- NA release: 8th April 1999
- PAL: release: 1st May 1999
- JP release: N/A
- Developer: Iguana
- Publisher: Acclaim
- N64 Magazine Score: 80%
With the many N64 baseball games, I now have a routine: start a game, try batting, fail, start again, repeat a few times until I hit the ball, watch the CPU catch it every time, try pitching, CPU hits nowhere near my places, fills the bases then gets a home run, then check out extra modes and cheats.
So I was surprised with All-Star Baseball 2000 when I could actually hit the ball reasonably well, and it wasn’t caught instantly. I actually had some fun with it.
The pitching also worked quite well, you line up your target and can move slightly when you throw to try and catch them off guard. Fielding also has some targets, but you’re rarely in control of the player you expect to be. while pitching, I also somehow kept throwing the ball to my other players and had to mash buttons to pass it back to the pitcher.
This is the most enjoyable of the baseball games so far.
Fun
But if you love baseball then you’ll find just enough glittery new stuff to make ASB 2000 a worthwhile purchase. And we can’t wait for All Star Baseball 2001, which will be set on a spaceship winging its way towards Jupiter, and come complete wih spine-chilling commentary from HAL. Perhaps.
Mark Green, N64 Magazine #28
Remake or Remaster?
I’m not familiar enough with newer baseball games.
Official Ways to get the game
There’s no official way to play All-Star Baseball 2001.
Europe
Japan
North America
N64 Games by Date
1997: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
1998: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
1999: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2000: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
I’d never played a baseball game before, but got quite excited that this was coming out (to this day I’m not really sure why!). HMV used to show me the release dates and when I went in to pick up this newly released title… well it has disappeared from the list and no-one had any idea when it had moved to. Months down the line I spotted it in the wild and I found a similar experience to you. It was alright, and while it could end up anywhere I was able to get bat on ball.
The major issue I found, which I really should have known, was that it was still just baseball. Nothing more, nothing less. No bells and whistles, so while I played a decent enough game, matches weren’t quick and got repetitive quickly.
I haven’t bought a baseball game since.