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Triple Play 2000Early in '99, Sierra Sports recalled their Football '99 title because the game was buggy, unfinished, and most importantly, unplayable. They apologized for their incompetence in the matter and promised they would rework, debug, and re-release the game later in the year under the "2000" label.Perhaps EA Sports should follow suit. Triple Play 2000, the ENORMOUSLY popular sports franchise on the Playstation, makes its first appearance on the N64. And the results make that whole "South Park short on Tiger Woods '99" fiasco pale in comparison. And here is why: GRAPHICS: Even running at medium-resolution, the graphics are dark, dull, muddled, and hazy. This makes Body Harvest look like Half-Life. The animations are jerky and akward-looking. Players have an embarassingly few number of batting stances. Hit-detection is horrendous, and even the best hitters will be whiffing at fastballs right down the middle. CONTROL: Pitchers use what is called the "aftertouch" system, where by "tapping" the controller a direction will, supposedly, change the direction the pitch will go. This would all be well and good, IF IT ACTUALLY WORKED. You touch one direction on the controller, and the ball goes in another direction. Yet, touch that same part of the controller on the next pitch, and the ball goes in a whole other direction! And, no, dont expect any help from the poorly-written manual. At the plate isn't much better either. Unlike most baseball sims today, you cant control where you swing, as the AI homes in for you. This too, would be well and good, IF IT ACTUALLY WORKED. I thought it would be just nice to not worry about "aiming" my swing and just time it right. You can set the difficuly to the point where the pitchers are practically underhanding it to you, AND YOU STILL CANT HIT THE *&^%$ BALL! Even the "advance all runners" feature, found in every ball game made since the 16-bit era, is missing! Well not so much missing as NOT WORKING. Oh yeah, its there...in the manual, just not in the game. SOUND: Your standard baseball game flare, with two horrendous exceptions. The announcer obviously had something rather unpleasant stuck up his @$$ when recording his play-by-play for the game. I'd put up a WAV file for you all to hear for yourselves, but I'd rather spare you the pain my ears had to endure. And for some unfathomable, or riduculous, reason. EA decided to play some sorta rock, rap, or heavy metal as each player comes to bat. Something I'd rather hear in a shooter, not a friggin baseball game. Maybe they consulted Trevor Hoffman on this one...(inside joke) GAMEPLAY: Well, if you read everything up to this point, you'll agree with me when I say: WHAT F*&^ING GAMEPLAY?!? THERE CAN BE NO GAMEPLAY WHEN SOMETHING IS UN-PLAYABLE! Electronics Arts should be ashamed for even RELEASING this game which "plays" like its still in its early beta testing phase. GRAPHICS: 2 CONTROL: 1 SOUND: 1 GAMEPLAY: 0 OVERALL: 1 There are worse ways to spend your money, I just cant think of many... -Ragnarok the Red |
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