Triple Play Baseball 2002
- March 22, 2002 00:00 AM PST
You would be shocked to find out how many Major Leaguers sport thick Magnum PI mustaches. Triple Play reveals all.
Triple Play tries new things with the game�s presentation, but what it really needs is to revamp the fundamentals like the pitching interface and two-player matches.Sweeping camera pans, zoom lenses tricks, and situation-based "dramatic showdown cinemas" add pepper to how the national pastime is normally viewed. Unfortunately, the rest of Triple Play Baseball 2002�s graphics package goes downhill from there. The worst offender has to be the player models who all have larger than average heads, which looks plain odd. This may have been done to highlight the likenesses of the players, but most bear only a passing resemblance to their MLB counterpart and that�s if you squint. Making bad matters even worse is the fact that anyone with a light mustache turns into Groucho Marx (check screens below).
The game also drops the ball in the pitcher/batter interface department. Virtually unchanged from last year, the pitcher places the icon where he wants to throw the ball, and varies the location by selecting from his personal repertoire of pitches and deciding how much extra mustard to put on it. You can never alter the location drastically enough to fool the batter with this method, which is fine for single-player matches, but two-player games are reduced to batting practice with base running.
Fielding poses its own hurdles as throws to bases aren't executed as quickly as they should be and tracking the ball takes practice. A big circle indicator tells you where the ball is going to be and its current trajectory, which is a good hint that the system is flawed enough to warrant such a huge graphical help tool.
On the bright side of things, getting Bob Costas to do the play-by-play is just pure genius and is the most redeeming feature of the game. His massive love and knowledge of the game translates into an assured, natural delivery that really elevates the proceedings. Color commentary by ESPN�s Harold Reynolds is also very entertaining, but his comic observations don�t quite create the golden booth chemistry you had hoped for.
Triple Play Baseball 2002 offers easy, arcade-like play controls and decent enough visuals, but the weak two-player experience seriously cuts down on the overall enjoyment.
