Now it's visual concepts turn

Here's the low down it is one year later the dreamcast has been pronounced dead as a horse but this is not at all true the machine be going down but sega is still producing games for the system as is third party developers for the system.

Now time for the game I will start with the pros so everyone can get into a good mood. To start with this year sega has made a very wise choice in handing the reigns over to visual concepts the makers of NFL2k and NBA2k (1) so already you can tell the game is going to be better than last years.

First of all you have total control over the fielders all the control you could want diving jumping running whatever you want to do with them now you can do it yourself.

The pitching in the game has changed as well now it is more user friendly because vc thought of putting a pitching key near the lower left hand corner of the screen telling what pitch command is which. They still use the A button to select the pitch as well as throw the ball and the longer you hold it down the more powerful the pitch is but the quicker you pitcher will wear down. As for location of the pitch (yes this has been added) it is just like MLB 99 on the PS you select the spot were you want the ball to go with a little white dot and then hit the A button. Thats about it now onto the batting.

The batting is about the same this year with the little circle your supposed to match up with the ball and then you use the R trigger to swing you bat. One little difference this year in the batting is the power or normal swing option this year if you choose to power swing of course you curser will get smaller but also you need to time you swing a little later because with the power swing your bat will be moving faster than with a normal swing. Thats about it for the batting now time for the fielding.

Like I said before you have total control over your fielders but there are some minor quirks with the fielding I don't know if anyone else has noticed this yet but I have noticed that every now and then there will be a little lag from the time you give the command to throw the to the time the player actually does throw it. It is a very small problem but if the game is tied up it could meen the difference of winning or loosing.

Now time for the graphics they are good not great about the same as last years game the staduims look better but the players look worse like a bunch of toy army men. But this is made up by the excellent quality of the sounds in the game there is still only one commntater doing the game but he now stays true to the game and keeps up with the pace. But like any game with commentary his phrases get repetitive after awhile. But for SFX (sound effects) they are awesome the bat sounds real the crowd sounds great and true to the situation on the field if the home team messes up they'll boo if the HT hits a home run they'll cheer if the HT's pitcher about to throw to a full count hitter they'll become silent so it's a pretty emersing experience.

Now time for the bad things there isn't that much except for the collision engine i.e. when you are running at the catcher for a home plate collision sometime the catcher will fall flat on his back when your still 3 feet from him and magically for some reason you just jump off the ground and don't even touch home and they still count the run. And every now and then if you look really closey or if you even care sometimes when a fielder catches the ball it will magically leap from his glove to his hand when he's going to throw it.

Now I will give my last opinion finaly RIGHT!!!!

Great improvement over last years may be the last Baseball game made for the Dreamcast a must have for DC fans as well as sports fans.

My scale system 1-10 duh!

Control-8.5

Graphics-7.0

Sound-10

Voices/Commentary-8.0

Learning curve-9.0

Replay Value-8.5