All Star Baseball 2003

Pros: Excellent graphics
Great Commentary
Detailed Create-A-Player
Expansion and Franchise mode
Great Sim game
Scores aren't always 26-20 like they are on Triple Play (the scores are usually something around 7-4)
Mid-Windup Pickoff Attempt
Future throw makes your throws get to the base quickly
Broken Bats
Mascots

Cons:
Batting Cursor is hard
Hard to baserun
Without the future throw, my throws to the bags are too short
Relievers last just 2/3 inning

Overall, a great game that is easily beating the competition. Nice game.


High Heat 2003 blows this away   February 10, 2003
 2 out of 4 found this review helpful

Let me start out by saying that before you read any further go buy High Heat 2003. All Star 2003 might possibly be the worst, most annoying game I've ever played in my life....and I've played many many baseball games. For starters, there is NO way to shut off the auto instant replay!! And I'm not talking about replays after homers, I'm talking about the stupid replay they show every time a batter hits the ball....whether it's a home run or a ground ball to short. Why wouldn't the game allow you to shut this off?? But that is just an annoyance...the game itself is even more terrible. The pitchers are all the same....Randy Johnson throws as hard as Jeff Innis, which is 110 MPH. You have to start your swing practically as the pitcher is releasing the ball. You have no time to decide if it is a strike or not, not to mention no time to decide what type of pitch it is. Not that it even matters, every pitch comes in at the the same speed, curveballs, sliders, fastballs...makes no difference.
Furthermore, The fielders are so slow in reacting...you're trying to throw the ball as quickly as possible and they do a crow hop on every throw, whether it's from 2nd to first of from deep center to the plate. Quite stupid. I won't go on all day, but I just cannot stress enough that High Heat 2003 is so far superior to this game...please trust me and save your money. High Heat gives you so many options to choose from...you can slow down the pitches, speed up the runners, 5 different skill levels as opposed to three on All star (which are all impossible anyway) Trust me people. I started playing baseball for the nintendo, and I have woven my way through Baseball stars, bases loaded, baseball simulator 2000, ken griffey baseball for N64 and many many others.....High Heat 2003 is THE BEST one yet, all star 2003 stinks. Oh and lastly, there is no umpire in all star 2003...so you never know if a pitch was called a strike or a ball until you look at the score card in the corner. If you strike out looking..the fielders just run off the field...no umpire??? What were the producers of this game thinking?


The best PS2 baseball game still needs some tweaking   December 6, 2002
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

For realism, playability and sheer fun for baseball fans, Acclaim's All-Star Baseball 2003 is tops! As a gamer who always takes the tough road to victory by playing coach, this game offers a coaching mode that rewards good coaching and penalizes dumb coaching decisions. The graphics are excellent. The players look like they are, for the most part, really playing the game and are not awkward or stilted, and the system allows the coach to really coach, not simply watch the game, as in some other baseball game systems. The system also offers great flexibility to reconfigure leagues and teams or add expansion teams to create a real "dream" team or league, as the player chooses.
There are some areas that could still use some work, however. In playing coach, one expects to be able to set lineups, and that feature is available. Problem is that occassionally the game takes over and sets a lineup for a particular game for you, with no way to change it short of dropping one of the players in the lineup the game created.
While the coach mode has almost every coaching decision that one can make, including sacrifice bunts and squeeze plays, it lacks a means of intentionally walking a batter without leaving that mode of play. It also has no coaching decision for a hit-and-run play, and that really needs to be added to the list. Simply directing a batter to hit the ball, whether for power or just to connect with the pitch, does not ensure that the batter will swing at the ball in this game. In a hit-and-run play, the batter always swings at the ball; whether they hit it or not is another matter.
I personally would prefer that the game offer no special advantages, such as inflated player performance, or at least give me an option to remove the advantage. To give an example, I chose to take the Montreal Expos, one of the teams slated for contraction because it is so bad. I made lots of trades, picked up a few free agents and elevated some players from the minors in an effort to turn them around. Two of the players I kept however, Vladimir Guererro and Jose Vidro, have exceeded even Ichiro in performance with each hitting over .410 with 45 homers by the all-star break and both heading for about 200 RBIs by season's end. Now these players, in fact, are really good, but I don't think even one Ted Williams has emerged since he quit baseball, much less two in the same season, so these inflated performances really detract from the realism of the game. If I win, I want to do it, not have the game do it for me.
Those are minor irritants, however, and do not detract from game play significantly. Even the inflated player performance doesn't always translate to automatic wins. The Expos are in first place at the all-star break, but they are only 4.5 games ahead of the Braves, and that pretty much mirrors where the teams actually were in 2002 at about that time.
One factor that does for me, though, is the commentary. The play-by-play is OK, but could use a bit more diversity. The real problem is how the players are addressed individually. In every single game, you have to hear again about what your players did last year. That might be OK for the first three or four weeks of the season, but by June, that track has worn a little thin. Why not keep that feature for the first three weeks and then move to what the players are doing in the current season. This could be accomplished easily by tying back to the stats, standings and special awards the game features including the All-Star voting. Heck, you could even include some commentary about when a particular batter either owns or is owned by a particular pitcher. Not only would that make the game more real, it would provide some potentially valuable info for the coach at the same time.
Overall, All-Star Baseball 2003 has proven to me to be much better than it's competitors in all of the aformentioned areas, even the problem ones. If you like baseball, you'll enjoy this.


ALL STAR BASEBALL 03 ROCKS!   November 10, 2002
 2 out of 2 found this review helpful

I gave this game 4/5 stars beacause there are good and bad parts about this game[more good parts] some of the good parts are franchise mode,fantasy draft, expansion mode,and the bonus stadiums these stadiums include Ebbets Field,Classic Yankee Stadium and Classic Wrigley Field!The bad parts are:first off it's too hard to play next it takes you a very long time to play a game and last you're either done playing a game or you're stuck playing it until you're done you can't save a single game you're playing but I still highly reccomend this game for a hard core baseball fan especially while playing with a friend! GREAT GAME!