The first thing you'll notice is the impressive new front-end. In terms of presentation, this year's version of ASB is certainly the champ. The menus are viewed through a grainy filter that makes it feel like you are watching a documentary about the glory days of baseball. Navigating them, with the theme song to the movie The Natural playing in the background, you feel like you've accessed a grand archive of MLB's glorious history. The interface just oozes nostalgia, and any baseball fan should love it.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the actual gameplay, problems abound. The default hitting mode is cursor-based, forcing you to align the cursor quickly to the incoming ball. This mode gives you unparalleled control of the outcome of a single swing. You can adjust the angle of elevation or switch between power and contact modes. The problem is pitches come in way too fast to target effectively with the sluggishly moving cursor. While I do believe a Randy Johnson fastball should pack a punch, it's definitely overdone here. Fortunately you can turn the cursor system off, and settle for the more traditional "zone" batting system. By specifying the region of the strike zone you want to swing, this interface seems to be a much more suitable match for the high-speed pitches.

The pitching interface can best be described as workman-like. The interface is effective, yet it's basically the same thing you've used in many other baseball titles. You pick the pitch and placement and let it fly. You can change the placement during your windup in order to confuse a human opponent. Each pitcher excels at specific pitches and very much resembles his real-life counterpart. As pitchers fatigue, it becomes harder to pinpoint location, thus forcing you to warm up the bullpen.

Pitching to an AI-controlled opponent reveals a nagging problem. Often, right before the batter swings, the game stutters noticeably as it accesses the CD-ROM. Not only does this serve as a pre-mature indication that the computer is going to hit the ball, it throws off the timing and flow of the fielding game. It's not a major problem, bit it did affect my enjoyment of the game.

The fielding game is hampered by a poorly implemented animation system. Animations are relatively long, forcing you to compensate for periods of time when you have no control over the player. If you want to have a chance at throwing out a base runner, you have to input the command well before you take possession of the ball. This forces you to play a game of predictions, rather than being able to react as events unfold. The transitions between animations are awkward, with players often assuming the default ready position between actions.

Rather than feeling like part of the action, I felt like I was in charge of stringing animations together for a disjointed player. It doesn't help that the game doesn't always select the appropriate animation for the situation at hand. You'll see players winding up and throwing full-steam to a player standing two feet away from them. At other times, you'll try to throw the underhand lob to a player fifteen feet away. These kinds of errors add a layer of frustration to an already unsatisfying fielding experience.

Catching a fly ball is an adventure in it's own right, as the dodgy collision detection is a source of constant frustration. At times you'll be standing in exactly the indicated position, yet see the ball bounce right in front of you. Other times, the ball will fly six feet over your head; yet somehow it gets sucked directly into your glove. You'll witness some rather comical replays in which your glove acts like a vacuum cleaner sucking in anything within a 10-foot radius. This is made all the more frustrating when a ground ball manages to zip just past your outstretched glove. Consistency is key, and unfortunately it's not present here.

Where ASB truly excels is in the mind-boggling amount of options. The Franchise mode is incredibly deep, giving you access to every aspect of running an MLB club. There is also an Expansion mode that allows you to create an entirely new team and enter it into MLB competition. In the Scenario mode you try your hand at recreating historic baseball events. If that's not enough, you have a trivia game, a homerun derby, baseball cards to buy, and stadiums and uniforms to unlock. It all adds up to a virtually unlimited replay value, giving you the most bang-for-your-buck of any baseball game on the market.

Acclaim also delivers a polished product in audio/visual terms. Character and stadium models are very detailed and look very close to their real-life counterparts. In fact, you can actually take a tour of the ballparks and learn about the history of each building. The game also shows off some impressive weather effects. The stadiums are full of ambient sound effects, as well as traditional baseball music. The commentators are fun to listen to, and actually offer some insight into serious MLB issues. Sure, they get repetitive after extended play, but it's still a commendable effort. Overall, it's a fairly impressive package, and would have received a better score if it weren't for the animation problems noted above.

With all of the problems, you may be shocked to learn that I actually did enjoy the time I spent with ASB 2004. This is a solid but unpolished game of baseball with more than enough modes and options to keep any baseball fan busy for months. Hopefully, next year Acclaim will focus on ironing out the gameplay problems to bring that aspect up to par with the rest of the package.

· · · PBMaX