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"Great, although sometimes buggy game."

All star baseball is the best baseball game I think I've ever played. Although considering the caliber of baseball games, that doesn't say a whole lot.
Let me start with the game's most amazing feature: graphics. I got chills when Barry Bonds walked up to the plate looking exactly like Barry Bonds, earing and all. His stance was a replica of his real stance as well. All of the major players have perfect replicas of their faces. I was so happy when I saw that this game actually got Benito Santiago right (no game before now could do this). The animations are smooth. There are well over 50 different batting stances and over 40 pitching deliveries, so every player is extremely close to his real life counterpart. Noticable exclusions were Fernando Vina's stance and Ben Weber's delivery.
The flaws in the graphics are most noticable in the instant replays. The ball will jump around and players will catch a ball that is feet away from their glove.
My next favorite aspect was the realism in the at bats. All too often a game will be a slugfest, or the prospect of working a count is nonexistant. In ASB 2004 this is not the case. The CPU will work the count against you, throwing many unhittable pitches, and if you want any strikeouts, you're gonna have to get the CPU to chase stuff out of the zone. This game doesn't feature much explosive, unrealistic offence, although if a seasoned player were to play on rookie mode, this might happen. It is very satisfying to strike out Sammy Sosa in a crucial situation, or finally get an RBI on Randy Johnson to put your team up 1-0. The tough pitchers will be really hard to hit. I spent a good 6 innings trying to figure out the Big Unit's fastball, and some players have breaking pitches that have me swinging on the other side of the strike zone. I only wish it were easier to spot these pitches earlier.
The depth of the franchise mode is one that rivals Madden. Finally a baseball game that has an amateur draft, arbitration, contract options, both a 15 & 60 day DL, waivers and more. I lost a few good players to waivers before I finally figured out how it works (it's all explained in the game, though. I just neglected to look at it before I fiddled around with players). The game keeps track of major league and franchise records. It also has a number of season awards, such as MVP, Cy Young, Releiver of the Year, Gold Glove for each position and Golden Hammer (silver slugger) for each position. It also features a ''who's hot/who's not'' section and a ''going, going, gone'' section of news. Bottom line: there is a lot of fun stuff to do in franchise mode between games.
The bonuses are fun. I love playing a good pickup game against a friend, alternating picking players and seeing them play in jeans and T-shirts in a backyard park or corn field (a la field of dreams). Scenario mode is fun (and challenging) too. Both are minimally flawed and don't really warrent more discussion.
For those of you who want to create a team from scratch and play out a bunch of seasons, that is quite hard to do. The expansion mode is great. I like the feature where you get to chose your city and mascot from a list, so the announcers say your new team's name, not just ''the home team'' or something like that. There is then an amateur draft, just like real life. Making your created players is hard, though. The biggest flaw is you CAN'T SET THEIR AGE! I was surprised when I saw that some of my buddies' ages ranged from 18 to 35. Next, selecting a face. There are over 550 different faces to choose from. They are sorted in no discernable manner, and scrolling through all of them can take an hour, especially since the camera doesn't zoom in on your guy's face. I found myself standing close up to my TV and trying to find a face that looked like myself for quite a while (still pretty off). There are also some critical attributes that can't be edited (overall health, pitch effectiveness).
The gameplay seems seriously flawed at first. My shortstop would field a grounder, stop, wait, then throw to first. That's when I figured out the future throw feature. You have to select the base your guy throws to before he fields it. Now this may sound dumb, but in real life, most players have an idea where they're throwing the ball before they field it. Another seemingly glaring flaw is fielding fly balls. The circle on the ground represents where the ball will land. Therefore, standing in it won't work all the time. You'll have to figure out trajectory, standing in it for a high pop up, or a good distance in front for a line drive. The fielding is quite frustrating at first, but the learning curve is quick, and I was turning 4-6-3 double plays in no time.
Lastly, this game contains MANY glaring bugs. The announcers will say the wrong things at the wrong times. I'm not talking about little slip ups, but they'll call outs hits, and stuff like that. However, that doens't affect gameplay. There are some flaws that do. I'll simply put the glaring flaw I experienced: 0 outs, 7th batter got a single, 8th batter grounded foul down the first base line. 1st baseman fielded it in foul territory and stepped on first. An out was credited, the runner sat down and the 9th batter came up. Like I said, glaring flaw, but thankfully stuff like that does not happen often. There will also be scoring errors (sac bunts counting as at bats, stuff like that, no big errors that affect the outcome of the game).

In the end, ASB 2004 is the best baseball game I've played. Graphics are breathtaking, depth of franchise mode is unprecidented. There are a few bugs, but nothing that makes it unplayable or even unenjoyable.


Reviewer's Score: 8/10 | Originally Posted: 03/07/03, Updated 03/07/03