Triple Play 2002
EA SportsAll-Star Baseball 2003
Acclaim SportsHigh Heat 2003
3DOfor PlayStation2
If they awarded the pennant before the season started, there’d be no reason to play. That’s the great thing about baseball; generally the competitive balance is better than any other sport (witness the Diamondbacks’ championship run), but not to the point where great dynasties don’t happen every so often. What we saw last year, a trend that continues in 2002, is the fall of a dynasty.
Throughout the late Nineties, EA Sports’ Triple Play series was the standard-bearer in baseball games, the first game to render both players and ballparks in immaculate detail while simultaneously offering gameplay that was refreshingly basic, yet addictively nuanced. It’s safe to say that the Triple Play series birthed more full 162-game saved seasons, more controller-tossing grudge matches, than any baseball game since Nintendo’s enduring 1989 classic Baseball Stars.
Somehow, though, when it came time to switch platforms to the PlayStation2, EA Sports dropped the ball as dramatically as Bill Buckner in the ’86 Series. What was once fluid and natural became stilted and soulless. Most disturbing is the batting icon the user is now forced to affix to the ball. Where the focus was once the pitcher and the ball, now it’s this big, imaginary circle-within-a circle. Also frustrating is EA Sports’ insistence on making the unwieldy little analog stick the central control. In what universe is the stick easier to control than the traditional D-pad? Yet in Triple Play 2002, all of a sudden you can’t even move your fielders using the D-pad, a dramatic change from the old Triple Play. It was partially disappointment, but mostly dissatisfaction, that forced me to abort Triple Play 2002 after only a few very unpleasant games.
Next up to the plate: All-Star Baseball 2003. It’s obvious a lot of care was put into this game, from the beautiful detail of the players, parks, and even fans down to the ability to control some very important subtleties. The user is able to not only select what base a fielder will throw to, but to posture the fielder to throw to that base before he fields the ball. At the plate, you’re able to tilt the three-dimensional batting cursor to control whether to hit up or down on the ball, or whether to go to left or right.
You are also able to guess a pitcher’s pitch type as well as location. Unfortunately, it’s nearly impossible to tell whether the batter’s guess actually registers. Similarly, the extra fielding complexity leads to an inordinate number of miscues. And worst of all, the insistence on using one of those darned batting cursors makes hitting the ball consistently in this game damn near impossible. Even a two-player game between beginners ends up like some twisted version of the dead ball era. It’s not hard to drive the ball a long ways, but putting the bat on the ball is a real chore.
Also, the length of the batters’ warm-up routines is ridiculous. It takes 10 seconds or more between every pitch for the batter to lock in, a veritable human rain delay that makes for ridiculously long games. All-Star Baseball is kind of like that pitcher with a great arm who looks good on the sidelines, but once on the mound loses all sense of comfort and control, never quite managing to put it all together.
High Heat 2003, on the other hand, is the smooth, fast-working ace pitcher who’s a joy to watch, a regular Roy Oswalt or Greg Maddux. If the graphics aren’t quite All-Star level, they’re damn close. Most importantly, the gameplay is amazingly smooth and natural. No pitching or batting cursor! Like the old Triple Play and every successful predecessor going back to RBI Baseball, the emphasis is on the pitcher, the ball, and the batter, the way it’s meant to be. And there are still some intriguing options. The batter can go to right or left field, and make a guess at the pitch. Only this time, it’s very easy to figure out when the guess registers.
Like in the other games, there is a team of all-time greats, and there is the ability to save a season and make custom players. High Heat also takes things to the next level by giving you the option to edit pre-made players. This way, it’s possible to adjust Bret Boone’s flukish 2001 season so that he’s not one of the top players in the game. It’s just another feature to obsess over this summer as you wind through the long, saved season that awaits anyone who spends much time with this addictive game. 
This article appears in May 17 • 2002.