First let me inform you this is the first time I have picked up a baseball game for a console system in a long time, say since the last generation of baseball games for the PS1. Also I am not a very big baseball fan at all, I root for a team and hope they win if not whatever, I go to a AAA game once in a while and hit a major league game if someone offers me the tickets. So saying that I think this review will better fit people that are casual sports fans and don’t pickup the newest sports game every single year. When I first turned on my PSP and waited through the long load time, which came out to be about 38 secs. You rarely have to go through a load screen unless going into a game or leaving one, but when you do they are all pretty long and have the Angels player all over the game, at least when you load into a game it will show like a tip or a screen shot of the 2 teams about to play… any other load screens, forget it. Ok enough about load screens. The Menus system, out of playing games the menu system is very simple and in-depth. In games not so simple. I am 50 games into my season and I still find myself going into the wrong selection. It’s not very organized. This just means some may not be able to go in and 1..2...3.. make a selection then get back to the game, not a big deal, but could been nice if it was better arranged. Offensive game play: I found the learning curve in this game to be pretty quick to figure out, but insane to master. If you really play with the options you could just hit X to hit the ball and then do nothing till the next batter comes up, fielding is done for you, same with lead offs, base steals, and most everything else that can happen in the field can be automated. The guess where a pitch is going is a great feature, you guess right and boom under rookie 6/10 you get a homer. But I found myself with better on base percentage and longer innings just not using the feature, if you don’t guess and you play rookie mode you will probably hit it anyways. Also I found going into Veterans mode to be a HUGE jump in difficulty. The jump in difficulty from rookie to veteran is extreme. Veteran to All-star I didn’t notice any difference. In rookie it’s as simple as swing the bat and you can hit even the worst of balls, under veterans and all-star I had a hard time finding how to play it, once I stopped using the guess where option I did much better, in fact once you learn to watch for the ball whether it’s going to be a strike or a ball, you all set, in this game you hit the ball and you will probably do good, but I did have a few to many innings where the other teams pitcher stacked up 10 or 15 K’s also. Ok on to the Defensive portion. Not much to say about it really, it’s got a nice interface for fielding seem pretty touchy and sensitive at first, but it’s all straight forward, nothing spectacular here. The pitching can be a lot of fun, the meter takes a little getting used to, but if you want you can turn it off and let the pitcher do his own speed and accuracy. But I found that if you don’t do the meter the pitcher will be throwing balls into the backstop by the 3rd inning, oh something else that was pretty cool you HAVE to warm up your pitcher before they come out at least 1 inning before hand, 2 at most, you warm a guy up for too long and he will just be tired, you don’t warm a guy up and he will suck. Either way pitching is very involved, each pitcher has his own set of pitches he can throw. You just choose the kind of pitch you want where to throw it then speed and accuracy is decided by how you do the meter (sorta a mini game with every pitch, but not really.) Considering my lack of knowledge of pitch types I have a hard time pitching. Throw a Chang up down the middle low and they will prolly miss it, put a fast ball in the same place and Easy homer for the other team. Overall I like the game, a lot of the excitement went out the door after the second game, It’s best to play the game on rookie for a bit with all the auto stuff off, and learn how to control everything, then go up to veteran once in a while and see how you do, cause I would rather loose games and have a real season, then win every game 23 to 4. The Graphics are beautiful, when you first see the shots of the parks you will be amazed, but what really sucks is the camera doesn’t get anywhere near enough to the players to where you can see the detail, they do so much on the field, but it mean crap if all you can make out is arms and legs. Everything else... I guess everything else would mean the sound and such. the sound is amazing from the crack of the bat to the sound of the ball bouncing off all those seats up in the back bleachers at fenway that are covered in tarps... I just wish they played "Sweet Caroline" in the middle of the eighth inning! oh but it makes up for it, when at the end of a game at yankee stadium you can just sit at the screen that asks you if you want to quit and listen to the atmosphere, and you will probablyy hear the announcer letting everyone know that the 166th exit is the best exit if your taking the subway home! So even though I wish they had ingame park music other then the grunge rock it comes with I still give the sound a 10/10... not that I have been rating anything upto this point... sounds just that good. Laod times aren’t that bad 30-40 seconds is long, but it’s justified since you play a game for 20 mins or more. Alright That’s The end of my Review.. Did I also mention this is the first review I have ever Written? I’m sure you can tell. Thank You Contact me at mwhetzel@gmail.com with any comments, questions, or whatever.
mlb baseball is a classic old school game. the game play is pretty good but would be much better if they had dynasty mode. the Graphics is very impressive especially the shadow content. the sound track is pretty basic. ... Read Full Review
This is a solid game. The graphics for the game are good for a PSP debut title. The character animations are nice but can be choppy some times in the transition. The field models are very nice and look just like the f... Read Full Review
