), you're more than likely to hit a bomb of some sort. Plus, they have the broken bat thing all wrong. I agree that since they worked on timing, it is the best with that, but everything else is kinda blah.

SlugFest is SlugFest... every pitch is exaggerated, every pitch is hittable, but all in all, your zone on your swing doesn't match with the zone of the pitch, your hit won't go where you desired it to go. Great use of stamina with the turbo button, but it's just an arcade game. Let's move on.

MLB 2004 is a great game that makes you go back to the PSX days of how they considerably focused on gameplay. It has a terrific feel to it. Lots of good animations and such. If you've seen movies of the game, then you would see that it DOES show where the pitch is going to go, and they show it when the pitcher starts his windup. You have a batting cursor, and can alternate with hitting power and average. However, for some reason it is VERY hard to hit the ball. I've only hit two home runs on that game from the 5 games I've played with it. I know where the pitch is going to be, so why do I strikeout so much? That I cannot explain, but it's a good feel when you're playing it. If you do something good, you feel like you really accomplished something. The pitch speed is VASTLY exaggerated, as a 98 mph fastball feels like it's 110 mph, and a 82 mph curveball, well, it feels like that, but everything but the fastball is much slower. They don't have the use of foul tips either.

Inside Pitch has a weird feel of it to me. I can't really seem to hit the ball too well on this game either, but that's okay. Beyond the pitching and hitting, it's no better IMO. They didn't exactly nail the game on the wood right... so in a way I'm thankful that High Heat and IP are gonna be in a mixed bag together to combine good qualities of each. Unfortunately that's probably all they CAN do in the time they have.


So yeah, I guess HH has the best use of zone hitting, and number of pitches, and effectiveness uniqueness. I'm glad they added foul tips, but then besides all that, nothig else amazes me in terms of gameplay, beyond the features to make it seem realistic as it is.


In the end, I chose WSB 2K3 for PS2.

[mjb2124]

Re: What does \"High Heat is realistic in terms of gameplay\" mean?

Muffin - While I agree with almost all of your previous post, there are a few things that I wanted to address/add to.

In regards to HH. As I've said before, this is a game that IMO doesn't play real well out of the box. The hitting camera at default (low zoomed) makes all the pitches look very floaty. This needs to change to Low for the pitches to feel more realistic. Also that ball trail junk is useless and IMO should be off. Those are two big changes in the way the game plays. That and I used the sliders to crank FB speed to 9 and all other pitches to 8 (5 is default). This made the game great and realistic for me. I got blown away at times on 95+ fastballs and was way out in front on many offspeed pitches. Heck, I remember a few times where I was looking for a certain pitch and got froze on a nasty curve (ala Kerry Wood). HH's the only game that I've had that happen to me (aside from real baseball of course ).

Now as for WSB - which is very close to HH. I used no cursor hitting because I'm not a big fan of the cursor. WSB didn't implement this real great and I hope they do in next years game. However, my biggest gripe in WSB was the amount of K's I was able to rack up. I had all the aids off and chose not to see where I was going to pitch the ball at. Granted this resulted in a few extra hit batters until I got comfortable with it, but the K's were way too high. Have you had this problem? I think I mentioned this earlier, but I was averaging about 13-15/game with the Pirates staff. I tried every level (the highest resulted in K's, but I did get hammered if I made a mistake). Tried sliders, but that didn't work either.

Any suggestions?

[mjb2124]

Re: What does \"High Heat is realistic in terms of gameplay\" mean?

Muffin - While I agree with almost all of your previous post, there are a few things that I wanted to address/add to.

In regards to HH. As I've said before, this is a game that IMO doesn't play real well out of the box. The hitting camera at default (low zoomed) makes all the pitches look very floaty. This needs to change to Low for the pitches to feel more realistic. Also that ball trail junk is useless and IMO should be off. Those are two big changes in the way the game plays. That and I used the sliders to crank FB speed to 9 and all other pitches to 8 (5 is default). This made the game great and realistic for me. I got blown away at times on 95+ fastballs and was way out in front on many offspeed pitches. Heck, I remember a few times where I was looking for a certain pitch and got froze on a nasty curve (ala Kerry Wood). HH's the only game that I've had that happen to me (aside from real baseball of course ).

Now as for WSB - which is very close to HH. I used no cursor hitting because I'm not a big fan of the cursor. WSB didn't implement this real great and I hope they do in next years game. However, my biggest gripe in WSB was the amount of K's I was able to rack up. I had all the aids off and chose not to see where I was going to pitch the ball at. Granted this resulted in a few extra hit batters until I got comfortable with it, but the K's were way too high. Have you had this problem? I think I mentioned this earlier, but I was averaging about 13-15/game with the Pirates staff. I tried every level (the highest resulted in K's, but I did get hammered if I made a mistake). Tried sliders, but that didn't work either.

Any suggestions?

[mjb2124]

Re: What does \"High Heat is realistic in terms of gameplay\" mean?

Muffin - While I agree with almost all of your previous post, there are a few things that I wanted to address/add to.

In regards to HH. As I've said before, this is a game that IMO doesn't play real well out of the box. The hitting camera at default (low zoomed) makes all the pitches look very floaty. This needs to change to Low for the pitches to feel more realistic. Also that ball trail junk is useless and IMO should be off. Those are two big changes in the way the game plays. That and I used the sliders to crank FB speed to 9 and all other pitches to 8 (5 is default). This made the game great and realistic for me. I got blown away at times on 95+ fastballs and was way out in front on many offspeed pitches. Heck, I remember a few times where I was looking for a certain pitch and got froze on a nasty curve (ala Kerry Wood). HH's the only game that I've had that happen to me (aside from real baseball of course ).

Now as for WSB - which is very close to HH. I used no cursor hitting because I'm not a big fan of the cursor. WSB didn't implement this real great and I hope they do in next years game. However, my biggest gripe in WSB was the amount of K's I was able to rack up. I had all the aids off and chose not to see where I was going to pitch the ball at. Granted this resulted in a few extra hit batters until I got comfortable with it, but the K's were way too high. Have you had this problem? I think I mentioned this earlier, but I was averaging about 13-15/game with the Pirates staff. I tried every level (the highest resulted in K's, but I did get hammered if I made a mistake). Tried sliders, but that didn't work either.

Any suggestions?

[MuffinMcFluffin]

Re: What does \"High Heat is realistic in terms of gameplay\" mean?

Well, the problem with WSB 2K3 is if you use Custom sliders, well... don't. They messed up with Custom sliders such that if you have everything on 80, it's not the same as Legend mode, it's sliders that are up to 80. That's the weird thing... Legend mode is those sliders at 80 PLUS the Legend sliders which are seemingly invisible. Sounds weird, but it's true. That's why they shouldn't show that Pro is on 40, All Star is on 60, Legend is on 80, etc., because if you use Custom sliders and put it on 40, you'll be winning 19-3.

To tell you the truth, having all of the sliders up to 100 on Custom is easier than just playing on Pro, which show everything at 40.

I play on Pro and have some pretty good numbers. I also edited some of my players attributes to give them kind of more realistic stats because of how well they did this year.


Confusing?

[MuffinMcFluffin]

Re: What does \"High Heat is realistic in terms of gameplay\" mean?

Well, the problem with WSB 2K3 is if you use Custom sliders, well... don't. They messed up with Custom sliders such that if you have everything on 80, it's not the same as Legend mode, it's sliders that are up to 80. That's the weird thing... Legend mode is those sliders at 80 PLUS the Legend sliders which are seemingly invisible. Sounds weird, but it's true. That's why they shouldn't show that Pro is on 40, All Star is on 60, Legend is on 80, etc., because if you use Custom sliders and put it on 40, you'll be winning 19-3.

To tell you the truth, having all of the sliders up to 100 on Custom is easier than just playing on Pro, which show everything at 40.

I play on Pro and have some pretty good numbers. I also edited some of my players attributes to give them kind of more realistic stats because of how well they did this year.


Confusing?

[MuffinMcFluffin]

Re: What does \"High Heat is realistic in terms of gameplay\" mean?

Well, the problem with WSB 2K3 is if you use Custom sliders, well... don't. They messed up with Custom sliders such that if you have everything on 80, it's not the same as Legend mode, it's sliders that are up to 80. That's the weird thing... Legend mode is those sliders at 80 PLUS the Legend sliders which are seemingly invisible. Sounds weird, but it's true. That's why they shouldn't show that Pro is on 40, All Star is on 60, Legend is on 80, etc., because if you use Custom sliders and put it on 40, you'll be winning 19-3.

To tell you the truth, having all of the sliders up to 100 on Custom is easier than just playing on Pro, which show everything at 40.

I play on Pro and have some pretty good numbers. I also edited some of my players attributes to give them kind of more realistic stats because of how well they did this year.


Confusing?

[mjb2124]

Re: What does \"High Heat is realistic in terms of gameplay\" mean?

Muffin - Alright, I got it. It took me a few times to figure out exactly what you were saying, but it's clear now! I'd say that many of the times I played, I did use sliders so that definately sounds like that was a big problem. I tried the other levels, but incorrectly assumed that if a level was too easy at default the sliders would fix it. I think I'm going to give WSB another longer try this time. I'm in the mood for a baseball game again since football is wearing on me and Tiger Woods is getting old. Thanks for the tips!

[mjb2124]

Re: What does \"High Heat is realistic in terms of gameplay\" mean?

Muffin - Alright, I got it. It took me a few times to figure out exactly what you were saying, but it's clear now! I'd say that many of the times I played, I did use sliders so that definately sounds like that was a big problem. I tried the other levels, but incorrectly assumed that if a level was too easy at default the sliders would fix it. I think I'm going to give WSB another longer try this time. I'm in the mood for a baseball game again since football is wearing on me and Tiger Woods is getting old. Thanks for the tips!