World Series Baseball 2K2 Review

The first World Series Baseball for the Dreamcast had so many problems that Sega decided the sequel should be developed by another company. A lack of manual fielding and an unintuitive batting interface were more than enough to nullify the game's stunning graphics. Now that the series has been handed over to Sega's premier sports game developer, Visual Concepts, there are high hopes that a shift in development houses for the franchise will pay big dividends. While it's a drastic leap forward when compared with the Wow Entertainment-developed 2K1 version, World Series Baseball 2K2 fails to attain the polished state of Visual Concepts' other Dreamcast sports games.

If you're looking for depth from your baseball games, the staggering number of gameplay modes in WSB 2K2 will not disappoint. A rudimentary exhibition mode is available for up to two players, and you can play full seasons with player and team stats tracked in 13 different categories. You can even monitor all-star voting to see if players from your squad are receiving national recognition. This year's World Series Baseball includes a franchise mode that carries your players' stats over from the year before and you can read newspaper headlines every day to see how your moves as a general manager, player, and coach are panning out with the local beat writers. The home run derby can help you get the timing of swinging for the fences. Another welcomed addition is the create-a-player mode. There are 13 different appearance settings to fiddle with, providing you with the power to choose the most minute of details, like undershirt type. Once you're satisfied with your player's look, you can crank up his attributes and make him a monster on the diamond.

While the home run derby and franchise modes are welcomed, the biggest addition to the World Series Baseball franchise this time around is the network mode, which lets you play against other Dreamcast owners online. If you use the same user name and password, your wins, losses, and the number of times you bailed out of games are stored on Sega's server. There's even a list of the top 50 online players to gaze upon. Going head-to-head against other players around the country is an excellent idea in theory, and Visual Concepts has done an excellent job getting its other sports games online. But lag affects baseball video games in a more drastic manner than it does other sports games. Getting struck out by a pitch that paused halfway to the plate because of lag can be infuriating, and fielding ground balls is practically impossible when the game stammers. While you're playing online, it's impossible to see the repertoire of pitches in your opponent's arsenal, but then, Pedro Martinez doesn't have a list of pitches scribbled onto his jersey in a real MLB game, either. Beyond the problems with lag, which are inherent to all online video games, the WSB 2K2's network code can be buggy at times. It will often refuse to let you join a server or crash when navigating the network menus.