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A disappointment

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: August 15, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I've played tons of games over the years and I think I have a good feeling for needing to invest time in a worthy game to realize its potential - this one is not worth it.

The front end is needlessly un-intuitive. Trying to get into a game is more complex than it should be. Not helping is the fact that at least one of the buttons on the on-screen menu is mis-labeled. Worse, you need to move the analog stick to your menu selection and hold it it there or it will snap back to the middle of the screen. Why you cannot make a selection with the d-pad and not have it stay on your selection until "confirmed" is just silly.

Once I got into a game I found the graphics very disappointing. Some stadiums look a LITTLE better than others but for the most part they are subpar. Too many sports game makers discount the immersion that comes from successfully re-creating the ATMOSPHERE of a sporting event. In baseball I would argue that it is even more important. The fields very hardly textured and I was surprised by the lack of detail - surely the Dreamcast is capable of more.

Player animations are average at best. The players look decent and are not carbon copies of each other but they all stand, field, run and celebrate exactly the same way. It really adds to the feeling of tedium.

Batting is atrocious. Batting stances are fine but there is no positioning a player in the batters box (that I could discern anyway). All batters swing like they are swatting at flies with a newspaper. The animation doesn't appear to have the player swing through the pitch. The ball flies off the bat nicely when you connect but it feel entirely like luck as you are required to do a silly dance with positioning a cursor while the ball is enroute to home plate and then "swinging" the bat with the A button. .... You have little to no control of the batter until the pitch is on the way. I don't like being an observer in a game I'm supposed to be playing.

Baserunning is fine except again in its presentation. .... Sliding looks ok given the limitations on display but its difficult to judge if you will beat the throw or not as baserunners usually walk the first 1/3 of the path and then seem to catch up to your furious button mashing to help your runner pump his legs. This is especially the case trying to run out a grounder to first.

Once you figure out the batting mechanics and if you are able to to get a pitcher worn down the home runs will fall like rain. .... Some text comes up that says home run, there is a quick cut to your batter running the path betweeen 1st and 2nd and then stomping on home plate. Each time in the EXACT...SAME..WAY. ....

Defense is where the game's strengths are. Pitching is wonderful. .... It's one of the first games that made me look forward to playing defense.

You can control the outfielders and they have a few moves to make jumping or diving stops but again they are all the same. One nice thing is that you throw to the base you want to by pushing one of the corresponding buttons in the diamond-like configuration on the Dreamcast controller - cool.

Overall the game might appeal to someone looking for an alternative to the other games out there but as for me I'm still waiting for a marriage of Triple Play's looks and attention to details and High Heat's gameplay and mechanics. WSB skimps on too many details and has a few too many shortsighted shortcuts and a few big flaws to be worth my time. Someone please step up to the plate.

Long awaited, sorely disappointed

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: September 14, 2001
Author: Amazon User

First I want to say that I am a huge baseball fan, and that WSB 2K1 was completely underrated and 2K2 is equally overrated. 2K1 had hands down the BEST GRAPHICS I've ever seen in a sports game. The pitching and batting of all players was right on the money, a perfect 10. Full motion, breaking pitches looked so sharp, you could even see the seams! While the fielding was automatic, the plays looked realistic and had full motion and extreme detail. The editor was fabulous too, although I wouldn't mind changing the height and weight too! It's wrong to call 2K1 a failure (an example of failure would be all 3 baseball games on PS2), because if only the fielding were changed to manual, that would have been the greatest game of all time. Meanwhile in 2K2, I lost hope. To start, the graphics aren't even close to 2K1, pitching and batting motion is strange, even cartoon like. Also, pitches don't break AT ALL- a fastball looks just like a screwball. Batting stances aren't correct (especially Bonds), and balls outside the strike zone are still strikes. To continue, yes, you have manual fielding, but a normal 6-4-3 double play is almost impossible, because it seems as though everyone is as fast as Maurice Green. Plus the fielders dive way too far, but at least they can jump. To add to that, the editor is [weak] too. You can't even change the faces, pitching stance, or batting stance, so it's all a clone team. Then to top that off, as the GM (who's suppose to have control) can't even trade half the people you want to because of NO TRADE contracts. That's poor. Hitting is far too difficult, and in 2 player mode, you can't even hide your pitch. The only pluses I can give are exceptional commentary, online play, and home run derby. This game needs much improvement.

World Series Baseball 2k2-

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 14
Date: May 10, 2001
Author: Amazon User

World Series Baseball 2k1 is one of my all-time favorite games for any system or platform. I was only disappointed with a couple of things. The fielder control for example was a huge disappointment to me. It doesn't make you feel that you have any control and sometimes the auto field would miss fly balls or ground balls that if i were controlling the player i would have made. I feel that Sega is going to fix all of the past problems of WSB2K1 and WSB2K2 will be a hit. Sega has promised a Spring Training mode, a home run derby, a franchise mode, a create and train your own player mode, and my favorite part of it all is that Sega is bringing back fielder control. The pitching and batting modes and styles of play will be awesome and the new stadium(s) and updated rosters of the 2001 season are at hand. For all of you out there that hate losing your saved game data(i'm one) you can even save your lineups and anything else on your VMU. Season modes and everything else that went fine with WSB2K1 is all still there and although im only 15 i think that World Series Baseball 2k2 will be Sega's best baseball game ever and it will also be a hit game.

Best Console Baseball Game I've Played

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 22, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I didn't pick up last year's game because of all the negative reviews, no fielding, etc. So I waited...and waited. I picked up a new VMU for the 180 blocks required for WSB2K2 and loaded it up. This game is quality...the motion capture is superb, there's obviously a great deal of thought that went into it from a baseball standpoint.

The scores of the games I've been playing, 9-6, 1-0 (A great pitching matchup with Shawn Estes versus Kevin Brown, sole run was a Rich Aurilia home run), 6-4...and the flow of the game is quite close to a real baseball game. You'll hit streaks where you can hit nothing but fly balls and ground outs, then you'll feel sorry for the CPU when you score 6 runs in one inning. I'm playing on Pro mode, which I switched to quickly from Rookie. Rookie is absurd; you can see the location of the ball the CPU is pitching to before they pitch and you can position your cursor right on the ball.

The 180 blocks is justified by the expansive franchise feature. It's fun trading for players to update the league, but...one major oversight was that you cannot trade more than one player for a single player. This means you can't trade three average players for one good player. So you could probably never acquire Curt Schilling unless you gave up Barry Bonds.

One thing I don't like about the commentary is that after a big moment, a grand slam or something, he moves right onto the next batter like nothing happened. The animations after a player hits a home run are somewhat repetetive. I find it hard to believe Jeff Kent would be pumping his fist like a madman...they should've added a classy jog minus the fist pumping.

I like the batting stances for the most part. The thing is the height of the players is identical, and Livan Hernandez can hit with the same power as Barry Bonds, it seems.

But all in all, I am having lots of fun playing the games...there are night games and day games. The scoreboard always reflects the proper score and it is subtle in the background. If you want a solid and entertaining baseball game, take it from a baseball fan, this is a good pick.

World Seires Baseball 2k2 (was it worth it to make it)

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: September 18, 2001
Author: Amazon User

World Series Baseball 2k2 is a pretty good game. In some categories it's better than last years, in other's it's not. Playability wise the fielding is well designed and pitcher/batter is good. The graphics has taken a step down. Last year my family couldn't tell the difference between the game and t.v. Now you can't really tell who is who facial wise. All in all it is a little better than ps2 baseball games. If they had used this gameplay with last years graphics it would be great. If you have a dreamcast buy it.

Many Inaccuracies, but Still Fun

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: June 20, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Although I've found the gameplay much better than other baseball games, there are several things that are quite annoying about 2K2:
1) The reason the batting averages are so high is that anytime a runner is moved over, even on a groundout to the shortstop, it is considered a sacrifice.
2) Your catcher always throws out the computer's base stealer.
3) Pitchers hit far too many home runs.
4) It's useless to try to dive with an infielder, becuase if you miss the ball, the outfielder dives as well, so the computer will get a double or triple.
5) You can always move up on a flyball, because the computer will throw 2 bases ahead. This counts as a sacrifice fly, which also improves the batting average.
6) If you hit a "walk-off" homerun in the bottom of the ninth, the batter will not get credit in the statistics for either the hit or the home run. He'll only get credit for the RBI and run.
7) There's a glitch that allows a pitcher to get the win and the save.
8) Even though fielding is user-controlled, the computer intitially picks your fielder. Many times, it picks a fielder that is further away from the ball, and the one it should have selected will be running to cover the bag. This can make it tough to get some ground balls.
9) You can only do straight-up trades for a player of equal or lesser value. This really takes away from the franchise mode.
10) Your outfielders throw to the base, not a cutoff man. That means if the computer has a runner on 2nd and gets a base hit, you either have to concede the run and hold the batter at first, or try to throw the runner out at home and allow the batter to go to 2nd. The game doesn't allow you to select another fielder while the ball is in the air so that you can cut the ball off.

Because of all of these glitches, the game is definitley challenging. Because it's hard to "master," it's more fun, but some of these things are very basic that could have been avoided by using a little more care.

Not the best, not the worst.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: August 30, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I had high hopes for this version of World Series Baseball after the disaster that was WSB2K1. This game is definitely a solid improvement, but it wasn't the grand slam that I was expecting.

PROS:

1. The stadia and fields are very realistic.

2. At first, I was concerned that there was no "spring training" or "batting practice" mode. Then I figured out that "rookie" mode is all about BP.

3. This game has the best create-a-player that I've ever seen.

4. Actual gameplay (controls and movements) is top-of-the-line. Better than any other baseball game I've seen to date. Once you master the reaction needed to field grounders (after changing infielders, if necessary) and position yourself for shagging fly balls, you're golden. I will agree with the other reviewer who mentioned that there seems to be at least one dropped fly ball per game, but in my case (thankfully), it usually happens to the CPU.

CONS:

1. No color commentary. There is a play-by-play announcer, and it is not very dynamic play-by-play--the announcer will repeat himself frequently. And if you score more than 100 runs in a game (yup, I have), he gets really confused. It's quite humorous.

2. Every single player has the same home run "trot" that involves pumping his fists in the air and landing defiantly on home plate. It's funny to see a player like Edgar Martinez--who shows very little emotion on the field in real-life--acting like he has never hit a home run before.

3. You can strike out anybody, anywhere, anytime by simply locating your pitch just beneath the strike zone. It doesn't matter what pitcher you are using.

4. There are lots of bugs. I won't repeat them since other reviewers have covered most of the, but one that is worth mentioning (and proves that I've played the heck out of this game) is that no player can have more than 127 homers in a season. Once you hit the 128th, the counter resets to -127 and counts back to zero. NICE.

5. I'm not sure why Sega even included the ability to "trade" in Franchise mode, because the CPU will reject any trade. I tried to trade Barry Bonds for Charles Gipson. Ixnay. Now THAT'S funny.

There are other issues, but these are the major pros and cons. I'm still waiting for a computer baseball game that truly blows me away but in the meantime, there is always the real thing.

Upgrade from 2K1, but still some work to do...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: October 12, 2002
Author: Amazon User

If you haven't looked at 2K1 yet let me save you some time, DON'T!!! We all know it stinks and all we Dreamcast gamers feel at least a little ashamed for SEGA. If you have looked at WSB2K1
here are the updates in this version.

PROS:

(1) Fielding! 2K1 was almost massacred with ratings saying that "automatic fielding was so boring". I admit I was one of them. Well, here it is. This was sort of a problem for me as it sometimes a pro and con at the same time. One minute your player makes a stupid dive right over the ball, the next a diving catch or snag of a line drive 10 feet in the air. HOWEVER, this manual fielding isn't so bad as everybody says, although sometimes I wish that automatic fielding was an option.
(2) Graphics! WOW! If you gamers thought that 2K1 had some sweet microchips for graphics take a look at these. I'm talking about the view of stadiums here. I'll get to players' graphics a bit later...
(3) "Oh, the selection of modes..."! This pretty much sums up this section. You can choose from Quick Start, Season, Playoffs, and Franchise gameplay modes. There are also, of course, Options where you CAN create a player.
(4) STATS! If you play sports for none other than stats, get it on the spot. I love getting stats, and they show it all... (pitchers) ERA, I.P., Saves, W/L, and CG. (for batters) BA, HRs, Hits, RBIs, SLG%, SB, and Runs scored. Let me tell you, Mr. Ichiro Suzuki can sure rack up the stats in this game!

CONS

(don't be scared because I didn't put up enough pros up there!)
(1) Graphics... I told you I'd be back for player graphics! The players don't look anything like the real thing. Although you rarely get close enough, unless in replay, to see their faces, Ichiro Suzuki looks more like Ronald McDonald! And Cal Ripken Jr. (which is retired now, of course, but the game doesn't know that: another con!)
(2) Gameplay Realism... Have you ever seen Ichiro Suzuki throw a that little white ball before?? I'm sure you've seen his April 8th, 2001 throw to David Bell to nail Terence Long of Oakland at third base?? In this game Ichiro's throws are almost as good as mine! (No offense, Mr. Sultan of Swat!!) They just go up, up, up, etc., and then drop down perfectly to the base they are throwing to. Only 3 times (out of some 100 bil. throws) have I seen him throw a lazer beam, but only when he is standing perfectly still for about 2 seconds flat.
(3) Create Mode... Now, of course, like most of you gamers, I like being fair to the CPU and try to make a well balanced team and it seems when SEGA made this they wanted that, too. COME ON!
The trading won't let you trade for anyone else unless they have exactly the same ratin or you getting ripped off. You also can't trade more that I player at a time. If you want to get some superstar (I tried to trade for Scott Rolen to bring him to the Cardinals) you have to create a player literally a clone of a body-builder with 100% rating to get someone of that value!! Try trading for Ichiro now..!!! I also need to say that this clone will put a log-jam in the statistics with .400+ avg., 60+ HRs, 150+ RBIs, 100+ SBs, etc.!! Like I said if you are a statistics person like me, you have to hate that.
(4) Celebration... We all want to make our favorite team suped up for the postseason to go all the way, of course! Unlike you NBA, NHL, and NFL 2K, 2K1, 2K2 you will find a mean suprise at the end of the World Series. (assuming you got the guts to go all the way to the big dance!) NO CELEBRATION, TROPHY PRESENTATION, ANYTHING!!!!! The least WSB2K1 had was a little sendtence in the season mode say "Congratulations, you are the WORLD CHAMPS!". In this game, they all just trot off the field (even after a Game 7, walk-off grand slam by Cliff Floyd of Boston: of which I was getting hoarse from yelling) as if this was a preseason game, which they would celebrate anyway! Also, as the review below me states, when you hit a walk-off HR, the player does not get credit for it. Only for the RBIs and Runs. Also, what happened to MVP, Gold Glove, and Rookie of the year awards?!?!?!?!?

I could add more, but the reviews below me will probably fill the rest of you questions (and time) with useful answers. I hope this helps you, a fellow consumer, to be thrifty about spending money on video games. ...

good hopes

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: August 02, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I have not got world series baseball 2K2 but as long as 2K2 lets you have control of your fielders and not allow as many homers i would be very happy and i would give this game 5 stars.Anyway i have herd that this game gives you full control of your fielders and you do not hit as many homers and last but not least i just hope the ball wont dissapear when i hit a homer.As long as sega keeps updated rosters good graphics like in 2k1 and change my complaints this game would be good.

Excellent Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: August 16, 2001
Author: Amazon User

P>I picked up WSB2k2 yesterday, everything you were waiting for and then some - fielding, 8 modes of play, online, graphics are gorgeous, announcer improved, etc.

Very, very cool - I had 2k1, worst game ever for gameplay and presentation reaons (how can a baseball game that has no fielding and a habit of sending baserunners on flyballs be considered good by any of you?)

2k2 makes up for it. I promise.

A couple annoying things - it is kinda hard to figure out how to start games in season, you have to go to the calender and then skip ahead (simulate) until the next game, even if the time between is days off.

The announcer is much much better, but still annoying after a couple games, but at least you can turn him off (the p.a. announcer can stay on and is very good)

a couple problems that i haven't figured out yet - the computer scored a run on a 2 out flyball that i caught because their man got home before i caught the ball - that ain't right, hopefully it was a one time glitch.

When I pinch hit for the pitcher, you have to then substitute out the pinch hitter or he will take the mound - kinda funny seeing augie oejeda pitching 50 mph meatballs though.

Overall, rock and roll. Buy it.

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