With the Arcade Mode and a few new features, All Star Baseball 2001 ranks as the ultimate baseball game for the N64.
All Star Baseball 2000 featured realistic stadiums and amazing detail, but its gameplay was too realistic. With All Star Baseball 2001, however, Acclaim has perfectly balanced the gameplay, which will strike a chord with both baseball purists and those who crave arcade style gameplay. This ranks near the top of the N64's greatest games, and you're about to find out why.
Features Held Up From All Star Baseball 2000
.Quickplay mode for those who crave realism
.Season Mode (MLB Play)
.Manager Mode that lets you handle team rosters, create players, and more.
.Home Run Derby for the ultimate four player showdown
.Realistic Player Models and stances
.All 30 Licensed Teams and Stadiums which have all the details you see in real baseball
.Fantastic Replay system
New Features
.Uses the Expansion Pak for more players, announcing, and modes
.Brand new Arcade Quickplay Mode which is fantastic and elevates the game's score
.Batting Practice Mode to help you get used to the controls
.Some new Options
.Three new baseball stadiums; Comerica Park (Detroit Tigers), Enron Field (Houston Astros), and Pacific Bell Park (San Francisco Giants), and they all look amazing.
.Brand new Cooperstown Legends baseball team, complete with a beautiful cornfield stadium.
Coming in a slick red cartridge, All Star Baseball 2001's got both the graphics and gameplay. Sure, the gameplay's basically the same, but there's one new feature that elevates the gameplay to greatness.
Arcade Quickplay
Acclaim wisely noted that a balance between realistic and arcade gameplay was needed, which was why they put the Arcade Quickplay mode at the top of the MENU!! There's no cursors to deal with. It's like Ken Griffey Slugfest; someone pitches, you swing. That's it. What elevates it is that you can hit crazy homeruns and base hits. It's extremely fun watching the baseball you just hit go flying out of the entire stadium! Pitching is also simple; press a button, and you can even control the pitch after you PITCHED IT!! Sweet! You press the B button to do a power swing, or do a normal swing with the A button. You'll never get bored of this mode, as the home runs keep giving. As you may guess, it also helps Home Run Derby, which is much more fun as a result.
Batting Practice
Acclaim also took the time to add in Batting Practice. It's actually very fun to use, and it also helps you grasp the controls so that you can swing some long shots. Nice job, Acclaim.
Cooperstown Legends
Acclaim also asked permission from the Cooperstown Hall of Fame to create a team with some of its greatest legends. You'll get all the classics, and there's even a cornfield baseball stadium reminiscent to that awesome Field of Dreams film. It looks beautiful, especially at twilight and night settings.
Miscellaneous
All Star Baseball 2001 has three new MLB stadiums that were made in 2000! New homes are here for Detroit, Houston, and San Francisco, and they feature beautiful scenery and lighting effects. Pacific Bell Park looks AMAZING at night. There's also more than 700 real baseball players, and most have the baseball stances we grew up watching as kids in the late 90's and early 2000's. There's also some new options, such as baseball rules, camera tweaking, etc.
Graphics and Sound
The graphics look the same as All Star Baseball 2000, so I don't get why critics said it looked "10% better" (IGN, I'm looking at you). That said, no other baseball game of the 32 bit/64 bit era has come even close to the astonishing looks of the All Star Baseball series, so this isn't really a big deal. The new stadiums look fantastic. The music is good, and the intro music has a slick 90's Alternative Rock vibe that I dig. The play by play commentary, however, is sparse. They announce the players more, but there's less commentary between plays, which is disappointing. Not a big deal, but I wish Acclaim could've done better in the sound department. Oh well.
This is probably the best Acclaim game I've ever played. With the Arcade Mode and a few new features, All Star Baseball 2001 ranks as the ultimate baseball game for the N64, if not during its generation. Make sure you grab three friends to play with you for some of the best multiplayer experience on the N64 itself. It's probably 90% the same game as the 2000 edition, but the other 10% makes it a big improvement over 2000. Whether you like realistic gameplay or Arcade style gameplay, All Star Baseball has it all. I can't get enough of this game, and N64 owners should get this must have baseball classic. This is my favorite baseball game of all time.
Gameplay: 10/10: New Arcade Mode elevates the gameplay, making it the most fun and addicting of all baseball games on the N64.
Graphics: 10/10: Look exactly the same as previous editions, but that's actually not a bad thing. New stadiums are awesome.
Sound: 7/10: Music and sound effects are great. Commentary is mediocre.
Replay Value: 10/10: All Star Baseball 2001 has all the options and gameplay baseball fans would want in a video game. It's close to perfect that a baseball game has ever gotten to, and baseball fans and gamers both will absolutely love it and come back to it a lot.