Baseball is “my sport,” lately my only sport. As I’ve gotten older I find I follow the NBA and NFL less and less, and even tell myself every year that this is the last season I’m probably going to pay attention to baseball. This usually lasts until early March, and on some cold early morning I catch myself surfing to cubs.com and picking out who is going to be my fantasy fan-boy pick this season. Ever since the wonderful MVP Baseball 2005 came and went there has been a void for me in gaming. For the past two years I invested hopefully in 2K Sports “Major League Baseball” franchise and watched 2K play whack-a-glitch, fixing one part of the game while breaking another. This year there is a new development in this struggle to play a good game of hardball: I am the proud new owner of a PS3. Anxious to be free of 2K Sports mishandling of my beloved sport, this year I ran out and bought a copy of MLB 10: The Show. So, did Sony manage to outdo 2K sports? More after the break.
Like Being Back At Wrigley
This is the best looking sports game I have ever played. Period. There are a ridiculous number of details, textures, and animations everywhere you look. Typically how good a player looks in a sports game ranges with their salary – developers take more time with the stars and just ‘get it done’ with the minimum wagers. It was a surprise then to find that if I squinted at Mike Fontenot standing on base, it was hard to tell the difference between what I was looking at and actual game footage. Yes when virtual Derek Lee and Aramis Ramirez come up to bat they swing the way their flesh and blood counterparts do, but so too does Kosuke Fukudome.
And the animations are wonderful. As Tommy Hanson slung a questionable 12-6 curve (IT WAS!) across the plate to catch Ramirez looking in a recent game, Ramirez turned to argue the call and Hanson walked slowly back up the mound quitely pumping a celebratory fist that he seemed to think only he could see. In the fifth, play was halted because a fan had thrown a beach ball on the field (perhaps a Simpson’s homage.) The Braves Jason Heyward ran over and tossed it back. It’s these interstitial details that elevate a video game beyond the fun of it’s core mechanics to making it feel like a true recreation of the sport.
Who knew getting punched in the genitals was this fun?
Thanks for buying the Show!
As a video game baseball player, if I had a real life counterpart I’d say it might be Ryan Howard or Carlos Pena. I like to swing the bat, walks are for the elderly. Traditionally games have rewarded this tendency. And sometimes, as in the case of 2k’s game of hardball, ridiculously so. I’d swing at everything and somehow when 9 innings were in the books my power hitters had homeruns, my contact guys had hits, and my utility players had done what they could. It was as though those designers had created a game that would sculpt a realistic box score in spite of my compulsive button mashing and complete inability to take a pitch.
This Pavlovian response to an incoming white sphere did NOT serve me well when I started playing The Show. For whatever reason, the game decided that if I was going to swing at everything it was going to start bouncing pitches over the plate and throwing a pitch out to get strike three. And it was undaunted by the curse words I screamed at my television and the, I won’t say tearful (but it might have been), accusations of cheating the game refused to throw me strikes. Average to terrible pitchers were having career outings against my poor Cubs. Out of pure spite, I started refusing to take the bat of my shoulder. Recognizing the change, the games AI then relentlessly pounded the strike zone and set my men down with even greater precision. Slowly, I realized that the game was not going to let me play it the way I wanted to.
Your WORST Nightmare..
Things are better now. I have had about 500 at bats. In a recent game against the Brewers I took 5 walks (in fairness one of them was an HBP but it COUNTS) and had 10+ hits. However with just a small dose of aggravation I am still capable of rapidly degrading into my old ways, as I found in just the next game when I gifted Livan Hernandez 11ks and didn’t score until the bottom of the ninth.
Finding your chi when a game gets dodgy is made even more difficult by a couple of features included to, I think, make the game more realistic. The most headache inducing is the “Umpire Personality” feature. With this turned on, the game will miss calls. You’ll be in a ten pitch battle with a particular player, throw a nice backdoor slider which lands perfectly on the inside edge of the strike zone, and the umpire will flat-out miss the call. Missed calls occur several times an inning and mostly (though in fairness, not all the time) happens with a strike being called a ball. Absolutely this is a part of baseball, but is it a FUN part of baseball? Should player strikes, steroids, and players that get into trouble with the law be a part of the game then too? Thankfully, this is a setting that can be turned off.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: So what? Taking a walk is a part of the game. And I would agree with you, except for one point. I was playing on the LOWEST setting the game had to offer. There is no casual setting here for players who just want to sit down and play a few innings with their favorite team. Those who try may end up prying their controllers from their shattered television screens. The game REQUIRES that you learn concentration, patience, and self-control. While I can say that getting to the point I am at now has been a rewarding and satisfying experience, I can’t say that it was actually “fun.” But, I keep asking myself, as I’m sure the designers did as well, SHOULD there have been a casual setting? And if there were, given the challenge seen at this level, would I ever have gone back and turned the level up? Probably a question I don’t want to answer.
“It’s a great day for baseball. P.S. you suck ass at this game.”
What made the first few hours even more frustrating was the commentary. While of serviceable quality for a sports game, the commentators will often razz a team that is performing badly, and when you’re getting your teeth kicked in by Jamie Moyer for 15 strikeouts just pours gasoline on the fires of frustration. Any sports video game commentary is going to eventually start repeating itself but I was hearing repeats in the first two games of my season, most notably (but not limited to) how bad I was at the game. Still there were a number of other repeats, mostly from Rex Hudler, and the announcers complaining about bad calls by the umpire (with the umpire personality feature enabled.)
Sounds on the field are all well done, with many chants and cat calls for specific players. Not only that but the game allows you to customize your own cheers and jeers for your team, a feature I have yet to take advantage of.
Thrilling play at...home?
Question: Why is the first baseman running away from the ball?
Wait…I thought I was the 3rd baseman?
Answer: Because I thought I was going to be controlling the second baseman. It’s an old problem with baseball games and The Show doesn’t solve it either. On a sharply hit ground ball that’s splitting two infielders the game will switch from the hitting to fielding view and there is a 50/50 chance that the AI is going to give you control of the one you didn’t want. But it’s too late because you were already trying to control the other guy and so send the one you did get running away from the ball as if it terrified him.
Other than that old problem that NO baseball game has really solved yet, the controls are pretty tight. The issue you may have seen in “other” baseball games where you would move an outfielder under a fly ball, line him up perfectly, and then watch ball drop a foot or two in front of him is not here. Controls are strong and the team plays well. Most of the issues I’ve seen have been mistakes with my own play and not ham handed defensive AI. The only exception to that is I have yet to find the control that allows me to switch away from the player the game selects for me to control. On balls hit in the gap there may be a fielder closer but until the computer switches you to them you’re stuck running toward the ball with the one you started with, though it will eventually switch you the guy you want.
And then there’s off the field…
Given the brutal difficulty level of the on-field AI, it was a little surprising to find that the team and franchise management were not of the same quality. For instance, no player is safe from being traded and trades happen often. In the game I was able to trade Buster Posey for Jose Reyes. This then made Ryan Theriot expendable so I ran through some pitchers and traded him straight for Felix Hernandez. Other odd Some trades that absolutely should have gone through did not. In one fantasy season I was playing I offered Tim Lincecum, Ryan Braun, and Evan Longoria, for Aramis Ramirez (totally worth it for me) and the Reds REFUSED to do it. When I was toiling in the Cubs farm system during Road To The Show mode, the Cubs dealt two starting pitchers and two outfielders. At one point I traded two minor league-rs to get Pujols. Chris traded Rick Porcello and two minor leaguers to get Evan Longoria. Whatever the math is that’s driving the computers value system for it’s player’s it’s beyond broken. When i just simmed through a season without making any trades myself a quick check through other teams rosters showed the AI had decimated them without outside influence. The game seems to value talented prospects WAY more than proven ability.
Still, I could accept if some teams wanted to trade a player for less than he’s worth, but there are a short list of players that just should have been completely off limits. It’s doubtful that players like Derek Jeter, Pujols, or Todd Helton will ever play for anyone else again. A simple inclusion of a “Franchise Player” checkbox might have solved this problem.
And Yet
If at this point you’re getting confused, let me clear something up: this is a great game. It’s the closest yet to the feeling of actually being at the ballpark and the “Road to the Show” mode (which I’ve omitted because this review is already out of control) is a digital narcotic. If you’re willing to put in the time and patience to learn to take balls and wait for a pitch to hit this is a very satisfying game of baseball. It can be frustrating at times and some parts of the game are lacking the polish that other parts have, but if you give it time you’ll start to feel almost close enough to smell the grass.
Soon to be a Dodger...
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