There are a few oddities about this year's release of the long-running Triple Play series from EA Sports. Namely that there will be no PC rendition and that they chose to put "2002" in the title.

We've seen for some time that the Triple Play series for the PC has not been up to par with the rest of EA's lineup. It has lagged behind the NHL, FIFA, and NBA Live series in terms of both graphics and gameplay. This year, there will be no Triple Play game for the PC. Maybe they're switching to another developer who can raise the standards, or maybe it's just not as profitable as their other ventures.

Furthermore, it appears that EA wants to stand out from the crowd by actually releasing Triple Play 2002 in the calendar year of 2002. In a few weeks, High Heat Baseball 2003 will hit store shelves, obviously not in the calendar year of 2003. Triple Play 2001 was released in 2000, and last year came Triple Play Baseball, without a year in the title. I conclude that this was inserted so that they could get back on track with releasing titles with a year in the title in that calendar year. 3DO's High Heat Baseball series may follow in their footsteps, but we'll see.

High Heat Baseball 2003 will be the only action-based baseball game for the PC this season, while EA Sports focuses their attention on the PS2 and Xbox. This has got to be music to the ears of people at 3DO, but we'll see how big of a success it is. Depending on when they received the news, they may not have strived as much for excellence as they normally do, knowing that there will be no significant competition.

In the meantime, you can read some reviews of the PS2 version of Triple Play 2002 from The Sports Gaming Network, SonyWeb.com, Gaming Age, and SportsPlanet.

__________________
Aaron Dahlen - Gaming Editor
aaron@slcentral.com
SLCentral - Your logical choice for computing and technology
http://www.slcentral.com

Athlon XP 1800+ ... K7V DRAGON Plus ... 256 MB PC2100 ... GeForce3 PowerPack !!! ... Sound Blaster Audigy ... IBM 60GXP 40 GB ... Samsung SyncMaster 950p ... Windows XP Home