Swan song benefactor of a video game ad campaign for the ages, HH2K4 is the bittersweet parting volume of a graphically challenged series, always halfway to becoming the greatest baseball sim of all time.
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Description
When I first fell prey to this ultimate baseball sim pretender at the dawning of the new millennium, I was in awe at the glitzy box cover art. In fact, the cocky ad campaign that spawned this little baseball video game that could, was second to none it seemed. Too bad 3DO's art department could never come through with the eye candy in the game itself, where it counts. And somehow loyal fans always knew that would come back to haunt them in the end.
Championing fan demographic preferences of substance over style, not unlike text based games, HH tried to get by, skimping on sloppy visuals and splurging on stat/data realism to no avail. For if this game was as good as publicized, then 3DO would not have gone out of business only to have the HH legacy vultured at bankruptcy auction by Microsoft, which may well let the HH name die, leaving PC fans out in the cold and using the game engine in a future Xbox title.
Regardless of its visual shortcomings, intricate one-of-a-kind gameplay settings via the tune file gave it immeasurable replay value and shelf life. And these exclusive options combined with superior AI bridged the gap between the competition. You could edit physics ratios, pitch speeds, camera angles and everything but the plain generic interface. So back when there was no other game that offered these options, HH found a welcome niche among purist baseball sim fans.
With High Heat 2004, the graphics finally aspire to an almost acceptable standard, only to have lazily done away with the one camera angle that made it playable -- the blimp setting which gave the luxury of depth perception for fans bored with ground level TV shots. Indeed, for those of us who like our baseball video gaming above the fray, tune file camera edits were the saving grace that made up for the lackluster graphics and put the HH franchise in a league of its own.
In HH's final curtain call, the stellar gameplay is intact. Given a modest amount of baseball strategy knowledge and decent reflexes, you'll play more exciting games with HH than any other brand, save MVP. Moreover, with a general grasp of geo-trig coding, the camera angles that are possible with this game are simply mindboggling. If only 3DO had included such bonus goodies in the default package from the very beginning, we might not be saying RIP to the series.
Ever the nostalgic retro die-hard, HH will always remind me why I'm a PC gamer first and a console fan second. PC games offer depth of fine tuning options that few console titles can match. Keep in mind that no gameplay slide setting feature on a console CD is as useful as a PC program tune file. So get this game, not just for realistic stats or nail-biting scores, but for the multitude of innovations that made it the consumer access pioneer in customized gameplay.
