HOT CORNER

A consumer’s guide to the best and worst of sports media and merchandise. Ground rules: If it can be read, played, heard, observed, worn, viewed, dialed or downloaded, it’s in play here. One exception: No products will be endorsed.

What: “Hit the Pros”

Web site: www.foxsports.com/games

Price: Free format; $9.95 monthly and $19.95 seasonal subscriptions

Most Internet sports games have a 1980s quality to them: dated graphics, too simple, little connection to current athletes.

“Hit the Pros,” which was unveiled by FoxSports.com during the All-Star game, is billed as a fast, challenging game with PlayStation/Xbox quality.

The concept allows players to choose selected hitters, among them Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds and Ichiro Suzuki, who face computer-generated “pitchers” such as Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez.

Using cameras and tracking software from games televised by Fox and Fox Sports Net, actual pitches are simulated into the game and inputted as quickly as 30 minutes after the completion of that day’s game.

Hitting a Roger Clemens fastball is not easy, and the game’s makers, WildTangent and Adam Bain, FoxSports.com vice president of production and development, have raised the difficulty quotient for instances when players choose to attempt to hit a specialty pitch, such as Mariano Rivera’s cut fastball.

Statistics are tied to the batter’s performance, giving the game a rotisserie element.

Players select from 30 major league ballparks, weather conditions and day or night game. Fox broadcasters Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, Thom Brennaman and Steve Lyons “call” the action with Fox’s baseball theme music inserted. Additionally, hitters are equipped to pose when they smash the pitches.