All-Star Baseball 2003

Thanks to the jumbo capacity of GCN discs, ASB 2003 is the first baseball game with a three-man broadcasting booth. Thom Brennaman handles the play-by-play and Steve Lyons is his usual sharp-tongued self. Bob Brenly's appearance as a color commentator is rather odd, given that he's been managing the Arizona Diamondbacks for more than a year.

The biggest bonus for fantasy freaks is the all-new Expansion draft. s can draft from a pool of unsecured players and build a team of free agents and minor leaguers. Creative types will lurk in the Expansion Play feature, which allows you to choose from among 36 U.S., Canadian and Mexican cities, seven fictional stadiums and 30 team logos, then add your team to the big leagues for season play. By the way, Acclaim: Monterrey, Mexico, is spelled with two R's, not one.

Acclaim has always been rightfully proud of its painstaking realism. The stadiums include active dugouts and bullpens, fluttering flags and real-time scoreboards. For legal and contractual reasons, ads have been altered. Bodies of modern-day big-leaguers are quite accurate, but Hall of Fame sluggers Willie Stargell and Stan Musial look more like slap-hitting infielders.

Acclaim keeps tweaking the software it uses to recreate player's faces. Now called 3D Cyberscan, the software results in the most realistic mugs you've yet seen in a baseball game. The fans behind the on-deck circle are photorealistic, although they all have that scrawny look of overworked game developers.

This game marks the ASB debut of official Donruss in-game player trading cards. Inspired by EA Sports' popular Madden Cards, the ASB cards allow players to collect, trade and unlock cheat codes throughout the game.

Also new are trivia games. Even though most of the questions are incredibly difficult ('Who has won the most games in one season without winning a Cy Young award?' Answer: Juan Marichal), beating the dopey U is pretty easy.

Controls:

When it comes to actual gameplay, Acclaim has never tried to sugar-coat its unwavering commitment to realism and zillions of options. You can fake a bunt, call for a pick-off or steal and have pitchers warm up.

You can assign the U to control any or all of your players on either defense or offense. More subtly, the U will assist you with batting, fielding, pitching and base-running. Normal speed is pokier than Eeyore in a sack race, so we recommend picking the Fast option.

The Control Stick and the C-stick together give you subtle control over the power and direction of your swing. Theoretically you can improve your chances by correctly predicting pitch and location. Big-leaguers do this all the time, but they're working off exhaustive scouting reports. You, on the other hand, will have to rely on guesswork until you get a feel for the game's AI.

Future throw technology facilitates snap catches and throws. Animations have been cleaned up from ASB 2002's jerky beginnings, although fielders still tend to position their gloves slightly off a ball's trajectory.

The AI of players and umpires not directly involved in a play varies. In the time-honored tradition of baseball video games, they often stand stock-still while the ball caroms crazily nearby. At other times, though, you'll be pleasantly surprised by heads'-up hustling into position to back up a throw.