Despite being America's favorite pastime, baseball video games never hit as many homeruns at retail as the number-one selling Madden and NBA 2k games. Maybe that's because it's more fun to play baseball for real than it is to play a virtual imitation. But at a time when snow covers the majority of the country, gamers have to look elsewhere to get their baseball fix. GameCube owners only have one option -- All-Star Baseball 2002. That's not as much variety as you'd expect from a console that had Super Monkey Ball, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3, Star Wars: Rogue Leader at launch. However, no one needs a hundred crappy games in any genre, so it's better to have one good flight/combat game (Rogue Leader) and one good extreme sports game (Tony Hawk 3), than it is to have several clones that no one cares about. With that said, All-Star Baseball 2002 isn't as impressive as most of the games available at launch, but it is one of the better next-generation baseball games released in 2001.

The best thing about All-Star Baseball 2002 is definitely the gameplay. Up to four players can get in on the action, keeping you and your friends busy for hours. There is nothing quite like the feeling you get when you hit one into the stands and casually run the bases. Then a few minutes later you think you hit another homerun, until the ball lands on the grass. Your friend grabs the ball, quickly passing it to his teammate. You run as fast as you can, pushing yourself to your limits, spotting danger in the corner of your eye. Staying on third base seems like the logical thing to do, but you can't win if you don't take risks. You decide to take the risk, running with all of your might, hoping to score. Then your risk pays off and you make the homerun. The crowd cheers and your friends weep. Talk about a priceless moment!

Learning how to bat is extremely difficult though and will likely be the thing that turns people off the most. There are tons of batting options, perhaps too many for some gamers. Most baseball games use a standard cursor setup that allows you to line up your bat with the incoming ball. Swing the bat at just the right moment and hopefully you'll hit a homerun. Just hitting the ball felt good though. And it feels even better in All-Star Baseball 2002 because it's such a hard task to accomplish. The players swing unusually slow, so you have to hit the ball as precisely as possible. You can take a power swing and hit the ball farther, but if you do, the size of the batting cursor will be decreased, making it that much easier to strike out. There is a mode that simplifies the batting scheme by eliminating all of the extra options, but perfecting your swing is still frustrating.

Other than Star Wars: Rogue Leader, there aren't any third party games available for the GameCube that take advantage of the system's true power. I'm sure I've said that before, and I wish I never had to say it again, but I have to face the fact that All-Star Baseball 2002 doesn't look half as good as Luigi's Mansion. I won't knock the game for having a flat audience, since every sports game on every console (even Xbox) ignores the audience in favor of the players. That's a smart move, because as powerful as these next-gen consoles are, they all have their limits, and wasting thousands of polygons on the least important graphical aspect in the game would be pointless. Acclaim gave the most polygons to the players and I couldn't be happier. The players' movements are much more varied than in the previous installments of the series. Their bodies are pretty smooth too, and the facial detail is excellent, though not nearly as impressive as you might expect from a console as powerful as GameCube. But this is a port of a PlayStation 2 game, and with All-Star Baseball 2003 due for release this spring, you can't expect Acclaim to beef up the current version too much. I hope that the 2003 addition is actually developed for the GameCube and not just ported from the PS2.

Gamers on a budget may want to hold off on buying All-Star Baseball 2002 because of ASB 2003's imminent release. If money is no object to you though, then don't hesitate to get this game. ASB 2002 would be worth buying even if there were other baseball games available for the GameCube.

Gameplay: 7.9
The GameCube controller works well with All-Star Baseball 2002. All of the buttons are in the right places, making the experience a lot less cumbersome than I expected. The multiplayer mode is a blast, and after lots and lots of practice I've finally begun to appreciate the complex batting system. The players still swing too slowly, but hopefully that's an issue they'll deal with in ASB 2003.

Graphics: 7 
All-Star Baseball 2002 was a really good looking game on the PlayStation 2, but the GameCube version is disappointing. Compare the best looking PS2 launch title with the best looking GC launch title and you'll see a huge difference. I know that the GC was delayed a year (let us not forget that Nintendo promised that the GameCube would be released in the fall of 2000), giving developers 12 extra months to enhance the graphics. ASB 2002 is just a port though, not a true, full-fledged GameCube game. The new stadiums are nice and all, but they're not as good as the exclusive levels in Dave Mirra 2.

Sound: 6
The sound effects are nice, but the announcers are very repetitive. This is typical of most sports games, which is strange, considering how far the genre has come in every other aspect. I wonder if sports games will still have repetitive announcers when the PlayStation 3 launches in 2005?

Difficulty: 8
If you master the batting scheme, you can master anything All-Star Baseball 2002. Getting to that point is very difficult and may be too hard for some gamers, but if you go through the trouble of buying it, don't give up.

Concept: 7 
The batting scheme may seem impossible to learn at first, but once you begin to bat like a pro, everything comes together. However, it is a baseball game, and it doesn't play a whole lot different from the other All-Star games.

Multiplayer: 7.5
Acclaim should receive a reward for being one of the very few developers out there who actually makes use of the GameCube's four controller ports. First Extreme G3, now All-Star Baseball 2002! Of course, the quality of the game is more important than how many people can play simultaneously, but in this case the multiplayer mode enhances the overall experience.

Overall: 7.8
Acclaim has a better track record with GameCube releases than any other publisher (even Nintendo!). They've released five or six games for the console and it's only been out a couple of months. ASB 2002 doesn't have as many extras as Dave Mirra 2, but a good game is a good game. Crazy Taxi is two years old and I still loved it on the 'Cube, so there's no reason not to love ASB 2002.