Apparently, the rules of baseball have been drastically altered; the last we checked, fielding was very much part of America's national pastime. Here, we would like to quote from the World Series Baseball 2K1 manual. "The defensive players field the ball automatically." In one fell swoop, Sega has cut out one-third of the great sport of baseball; what's left is a hitting and pitching simulation that fails to please.

With no fielding option intact, World Series Baseball must travel long and hard on its graphics muscle. Player models are at once striking and well animated; they're exactly the sort that make for wonderful screenshots. In gameplay, they perform stunning basket catches and throws with such force that they'll spin around ever so slightly. When they dash for home plate, they'll twist their bodies to avoid a tag -- and even the simple act of a pitcher toying with the rosin bag remains a graphical masterwork. Equal care has been put into the game's stadiums, right down to the circular lawn patterns around the pitcher's mound and the pyrotechnics that explode when a monster home run has dropped in on the bleacher bums.

World Series Baseball provides players with a barebones baseball framework. There are options for exhibition play, a quick start contest (wherein two teams, their lineups and batting orders are automatically selected), season mode, playoffs, and customization of teams and players. Customization remains the game's great draw, and players can use this feature to create their own teams, cobble up players from scratch, make trades, and then save information to the Dreamcast's VMU. Baseball fans would be dancing in the streets if Sega put the same effort into World Series' gameplay as it did its create-a-player mode. Playing God is always fun, and this game allows for a lot of creative control -- from the big things (skill distribution, batting style) to the minutiae (wristband color and shin guards), an individual player can be tinkered with until perfection is attained.

On the diamond, things are vastly different. A simple pitching and hitting engine dominates, and the controls are locked in tighter than sardines in the can. Pitching is handled with the analog stick and the "A" button; pitches are selected by pressing the stick in different directions, and then a press of the button fires up a power meter of sorts. Another button tap causes the pitcher to hurl the ball -- the location of the pitch can be modified with the analog stick, and the force is dependent on how full the power meter is when it's full. Though this system works well, there's no indication on the gameplay screen as to which direction on the analog stick equals which pitch -- and players will need to refer to the game's manual to discover that down and to the left is the command to toss a sinkerball. Hitting requires a player to execute pinpoint timing for swing control; the right trigger controls a batter's stroke. It's best if players hold down the trigger before the ball comes across the plate and then release it at the correct time, but a quick tap also suffices. Regardless of the method used, hitting remains a delicate art, and there's certainly a lot of skill involved in ripping one off of, say, Randy Johnson or Pedro Martinez.

Once the ball has been hit, the train stops at various points in and around Disappointmentville. Players can exercise no control over the defense save for choosing which base to be thrown to or the placement of the fielders themselves. Out in the field, even the most golden of gloves will frequently break for a ball entirely too late, dive right through a smash, or twiddle their thumbs while what appears to be an easily caught bloop hit drops in. It's extremely frustrating to blow a lead after coughing up runs because of this dreadful defense, and certainly the most damning part of the whole error-laden farce.

There's more -- weak play-by-play from a disinterested announcer, absolutely no color commentary, poor camera angles, a lackluster replay feature, and ... heck, Baseball has used up a lifetime supply of strikes. Game over.