Will High Heat 2004 get the improvements it needs to compete with WSB.

[BaseballGuru]

Re: Will High Heat 2004 get the improvements it needs to compete with WSB.

Again, I'm not seeing it snaz... what basics does High Heat get right that the others don't? What does it do better than WSB? What makes High Heat superior to ASB? I own all three, I've played all three quite a bit, and I just don't see it.

High Heat is a simple game of baseball... ball, strike, point and click... baseball to me isn't that simple. Don't think that I'm faulting the game, because I'm not. It is a fun game to play, but I don't see how it is the ultimate baseball sim... I've tried, especially after reading all the rave reviews on OS for the past 2 years... I've really given it the old college try, but I just don't think it stacks up. Any game that, given the opening day starting rosters, puts Colorado in the WS.... well, how solid can its sim engine be?

[FatPitcher]

Re: Will High Heat 2004 get the improvements it needs to compete with WSB.

I don't like having most of the game determined by die rolls and ratings. And I like to play the game my way. I'll pitch to Bonds, even if that's not realistic. I'll hit and run with Mo Vaughn running the bases. I'll squeeze bunt with Tim Salmon, and I want the opportunity to use my skill to lay down a good bunt, not just hope that I get a good roll. Playing the way I feel like playing is more fun for me than trying to achieve realism for realism's sake.

[LetsGoPitt]

Re: Will High Heat 2004 get the improvements it needs to compete with WSB.

Fat,

I hate to say it, but you're in the minority with that one. If I'm stupid enough to send Mo Vaughn off for second, I want to pay the consequences for my bone-headed decision. I wouldn't squeeze bunt with Tim Salmon, because my gut tells me he wouldn't be any good at it. It's not die rolling, it's an accurate reflection of the guy's abilities. If you toss statistics and ratings out the window, then you have a meaningless game, because it doesn't matter who your players are. If Pokey Reese has more homeruns than Brian Giles, and Jimmy Anderson is leading my team in ERA, there's something wrong with the game. (both of which happened in WSB)

[BaseballGuru]

Re: Will High Heat 2004 get the improvements it needs to compete with WSB.

I agree and disagree with FatPitcher... I play my way as well, which wouldn't always fly with the teaching of Tom Emansky or whoever the baseball video guy is. I'll squeeze bunt using my clean up hitter, I'll leave my pinch hitter in to pitch an inning, I'll pretty much do whatever strikes me as fun at the moment. That being said, I expect that a squeeze bunt with Frank Thomas at the plate would be successful maybe 1 out of 10 times... he just doesn't bunt, so he shouldn't be very good at it. I doubt he even practices the bunt. I also want my pinch hitter to get shelled if I leave him in to pitch the next inning.... makes the strike out of the odd player or two that much more fun, knowing that with any pitch, the ball could leave the yard.

I don't demand total realism, but somewhere in there is a balance between sim and arcade that plays a good game of baseball.... I call it All Star Baseball on veteran level with the indicators all turned off.

[snaz16]

Re: Will High Heat 2004 get the improvements it needs to compete with WSB.

Thats why they made sliders for HH. If you want more control than turn the sim slider down. What does HH do that the others don't. How about the fact you can draw walks more realistically than ASB or WSB. How about dropped 3rd strikes,passed balls,wild pitches. The AI dropping a suicide squeeze in the 9th on me with the score tied,because I didn't pull the corners in. Guru, like you told me, I'm happy for you if you like ASB. I like it myself. I just don't think it plays as realisticly as HH,nor is as simple as you make it out to be,for the reasons stated above. Is HH perfect? Hell no. But ask yourself these 3 questions. If you put ASB or WSB graphics,a franchise mode,and an optional batting cursor in HH,what game would you want to play?

[LetsGoPitt]

Re: Will High Heat 2004 get the improvements it needs to compete with WSB.

Obviously, your hybrid game would be the choice, because it would be near-perfect.

HH does the mechanics of baseball better than any other game. If they could improve on the graphics of HH2002 for PC and bring it to the console, it would be perfect. HH2002 was the best baseball game I have ever played. Period.

[FatPitcher]

Re: Will High Heat 2004 get the improvements it needs to compete with WSB.



I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I want to be able to bunt well with a bad bunter, but I want it to be more challenging skill-wise (rather than chance-wise). So maybe I have to line up the cursor perfectly with a bad bunter and just get wood on the ball with Craig Counsell. I still won't succeed very often (if I am playing on the right difficulty), but at least I know I can succeed by DOING something rather than hoping for Lady Luck to be on my side. Same deal with normal batting. In High Heat, I can hit the same pitch dead on with the same guy and sometimes have it go over the fence and sometimes hit a weak grounder to the pitcher. in WSB and ASB, if you hit a pitch squarely, so does the batter you are controlling. The challenge is in you hitting the ball well, not in winning coin flips.

Last year, pitchers who should have been walking a lot of batters tended to hit a lot of corners instead, which might be one reason why Jimmy Anderson had your best ERA. CPU pitchers also tended to challenge weak hitters too often, resulting in HRs for Pee Wees and pitchers.

In response to the "3 questions," I can only cackle evilly. Your question basically boils down to, "What if High Heat had its batting system completely redesigned/retuned and had its budget quadrupled?" It's like those people at IGN asking questions like, "Who would win between MS and Nintendo if Sony didn't exist?"

HH2002 is the game where popups in Wrigley wouldn't ever land, correct?

[LetsGoPitt]

Re: Will High Heat 2004 get the improvements it needs to compete with WSB.

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
HH2002 is the game where popups in Wrigley wouldn't ever land, correct?

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">
I never had that problem...But one of the legit knocks against the PC series has been the bugs. With patches, the game plays fine, but it is annoying. The good part about it is that the game does get fixed, and they're pretty good about releasing patches.

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
Last year, pitchers who should have been walking a lot of batters tended to hit a lot of corners instead, which might be one reason why Jimmy Anderson had your best ERA. CPU pitchers also tended to challenge weak hitters too often, resulting in HRs for Pee Wees and pitchers.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">
Is it a correct interpretation that you are working on fixing this for next year?

[FatPitcher]

Re: Will High Heat 2004 get the improvements it needs to compete with WSB.

Yes. That's the good thing about making sequels...although people get understandably frustrated if the sequel fails to improve on known issues. Nothing's more annoying than a bug or tuning problem that never gets fixed.

[LetsGoPitt]

Re: Will High Heat 2004 get the improvements it needs to compete with WSB.

Any way you can let us in on the major issues you are looking to correct?

[FatPitcher]

Re: Will High Heat 2004 get the improvements it needs to compete with WSB.

I'm sure there will be interviews and previews soon enough. You'd get more info from those anyway. The guys at VC are better than I am about answering quesions, knowing everything people wanted to see in the next version, etc.

[BaseballGuru]

Re: Will High Heat 2004 get the improvements it needs to compete with WSB.

Isn't WSB a sequel already though? I thought you said you used alot of the same resources from the Dreamcast version.

[FatPitcher]

Re: Will High Heat 2004 get the improvements it needs to compete with WSB.

Other people said that, actually, and I disagreed. Almost everything, from animations to to franchise mode to stadiums to AI, was completely changed from 2K2 to this year's version.

[BaseballGuru]

Re: Will High Heat 2004 get the improvements it needs to compete with WSB.

I think I remember now... it was a discussion about who had the advantage as far as time in development goes. I said that the games other than WSB didn't really have that great of a head start on WSB since they had only released one version each on the next gen consoles and really didn't have any resources to carry over from N64....

They have all had foundations which were built upon, so it's not like yours is the rookie underdog up and comer who comes out of nowhere to surprise the competition.... like Rocky or something.

[GreenGlen]

Re: Will High Heat 2004 get the improvements it needs to compete with WSB.

High Heat has got to improve the eye candy to be competive. It is only a matter of time before a game is made that uses HH game play with jaw dropping graphics. That game might be WSB, it might not Yes graphics are important too.. That is part of the reason we drop $50 for newer complete games, not roster updates.