Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Amazing"

I'm a baseball sim guy. Had MVP 2005, even 2K7. Played them all. But The Show is by far the best baseball simulation game in existence. Now out comes The Show 13, which I quickly scooped up on Tuesday morning very eager to see what's new.

The Good: the new stuff works. They have a new beginner mode for those who aren't familiar with the series. It does a great job explaining the core game. Two new things when playing head to head with a friend are "pitcher mound step offs", & "batter called time outs". BOTH work perfectly, just as in real life. Couldn't be more happy with these additions. Also, they have this new feature of a ball "yellow streak line". I really don't like using it much yet, but can see how it would feel pretty cool for fielding in the Road To The Show in lining up great catches, & watching crushing home runs. It works well, but it almost too jarring for me as an Old School Show guy. They still offer it in 3-D which is very fun to play if you have a TV with that function. It puts your RTTS experience at a whole other level IMHO. Other new stuff is controlling your "in game experience" of announcers. You can mute certain guys, & keep others, or turn them all off. It's really up to you, & what you like to hear. They also have a new fielding POV which takes some getting use to, but once you get the hang of it; it becomes second nature. They also added The Show Live, like 2K's series giving you up to the moment scores

The Bad: the new fielding throwing meter takes some getting used to. Like anything new, it feels weird at 1st, & I whistled the ball into places it shouldn't go. Pretty much sucked for the 1st three games or so in RTTS. But I got used to it, & now it's actually better than the old meter which I made some throwing errors. They didn't change much in pitching, they still have the regular button's, or "pulse pitching"(same as last year). Oh, & the background crowds are still pretty weak sauce for how nice the other parts all look. They need to fix that to fully suck you into the experience making each crowd member unique.

The Verdict: a must have if you love baseball, or are even a casual fan. It's the best baseball simulation version in the series yet, & that's saying a lot. They have hit a new level here, & makes the purchase price worth it. After all, if I'm just paying $60 for an updated roster, I'd tip my cap saying, "Ah, no thanks. I'll just wait"