I had originally done the review for All-Star Baseball 2003 for the GameCube back in June and found it to be one of the best and most realistic baseball simulations available on any console. Since then, I did the PS2 review for Midway's MLB SlugFest 20-03 and got totally spoiled by the arcade-style play. I was certainly unprepared for the rude awakening to reality when I began a new season with Acclaim's version of America's favorite pastime.

Once I got past the generic low-budget menus, All-Star Baseball 2003 took me totally by surprise with its slick presentation and feature-rich gameplay that rivals any network broadcast of this sport. And who better to bring this game to your living room than Acclaim. These wizards have repeatedly delivered quality baseball games that have managed to mix challenging gameplay with realistic simulation qualities. Combine all that with MLB licensing and you get to experience this excellent game with all the current players, teams, stadiums, and stats.

This latest version is loaded with tons of features that will appeal to the casual ballplayer or the most devout follower of the sport. Check out this starting line-up:

• All 30 Major League teams, including logos and uniforms
• More than 900 players
• Official stadiums, with active dugouts and bullpens, real time scoreboards and jumbotrons, with stadium features
• All-new player models, featuring 3-D Cyberscan technology, giving All-Star Baseball 2003 the most realistic representation for player faces ever seen in a video game
• Future throw technology allows players to make incredible super-smooth catches and throws like never before
• Innovative 3D batting interface and power/contact swing selection
• User control over check swings
• Never-before-seen broken bats
• Season awards like the MVP, Cy Young, Rookie Of The Year, and Gold Glove
• Incredible gameplay depth with 10 game modes, including Exhibition, Season, Career, Franchise, Expansion, All-Star Game, Series, Manager, Home Run Derby and Batting Practice
• Franchise Mode allows users to play and build their favorite team for up to twenty consecutive seasons
• All-new Expansion Play allows baseball fanatics to choose a city, stadium and team logo, and add that team into the Major leagues for season play
• All-new Expansion draft, whereby users will draft from a pool of unprotected players and build a team of free agents and minor leaguers
• First time ever -- official in-game player trading cards, which enable users to collect, trade and unlock cheat codes throughout the game
• More than 50 stadiums to choose from, including 9 classic and 10 expansion stadiums
• Cooperstown Hall Of Fame team, featuring favorite sluggers from the past, such as Mike Schmidt, Reggie Jackson and Yogi Berra
• Seven authentic stadium camera angles for television broadcast views
• First time ever -- a 3-man broadcast booth with Bob Brenly (Manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks, the 2001 World Series Champions), Thom Brennaman and Steve Lyons.

For you diehard baseball lovers, you will drool over the new Expansion and Franchise modes. The Franchise mode in ASB 2003 has to be the most intricate and complex in computer baseball history. Your PS2 will track your stats for 20 seasons and the AI will always be tweaking the other teams, trading players, signing on new ones, etc. If playing an entire 162-game season threatens to alienate your wife, kids, or friends, you can always opt for the computer to play any or all of these games to speed things up.

Frequently overlooked in sports titles are the awards, and baseball certainly has a lot of awards to offer such as Gold Gloves, Silver Sluggers, MVP, Cy Young award, and many others. If you are playing the Franchise mode the game will track all your team’s awards over the entire 20 seasons.

Be prepared to use a major chunk of your PS2 memory card if you plan on saving your game in mid-season. GameCube players couldn't even save on the conventional memory card and were forcedto by a 16x card if they wanted mid-season saves.

The PS2 game controller works great with ASB 2003. The 4-button layout maps to each respective base when fielding the ball while the D-Pad maps to those same bases when controlling your runners. You move the active player with the left analog stick and the right stick is used for configuring your team formations. It’s all very intuitive and you will master the controls in just a few innings.

Mastering the controls is one thing but mastering the game is another. ASB 2003 is hard, plain and simple. I'm now working on my second season and while I am getting better with each game, the computer still puts on a clinic from time to time. The computer is really good about knocking the ball out of the park or getting in-the-park triples. You really have to learn the teams and the players and watch those stats. If a big hitter is on the plate you need to have your fielders playing deep.

The batting and pitching interface is excellent; perhaps the best I’ve ever experienced in a computer baseball game. A transparent box represents the strike zone and a wedge-shaped icon shows the sweet spot. You can rotate this wedge with the right stick to control the vertical and horizontal angle at which the ball leaves the bat. Of course it’s up to you to guess where the pitch it going to pass through the box and have the wedge waiting for the ball. If you correctly guess the pitch the contact area increases in size, but you still have to time the swing with the pitch. While you can choose between a normal and a power-hit, connecting with the ball is all about timing, and connecting with the sweet spot is half luck and half intuition.

Once you hit the ball you can easily run the bases with the front buttons. These also toggle the view ports that show any current men on base and their lead offs. Tagging up and stealing are all just as intuitive and there are plenty of computer-assisted options you can toggle on or off in the options menu to assist you with many of these advanced plays.

Defense is just as intuitive and with the new future-throw technology you can pull off some super-smooth plays. The way this system works is that while you are running your player toward the target representing where the ball is going to land you can press the button for the base you want to throw to. Once your player makes contact with the ball he will throw the ball to that base in one smooth motion often saving precious seconds that could make the difference between being safe or out.

Pitching is a simple matter of picking the pitch and then trying to fool the batter on where you are going to throw it. The batter won’t know which pitch you are picking but he will have an initial idea of where the ball is going. Once you begin the pitch you can tweak the final throw, but this is a double-edge sword. If you tweak the pitch too much you may inadvertently throw outside the strike zone. The control pad will rumble when you get near the edge of the box which is a nice covert touch. You can also bring up a sub-menu that lets you get all sorts of detailed stats on previous pitches and their results.

All the players have realistic gameplay and idle animations based on complex motion-capture technology. They’ll pound the plate with their bat or tap their heels as they wait for the pitch. You might see a player chewing gum or even blowing a bubble. Knock a zinger past 2nd base and watch the referee dance out of the way to avoid interfering with the play.

All of the component animation is blended together to create a seamless series of moves that offer the ultimate in realism. Players will run, dive, throw all in motion so fluid you would never know it was a combination of various animation routines. As good as the animation is there are several instances where poor collision detection can ruin your day. These mainly occur during fielding and encounters at the bases.

The stadiums are modeled to scale with amazing amount of detail. The crowd was disappointing in that everyone in the stands all moved in unison, so if a pop-fly is sailing into the stands you see a few hundred people all clapping in perfect synch. Other details like jumbo video screens, perfectly manicured lawns, fresh chalk lines, textured dirt, and all the banners and ads that give each stadium its own identity are all here.

The camera angles are all pretty standard stuff, but I was surprised and disappointed to find there was no view available from the pitcher’s perspective. This has always been an option in every baseball game I have played previously and one I prefer when playing by myself. The rest of the camera work is network quality. The angles and panning motion are excellent and you never lose sight of the ball. If your player is off-screen he is represented with an arrow until you can run him onto the same shot as the ball.

There are plenty of instant replays with slow motion and special effects. These can quickly become annoying and time consuming if you watch them after every play. Fortunately you can skip them with a simple tap of the A button.

The menus are pretty bad, but no worse than any other game in the ASB franchise. They are stark and simplistic and simply don't do the overall game justice. There are some interesting detail and status screens, such as the weather report that brings up a weather map of the USA and a detailed forecast for the city where the next game is being played.

The crowd is highly interactive and reactive to the performance of the home team and even star players. Other sound effects such as the crack of a bat or the occassional voice of the ump or another player are all done very well.

The music is decent. There is nothing too spectacular in the menus but the in-game organ music is cheerful and adds to the ballpark atmosphere. You get the final few bars from the National Anthem at the beginning of each game and that’s about it for the musical content in this game.

While ASB 2003 supports up to four players anymore than two is probably going to just get in the way, plus you will have to invest in a Multitap. I found the game quite enjoyable with two people even though I generally lost worse to my friends than when I played the computer. No computer AI can ever replace the random and often illogical thought process of a human opponent.