The High Heat franchise has seen its highs and lows over the years. 3DO has managed to keep up with EA Sports flashy Triple Play series and this year's iteration is no different. The last few years has seen some great looking baseball games but they sorely lacked gameplay mechanics that made early console baseball games fun. Fortunately, 3DO has utilized the gameplay features to the maximum in order to deliver this year's best baseball title on the Playstation 2.

Graphics
Do you remember the old saying, never judge a book by its cover? That analogy holds truth here. If you were to judge High Heat by its visuals the first time you booted it up, you would probably stay far away from it. The graphics engine is not nice, even if it was judged by PSOne standards. The stadiums are very basic with little detail. The crowd is the generic blots of colors. Upon a closer look, they are not pretty. The player models are not sharp and remind me of Acclaim's efforts with All Star Baseball back on the N64. Very blocky and hard to really distinguish between players. After seeing what the PS2 is capable of thanks to EA Sports, player models like those found here should be banned. The animations are a bit jerky at times and lack variety needed in next generation baseball games. We found it funny to watch players disappear into an already empty dug-out. It would appear that the visuals could have used a couple of more months of tweaking.

Sound
Unfortunately the aural experience is not much better. While the menu music is good, everything else is lacking in the extra polishing we have come to expect from EA Sports. The two-man booth with play-by-play and color commentary tires quickly as both become repetitive even after playing just one game. They also make comments that at times have nothing to do with the action on the field or going over a replay. The crowd reacts as it should but it is not exactly Intelligent Crowd Excitement as stated on the game's box. Again more time to polish the sound was needed.

Gameplay
As mentioned above, do not judge this game by its graphics alone. It is the superior gameplay that sets High Heat on the top of the heap of PS2 baseball games this year. Hitting ten homeruns per game is not my idea of a baseball game. Thankfully, 3DO has addressed those issues in High Heat. High Heat ranks high in gameplay because the of the great pitcher-batter interface, sharp A.I. and the easy to use not to mention smooth fielding controls. You will work hard both at batting and pitching. The ability to guess the oncoming pitch is a great feature. Guess right and your ball may be heading for the fences. Even placing key locations for pitches when batting and pitching is vital to winning a game. The realistic reactions of the pitching -batting interface shines. For example, if you swing high and the pitch comes in low, contact will not be made. In many baseball games it does not matter where the ball comes in as a contact always occurs. Naturally this is not how real baseball works. Manipulating camera angles to best suit your style of play is fully customizable. Every aspect of the game in terms of rules and controllability can be tweaked to your liking. Having this ability allows both arcade seekers and the true baseball simulation fanatics to enjoy High Heat to its full potential. As a result, High Heat uses its features to enhance gameplay rather than substitute it like other titles in recent years.

Value
High Heat is a little light in the extras department. You will find standard modes such as Exhibition, Season, and All-Star Game. We would have liked to have seen create-a-player mode, franchise mode and career mode. Some of these features are found on the PC version, thus it is unclear why they were not part of the PS2 version. Perhaps these and more will make it onto High Hear 2003.

Final Word
In terms of playability, High Heat is a dream that we have been waiting for too long. In brings back memories of why console baseball games were fun. While not the prettiest game on the PS2, it is the definitive baseball game to have this year. High Heat 2002 is a no-brainer purchase for baseball fans.