World Series Baseball: 2K1   rating: supposedly sucks

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I Now I know you remember the World Series franchise from back in the Genesis days. And back then that was the hottest baseball game out (for like a year or two). AND I know you've seen the videos in EB showing off how nice the new World Series game is for the Dreamcast. BUT does that mean that this game is hot???

To start, you have five options: exhibition, quick play, season, playoffs, and customize. Exhibition, quick play, and season are your the basic modes you would find in any baseball game. There is no home run derby mode which is weird because it was a feature hyped at E3 that didn't make it into the final game. Rosters are current as of June 2000, but not completely correct. For example, instead of Brian Daubach playing first for the Red Sox as he has been all season, there's some guy named Clay Sasse. There also aren't any Hall of Fame teams or minor league call-ups.

Stat tracking is an area where World Series Baseball 2K1 really falters. Even the worst baseball games (Triple Play 2001 for the PC) nowadays have plentiful statistics. World Series' 11 team, 16 batting, and 14 pitching categories barely scratch the surface. Where are on-base average and slugging percentage, righty vs. lefty comparisons?

At least you can customize the players. World Series allows you to name a player, alter his facial and body features, and assign him a number of offensive and defensive skills. Each player has a reserve of points that can be added to various options: contact, power, speed, defense, and arm. For pitchers, there are six pitching styles to choose from, enabling you to give out points between five possible pitches: slider, curve, sinker, screwball, and their trademark pitch.

On to gameplay. First, the good: pitching. Pitch choice is shown via a circular indicator with hash marks protruding from eight possible sides. The hash marks represent where to position the analog pad for each pitch, and the length represents how effective the pitch is at the time. After choosing the pitch, a fluctuating bar appears, representing both the speed and control of the pitch you're about to throw. For a good throws, you need to hit the A button when it reaches the top (similar to punting in Madden). Once you've done that, you can use the analog stick to control pitch location until the ball is released. It sounds complex, but the entire process is both realistic. WSB 2K1's batting isn't nearly as easy to get the hang of. You don't press a button to swing, you hold it down to tighten up your stance and release the trigger to swing. Swing too soon, and you'll blow by the pitch or loft a pop-up. Let go too late, and you'll strike out or hit an easy grounder. After each swing, the game tells you via a printed indicator how good your timing is, whether "too early," "perfect timing," or "too late." The problem in this system isn't the novelty of it, but how the game incorporates player strengths and timing. For no apparent reason, sometimes a player will take a full second to swing after you've released the trigger, while at other times he'll go off like a cocked cannon. If certain players had a greater tendency toward this than others, it wouldn't be so bad, but it seems to be random.

World Series uses an analog button for batting, so there is no way to check your swing or vary the strength of it. Additionally, you can't really control the type of swing (push or pull, for example), nor can you position the batter in the batters box. Also the lack of hot/cold indicators for hitters sucks. Not only is this concept a modern baseball video game standard, but it is also falsely advertised as an in-game feature on the back of WSB 2K1's own jewel case. Contrary to what the case states, there simply aren't any hot/cold indicators or scouting reports for hitting. Unless you have expert knowledge of MLB players, you'll never know what pitches are effective against what hitter or which player to use in pinch-hit situations.

World Series Baseball 2K1 has an interesting take on fielding: there isn't any. Once the ball leaves the bat, your fielders automatically go after it. You don't even have control over how they catch the ball, as the CPU dictates whether they attempt a leap, slide, or bare-hand grab. Once they've get the ball, then you can tell them where to throw it. Some people may enjoy auto-fielding, but the complete lack of a manual fielding option is questionable. Enabling auto-fielding by default is one thing, but forcing its use shows that they got lazy and expect you, the player, to be lazy as hell too. Somebody forgot to tell these guys that fielding is an integral part of baseball.

Since fielding is CPU controlled, it also allows the CPU to control the flow of the game. There are five difficulty levels and a handicap option, but none of these variables actually varies the simulation level, so all you're ever adjusting is how much the computer cheats. The more you disable the handicap and raise the difficulty, the more the computer will outright control the game's outcome (came we say EA Sports). You'll release the batting trigger, but the batter will swing seconds later. Bonds will hit an ugly pop-up into the air, but your fielders won't budge until the ball is about to land. You'll tell Griffey to shotgun the ball to second, only to watch him delay two or three seconds before doing so. This kind of manipulation is so blatant that you'd think your back playing the orignial Triple Play on expert..

The "sweating the details" portion of World Series sorta sucks tooalso hit or miss. CPU-controlled pitchers throw strikes more often than not, and they will intentionally walk a player to set up the double play, but unintentional walks seldomly happen (unrealistic). The percentage of ground balls vs. line drives seems to be spotty, but home runs happen too much. There's also something wrong with the base running. Human-controlled runners always take off after a hit, but CPU players rarely do (i've seen this happen in a LARGE majority of baseball games. Even worse, the game sometimes blatantly ignores the command to run back. Since there's no option to disable automatic lead-offs and base advancement, you'll find yourself in a lot of setup double-play situations that just add to the computer cheating you out of the game just like a classic EA Sports game again.

There is one area where WSB 2K1 succeeds and that is in the graphic department. No baseball game has ever looked this nice. Just as NBA 2K approaches broadcast quality, so does WSB 2K1. Each of the game's 30 stadium models is detailed, right down to surrounding landmarks, concourse layout, and speaker locations. The player models are amazing. There are a plethora of body types and facial features that, when coupled with the high polygon count, make for players that not only look human, but also lack obvious polygon seams. While the game doesn't have a separate body for every player, the game's graphic artists made sure that overly popular or skilled players had their own physical traits. Mark McGwire, Pedro Martinez, Ken Griffey Jr., Rickey Henderson are all rendered perfectly. John Olerud even wears a batting helmet in the field. Admittedly, there is slowdown at times, usually when more than two base runners are on the field or during stolen base attempts, but it never gets in the way of actual gameplay (more laziness in the programming).

The game's audio is surprisingly average. Play-by-play is an improvement over the last World Series, but it sucks when compared to other games. You'd think an extra 250MB of space would yield more variety or clarity, but such is not the case. Would it have been difficult to include phrases such as "At the end of the first, no score" or "Into the top of the fifth, scoreless?" Crowd noise is fairly good at least, though the booing effect sounds like me and my friends made it with a mini-tape recorder. The crack of the bat sounds good as well as the catching and fielding effects. Having a variety of singers doing the national anthem is also a nice touch.

Were expectations too high? HELL YEAH!! The lack of manual fielding is just dumb, and the statistics tracking is ridiculous. There are scouting reports and hot/cold meters for pitching, but not batting. Who's great idea was that? There's also the lack of a home run derby and the CPU-controlled pacing to look at. The game literally has so messed up its not even worth mentioning.

Look at the screenshots: