Design by Collin Oguro
GameSpot can't help you with that first thing, but perhaps we can be of service with, um...the second thing.
The candidates currently on the shelves are All-Star Baseball 2005 from Acclaim, MLB 2005 from Sony/989 Studios, and MVP Baseball 2004 from EA Sports. Soon, Sega Sports will join the fray with ESPN Major League Baseball, which is the follow-up to last year's outstanding World Series Baseball 2K3. By the time the 2004 season is just a few games old, four different games will be vying for your attention.
And that's not the end of it! Some of you love it when a baseball game simulates every little thing that goes on in the field of play, like pitcher's duels, "seeing eye" singles, mound visits, injuries, and minor league call-ups. But there are many baseball fans out there who just want to pitch, swing, and run the bases without the burden of complex control schemes. If you're one of these people, check out MLB SlugFest: Loaded, which is being released in June by Midway. It's the game for all of you who wish baseball was a contact sport. Ever wonder what baseball would be like if base runners could punch the ball out of a fielder's glove or if fielders could beat up on base runners and cause their abilities to slump for the rest of the game? That's the perspective that MLB SlugFest: Loaded provides.
Which of these games is right for you? That's where GameSpot's Baseball Roundup 2004 comes in. On the following pages, we've put together all of the information that you'll need to make an educated choice.
For the games that are already on store shelves, we've included a summary of each game, along with a ratings box that shows how strong each game is in five different categories, including atmosphere, graphics, simulation depth, features and modes, and online options. The number of baseballs displayed next to each category is the rating score. Five is the maximum possible score in each category.
The categories for graphics, features and modes, and online options are pretty self-explanatory. Simulation depth assesses how much control you have on the field, how accurate the plays that you see are, and how rich the franchise and season modes are. Atmosphere is a subjective assessment that takes into account how all aspects of the game come together to duplicate the sights and sounds that you'd see at an actual ballpark. How does the crowd react? Does the stadium PA system sound authentic? Is the crowd moving around out there? Do the controls allow you to orchestrate an exciting game? All of these questions--and more--are factored into the atmosphere rating.
Once you've finished reading the summaries, we roll on with a Coming Soon page that gives you a preview of the games that are coming out later in the season. Following that, you can go to the Head-to-Head Showdown, where we present to you a detailed chart that illustrates how the games stack up against one another in the five categories discussed above. Finally, to close out the whole shebang, we leave you with a few final thoughts.
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