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Mr. N64's Summary of the All Star Baseball '99 Experience |
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Without a doubt, All Star Baseball ‘99 is the best looking baseball video game ever created. The high-res, detailed graphics capture the look of real professional baseball to a frightening degree. Every stadium is there, complete with real-time jumbotrons. The players each have the proper uniforms, and even the correct faces in some cases. Any N64 owner who has ever watched professional baseball simply must rent this game, just to see it in action. The actual gameplay is less impressive, but still pretty good. The N64’s diamond oriented C Buttons prove to be the ultimate baseball game aid, finally making the process of throwing or running to a base instinctive. The batting setup is new to me and is also another good point to the gameplay. The batter must line up the batting cursor with the pitcher’s cursor and swing at the right time. It’s pretty challenging, and definitely seems to get rid of the 10-1 blowouts so common to most baseball games. Aside from these features, the gameplay isn’t much different from classic baseball games like Bases Loaded. I’ve read articles on other sites about bugs in All Star Baseball ‘99. I have to note that aside from players’ profile pictures occasionally being from the wrong team, I encountered no problems with the game. I did not look into the stats mode, but rather focused on the gameplay, so I can’t comment on that part of the game. The main option that I gave a try (and found quite cool) was the create-a-player feature. With this feature you can even pick your number and put your name on the jersey! All Star Baseball is Rumble Pak compatible, but don’t waste your time switching between your Controller Pak and the Rumble Pak. The effect just doesn’t add to the experience in any significant way. As for the Controller Pak compatibility, be sure you have a lot of free space, or you won’t be able to save you information. So, should you purchase All Star Baseball? That’s a toughie. All in all, All Star Baseball’s gameplay is just as slow paced as real professional baseball. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. The truth is, most of a real baseball game is less than edge-of-your-seat excitement. This is no arcade game. If you don’t want a slow paced baseball game, All Star Baseball isn’t going to be for you -- but still rent it just to see it. If, on the other hand, you want to control a real major league game, you can’t do much better than All Star Baseball ‘99. It’s definitely a high quality baseball game, but baseball games generally don’t have the mass appeal and universally enjoyable gameplay that make a must own game. As a result, I have to recommend that you give the game a rental before you part with the cash to purchase it. No matter what, give it a rental -- it makes the N64 look better than ever before |
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| Overall Rating: Rent Before Buying | |
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