MODEL- 64016SEGA VENDOR- Sega FEATURES- World Series Baseball Sega Sports World Series Baseball makes its next-gen debut with WSB for the Xbox The celebrated arcade and Dreamcast franchise steps up to the plate with incredibly lifelike player models and animations, Sega Sports gold standard audio, and the ultimate in sim gameplay. Take your favorite MLB team and players through the rigors of a 162- game in Season Mode as you battle your way into the playoffs for a trip to the Fall Classic. Why stop there? Build your own dynasty, with unlimited seasons, in the deepest Franchise Mode around. Then top it all of with historical players and uniforms, Home Run Derby and more stats than you know what to do with. WSB is the great- looking, great-playing baseball sim Xbox owners havebeen waiting for. * In-Depth Franchise Mode -- Play an unlimited amount of seasons as you build your own diamond dynasty. Control everything from the starting lineup and pitching rotations to free agent signings and player development. * Highly Detailed Player Models -- Lifelike faces featuring actual head scans of todays stars and player-specific accessories like sweatbands, sunglasses, batting gloves, etc. br
Amazon.com Review
In 2001, Sega and developers Visual Concepts--the same people who brought you the NFL 2Kx series and other sports games--turned out a solid console baseball game that was a major improvement on the previous version and the first with head-to-head Internet play. This version for the Xbox marks a similar leap in quality, combining some of the best features of its competitors into one well-considered whole. Alas, the only thing missing is Internet play. Going beyond motion-capturing batting stances (there are 89 distinct ones in here by my count), they've done a great job of animating pretty much every aspect of the game in pitch delivery, fielding, and base-running. The instant replay system, which borrows from and improves upon the one seen in the High Heat series, allows you to move the camera anywhere on the field to see the realistic movements at any speed. You can also use the feature to see the game's sophisticated artificial intelligence--for example, there's a brief, realistic delay when a player tags up from third on an outfield fly.
There's also a solid pitching game that lets a starter like Tim Hudson get off without a shelling when pitching heat down the middle, but try it with a pitcher like Byung-Hyun Kim and you're bound to see different results. And the TV-style zone chart shows which locations each batter is best at connecting to and where your sequence of pitches has landed.
A number of the new features are so obvious that you may wonder why you've never seen them before. One is a controller map in the pause menu that quickly shows you exactly which buttons perform the task you want. An option is also included that sets the relative speed of pitches to the plate. This really comes in handy when coming from another baseball game like All-Star Baseball 2003 where pitches seem to blur to the plate.
To put it bluntly, the game has almost no downside. There are some very powerful GM and manager functions--including a fantasy draft and exhaustive franchise tools--though using them is somewhat counterintuitive. Stealing is kind of tough to pull off; in one game, Ichiro got caught twice out of three attempts. And, as stated above, there's no Internet play--but that gives us something to look forward to for next year. --Porter B. Hall
Pros: Realistic player movement Smart AI TV-style zone chart marks hot and cold areas for each batter Variable pitch-appearance speeds
Cons: No head-to-head play over the Internet
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