As Acclaim puts the heat to yet another season of All-Star Baseball, the series' longevity and presence doesn't appear to be losing any of its flair. The series has been hitting it hard since 1998, when Acclaim released All-Star Baseball 1999. Since then, Acclaim has managed to put out exceptional baseball games each year. This is Acclaim's third at bat for the GameCube version of the game, and again it looks like this very well could be nothing less than a home run for All-Star Baseball 2004. The amazing attention to each player's appearance and visuals in All-Star 2004 really keeps the game on the top. Each player, detailed down to subtle nuances and individual characteristics, is amazingly clear and surprisingly concise. It is especially nice to notice certain players' signature moves rendered to perfection in the game. Clearly, most of the visual work in All-Star 2004 went into providing a realistic player experience, and that sort of restricts the game's other visual experiences. Stadium fans have no life, and characters in the outfield still feel slightly lifeless and impersonal. Nevertheless, these features do not steal much of All-Star 2004's glory.

Every sports title ever released seems to strike out when it comes to commentary and audio. Sadly, All-Star 2004 also has significant issues with the commentaries presented in matches. Though the dialog is superb, and adequate for short, one shot games, playing an entire season gets tedious when the commentators repeat themselves or seem to comment on factors that simply did not occur. Speaking positively however, the commentaries in All-Star 2004 do innovate with the option for a Spanish language track and their impressive ability to comment about occurrences in previous games. The atmosphere of the game and the ambient stadium noises also captures the joys of 'America's Favorite Pastime'.

The popularity of baseball earned it the title 'America's Favorite Pastime' many years ago. These days, however, it seems that that hat can be happily worn by the video game craze. Because of this fact, I always sense this sort of irony when a baseball game is released. It seems that America's two favorite pastimes are engaging in a battle of perplexed proportion. Needless to say, All-Star Baseball 2004 does what it can to create a near copycat emulation of baseball for our new favorite pastime.

Running on the same basic engine of years past, All-Star 2004's gameplay shouldn't undermine anyone familiar with the basic rules of the sport. A ball is thrown. It should be hit. What follows should be a series of events where one team tries to catch the ball as the other team runs around a diamond-shaped field. The entire thing takes place for nine rounds of each team at bat. There are not time limits, and games have been known to last as little as 20 minutes to well over 4 hours.

Something a little lackluster in All-Star 2004's feature set is the fielding options provided in the game. All-Star 2004 attempts to designate a fielder nearest the ball to catch the ball and hands his control over to you. Nevertheless, the feature is not entirely functional, and sometimes the wrong fielder is selected which leads to less than positive outcomes.

One of the areas All-Star 2004 excels in is the number of options it offers. The now standard choices of Exhibition, Season, and All-Star Game are all present, as well as some not-so-typical ones such as Manager, Batting Practice, Trivia, and Career Mode. It even features some off-the-wall enhancements such as a 'pick game', which takes the game out of the stadium and into a corn field letting players choose teams consisting of some of the greatest players in baseball history.

For some reason, playing All-Star Baseball 2004 alone gives the game a terrible disadvantage. The computer players perform too well for novice players to advance very far in a season. In fact, the first time out could result in catastrophic events when the computer manages to follow all of your pitches to homeruns, and strike you out endlessly. Playing with another human opponent really gives the game a better chance to shine since both players will have equal disadvantages.

Perhaps the most difficult factor of any baseball game is getting over the fact that it is nearly impossible to hit the ball, a case that is synonymous with the actual, physical game. Batting in All-Star Baseball 2004 is nearly identical to the system used in previous versions of All-Star Baseball. A lot of guesswork has to be done to attack the ball at the right opportunity and achieve proper placement. From adjusting positioning icons, to designating the bat's tilt ratio, the small amount of time to prepare for a pitch hardly gets the batter ready to plant anything into the ball. Even at its simplest setting, batting a ball with the preferred distance and power is next to impossible. Pitching, on the other hand, comes quite easily. Just aim and select a pitch type. The pitch will be performed flawlessly.

Once the ball is caught, it's your player's job to throw the ball to the correct base. This aspect makes great use of the available options for playing. Depending on which base you want to throw to, each face button will take the ball into the direction of the nearest fielder guarding that base.

Overall, All-Star Baseball 2004 is a good baseball title and will please fans. It attempts to introduce a few new features to generate more realism in the title which, for the most part, are carried out flawlessly. The few unhappy details of the game seem to be concurrent in every ballgame today, and All-Star Baseball 2004 does its best to shield gamers from these flaws. Bottom line, when its the bottom of the ninth, the bases are loaded and there's two outs, 2 strikes and 3 balls, you can count on All-Star Baseball 2004 to come up with a Grand Slam to win the game. Let's just hope that you are the one at bat.