All-Star Baseball 2003 looks much better than the other baseball games recently released on Playstation 2. On the other hand, the game is not as impressive as many other Sports simulations available on Sony’s black console.
The 3D player models are the best feature in the graphics of All-Star Baseball 2003. Sometimes, the players are just like their real counterparts. The faces look really good, and this is a rarity in Sports games, where most of the times the players look like zombies. The bodies are well built and the finely detailed uniforms look exactly like the real ones; animations are smooth and realistic.
The stadiums look good, and in All-Star Baseball 2003 you can play in all major league stadiums plus a few ones designed by Acclaim for the game. The real stadiums are recreated with great care and there are some nice details here and there, like mascots and players warming up or looking at the game in the dugouts.
Two or three things prevent this game from looking really good. First of all, the animated crowd. As usual, looping animations are used for the crowd, and as long as the camera frames large portions of the stadiums it looks good. Anyhow, every time you can take a closer look at crowd, a green pixellated border appears around the 2D figures. It looks bad, mostly because it strikes with the detailed player models on the field. Then, the 2D images used to show the city environments in the background look way too blurry; lighting effects on the stadiums are non-existent and weather effects like rain and snow are unimpressive. If you are used to the splendor of games like Madden 2002, you’ll notice the difference.
