Overview
High Heat has been the king of baseball sims since the first came out. With a cult following HH easily remains a top notch baseball title for those who want gameplay over graphics. Now comes 2004, and with a slew of baseball games this year raising the ante on gameplay( so I;ve heard), will HH continue to be a contender? Well lets find out.
I now present to you, Graphik;s High Heat Review for Dummies;
Graphiks!
First off, lets dig into the usually unknown realm of High Heat;s graphics. Ever since you saw that first commercial with Sammy grinning ear to ear saying Its so realllllyou obviously knew he meant gameplay. Because upon first look, ( and dry heaving is acceptable ) you would have thought this was some kind of joke and that 3DO was playing. But no, the graphics really were that bad. 2002 brought another poor efford by 3DO. And by 2003, you can now tolerate the graphics. Still choppy, but better.
Now in 2004, you knew that this was the year for HH fans to finally have an attractive game. And attractive it is. Butand this is a big BUT;if you are very new to the series then you might say its still a little PS1-ish, and people who have played any of the previous effords will be in heaven. See me, I;m in heaven with this game, the animations are great IMO. The most important animations in a baseball game should be the batter and the pitcher. Since you will be looking at them for a 3rd of the game. Now the batter has a lot of animations at the plate, like practice swinging, kicking his cleats, tapping the plate with his bat and more. And on bad pitches, he jumps in disgust, shakes his head, and looks at the ump. But the most noticeable improvements has been the fielding animations. The fielders now jump and throw when their off balance, or throwing across their body, they throw side-arm, and they are a host of more animations throwing. The double play animations are up to par this time around, with the baserunner breaking up the play, and the fielder side-stepping across the base and then throw and more. Speaking of baserunners, their slide animations have been rehauled, and they actually look like the have friction with the field instead of floating to the bag as in previous years. The karate kick slide looks more like a real slide also.
I honestly have to say that this years graphics are the best ever for HH, but, they are still a little behind the comp, not much, but still behind. So to put it as I said earlier, if you have never played HH and graphics are a vital option in your game, then you might be a little disappointed. (you graphic whore). But if you;re a fan of the series, then you;re in for a treat, as the graphics are greatly improved and the constant skipping and missing frames of animation are absent from this game. Much props to 3DO for finally getting it right.
Audio
Hmmmmmm, it;s a little of a mixed bag with the audio. For starters, the crowd seems better this year, but they miss there cue to cheer sometimes. They cheer when you get a hit or homerun, but sometimes they must not be looking because you dont here anything sometimes. But I;ve also noticed that there is a difference in when your stadium is full and when you can only fill have the stadium. Playing with the White Sox, the capacity is like 44 thousand, and I average only 16 to 17 thousand per game. And the crowd does;nt be so into it, they give a little cheer and back to the looping crowd jabber. But in a place like San Fran, the stadium is packed, and the decibel level is a little bit higher. And they also cheer more. The down side to the audio, is the bland commentating, it gets repetitive after the first game and they announcers do nothing to add excitement to the game. They don;t talk about player specifics like if there on a hot streak, or even his batting average. Just the same things every game. And the PA announcer doesnt say half the names of the players in the league so you get a lot of, The Batter, the second baseman; , and it just sad of all the names they left out. Besides that the other audio sound such as the crack of the bat are on point.
Gameplay
Now on to the most important thing in any game;.gameplay. Well if you;ve been locked in a windowless room for the pass four years you would know that HHs gameplay is always great b/c it does all the little things in a baseball game right. And the plus-side to that is that the CPU plays one heck of a game. They play just as aggressive as you would. If their lead-off batter gets on base, you can best believe hes gonna try to steal, and their baserunners are truly aggressive. In most baseball games, the CPU always know when youre going to gun their runner attempting extra bases so they wont run. In HH, the CPU goes all out on the basepads resulting in some frustrating and thrilling moments by you, the user. The frustration comes when the CPU I is too aggressive and they score when a runner gets home from first. But that;s baseball so youre happy unless it really resulted in your loss. The thrilling part is that you can throw man out at 3rd base or home, and every now and then pick-off a runner. Making the game tense and very exciting.
Now comes the Pitcher/ batter game, one of the best in the business IMO. I;m a non-cursor fan so take the following how you want to. Nothing in this game beats the feeling of a 3-1 count. You almost know the pitcher will groove one in on you. To be successful in batting, just like real life, you have to wait for your pitch. You swing at outside and inside stuff, early in the count, you wont get much. And another good thing about the pitchers, is that each on feels different. Some pitchers start off slow by falling behind in the count to the majority of batters. Some can come in throwing strike after strike. Some can paint the corners really well and punch you out looking at a pitch, others cant paint the black for the death of them. And that goes for the CPU as well as the user. If you have a team with a weak pitching staff, youll know.
The best addition to this game is all those wonderful sliders. If you feel the outfielders are chasing down balls that should of/could of gotten past them, slow them down. If you feel the CPU is hitting to much, drop the slider down for fairness. If you feel your pitchers get tired to quick, raise the slider and he becomes an immortal. If you feel you cant strike out against the best, raise the speed of each individual pitch to your liking, and I guarantee youll start striking out. You get the idea. The best slider is the foul ball slider. With it raised you get a nice variety of foul balls. And it raises your pitchers pitch count for realism. So this game is customizable for any hardcore or arcade type baseball video gamer.
I almost forgot about the stat. Well to put it in one word. Real.
Other Mentionable
Booklet;the booklet leaves a lot of unanswered question about the game. So its not very helpful and searching for solutions or answers. It list all the sliders but does;nt tell you what there purposes are.
Presentation;Its not good at all for starters. You have to go thru layer after layer to find some things. But after a few games, you;ll get the hang of it and breeze thru it in no time. The best thing about their menus is that there is no loading. So you can run thru everything in record time once you get the hang of it.
Replayability/Funfactor
This game is baseball, and if you like baseball, you;ll wanna keep playing over and over again. There;s no bells and whistles. No hundreds of game play modes. No movies to look at, no extra stadiums and legends. So you get right down to businessthe game. (Or better yet your season or franchise)
Bottom Line
Is this game worth your hard earned 50 bucks? Is it recommendable? My answer is yes(Unless youre a admitted Graphic whore) because this game breaths baseball. The same thing in regards to game play rarely happens twice. So each game you play will be different. You have a good week with your clean up man, then next week hes ice cold. Your starting ace pitcher may average 8 SOs a game until you face Derek Jeter and the Yankees. Injuries, Minor leagues, career stats, its all there. I know I did;nt metion to many bad things about the game because none of them are game killers. If things like players having accessories and stadiums having home run celebrations are for you then you might just hate this game. But for the hardcore baseball gamer. Who cares about gameplay more than eye-candy..well here you go.
Scores (to be taken with a grain of salt)
Graphics-83
Audio----80
Gameplay-99
Fun Factor/ Replayability-97
Overall-86
Pros-Plays one heck of a game of baseball, as you should know.
- Graphics are now toleratable(sp?)
- Franchise Mode w/ Minor leagues.
Cons-Graphics are still lacking for todays standards.
- No eye candy for players or stadiums
- Commentary is a bit weak
- A lot of missing names and faces
- Roster are kinda old.
High Heat has been the king of baseball sims since the first came out. With a cult following HH easily remains a top notch baseball title for those who want gameplay over graphics. Now comes 2004, and with a slew of baseball games this year raising the ante on gameplay( so I;ve heard), will HH continue to be a contender? Well lets find out.
I now present to you, Graphik;s High Heat Review for Dummies;
Graphiks!
First off, lets dig into the usually unknown realm of High Heat;s graphics. Ever since you saw that first commercial with Sammy grinning ear to ear saying Its so realllllyou obviously knew he meant gameplay. Because upon first look, ( and dry heaving is acceptable ) you would have thought this was some kind of joke and that 3DO was playing. But no, the graphics really were that bad. 2002 brought another poor efford by 3DO. And by 2003, you can now tolerate the graphics. Still choppy, but better.
Now in 2004, you knew that this was the year for HH fans to finally have an attractive game. And attractive it is. Butand this is a big BUT;if you are very new to the series then you might say its still a little PS1-ish, and people who have played any of the previous effords will be in heaven. See me, I;m in heaven with this game, the animations are great IMO. The most important animations in a baseball game should be the batter and the pitcher. Since you will be looking at them for a 3rd of the game. Now the batter has a lot of animations at the plate, like practice swinging, kicking his cleats, tapping the plate with his bat and more. And on bad pitches, he jumps in disgust, shakes his head, and looks at the ump. But the most noticeable improvements has been the fielding animations. The fielders now jump and throw when their off balance, or throwing across their body, they throw side-arm, and they are a host of more animations throwing. The double play animations are up to par this time around, with the baserunner breaking up the play, and the fielder side-stepping across the base and then throw and more. Speaking of baserunners, their slide animations have been rehauled, and they actually look like the have friction with the field instead of floating to the bag as in previous years. The karate kick slide looks more like a real slide also.
I honestly have to say that this years graphics are the best ever for HH, but, they are still a little behind the comp, not much, but still behind. So to put it as I said earlier, if you have never played HH and graphics are a vital option in your game, then you might be a little disappointed. (you graphic whore). But if you;re a fan of the series, then you;re in for a treat, as the graphics are greatly improved and the constant skipping and missing frames of animation are absent from this game. Much props to 3DO for finally getting it right.
Audio
Hmmmmmm, it;s a little of a mixed bag with the audio. For starters, the crowd seems better this year, but they miss there cue to cheer sometimes. They cheer when you get a hit or homerun, but sometimes they must not be looking because you dont here anything sometimes. But I;ve also noticed that there is a difference in when your stadium is full and when you can only fill have the stadium. Playing with the White Sox, the capacity is like 44 thousand, and I average only 16 to 17 thousand per game. And the crowd does;nt be so into it, they give a little cheer and back to the looping crowd jabber. But in a place like San Fran, the stadium is packed, and the decibel level is a little bit higher. And they also cheer more. The down side to the audio, is the bland commentating, it gets repetitive after the first game and they announcers do nothing to add excitement to the game. They don;t talk about player specifics like if there on a hot streak, or even his batting average. Just the same things every game. And the PA announcer doesnt say half the names of the players in the league so you get a lot of, The Batter, the second baseman; , and it just sad of all the names they left out. Besides that the other audio sound such as the crack of the bat are on point.
Gameplay
Now on to the most important thing in any game;.gameplay. Well if you;ve been locked in a windowless room for the pass four years you would know that HHs gameplay is always great b/c it does all the little things in a baseball game right. And the plus-side to that is that the CPU plays one heck of a game. They play just as aggressive as you would. If their lead-off batter gets on base, you can best believe hes gonna try to steal, and their baserunners are truly aggressive. In most baseball games, the CPU always know when youre going to gun their runner attempting extra bases so they wont run. In HH, the CPU goes all out on the basepads resulting in some frustrating and thrilling moments by you, the user. The frustration comes when the CPU I is too aggressive and they score when a runner gets home from first. But that;s baseball so youre happy unless it really resulted in your loss. The thrilling part is that you can throw man out at 3rd base or home, and every now and then pick-off a runner. Making the game tense and very exciting.
Now comes the Pitcher/ batter game, one of the best in the business IMO. I;m a non-cursor fan so take the following how you want to. Nothing in this game beats the feeling of a 3-1 count. You almost know the pitcher will groove one in on you. To be successful in batting, just like real life, you have to wait for your pitch. You swing at outside and inside stuff, early in the count, you wont get much. And another good thing about the pitchers, is that each on feels different. Some pitchers start off slow by falling behind in the count to the majority of batters. Some can come in throwing strike after strike. Some can paint the corners really well and punch you out looking at a pitch, others cant paint the black for the death of them. And that goes for the CPU as well as the user. If you have a team with a weak pitching staff, youll know.
The best addition to this game is all those wonderful sliders. If you feel the outfielders are chasing down balls that should of/could of gotten past them, slow them down. If you feel the CPU is hitting to much, drop the slider down for fairness. If you feel your pitchers get tired to quick, raise the slider and he becomes an immortal. If you feel you cant strike out against the best, raise the speed of each individual pitch to your liking, and I guarantee youll start striking out. You get the idea. The best slider is the foul ball slider. With it raised you get a nice variety of foul balls. And it raises your pitchers pitch count for realism. So this game is customizable for any hardcore or arcade type baseball video gamer.
I almost forgot about the stat. Well to put it in one word. Real.
Other Mentionable
Booklet;the booklet leaves a lot of unanswered question about the game. So its not very helpful and searching for solutions or answers. It list all the sliders but does;nt tell you what there purposes are.
Presentation;Its not good at all for starters. You have to go thru layer after layer to find some things. But after a few games, you;ll get the hang of it and breeze thru it in no time. The best thing about their menus is that there is no loading. So you can run thru everything in record time once you get the hang of it.
Replayability/Funfactor
This game is baseball, and if you like baseball, you;ll wanna keep playing over and over again. There;s no bells and whistles. No hundreds of game play modes. No movies to look at, no extra stadiums and legends. So you get right down to businessthe game. (Or better yet your season or franchise)
Bottom Line
Is this game worth your hard earned 50 bucks? Is it recommendable? My answer is yes(Unless youre a admitted Graphic whore) because this game breaths baseball. The same thing in regards to game play rarely happens twice. So each game you play will be different. You have a good week with your clean up man, then next week hes ice cold. Your starting ace pitcher may average 8 SOs a game until you face Derek Jeter and the Yankees. Injuries, Minor leagues, career stats, its all there. I know I did;nt metion to many bad things about the game because none of them are game killers. If things like players having accessories and stadiums having home run celebrations are for you then you might just hate this game. But for the hardcore baseball gamer. Who cares about gameplay more than eye-candy..well here you go.
Scores (to be taken with a grain of salt)
Graphics-83
Audio----80
Gameplay-99
Fun Factor/ Replayability-97
Overall-86
Pros-Plays one heck of a game of baseball, as you should know.
- Graphics are now toleratable(sp?)
- Franchise Mode w/ Minor leagues.
Cons-Graphics are still lacking for todays standards.
- No eye candy for players or stadiums
- Commentary is a bit weak
- A lot of missing names and faces
- Roster are kinda old.
), you know, punctuation marks. My bad if it was a hard read. I cant delete or edit any of that stuff. 
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