NCAA 06 Baseball finally provides a method for creating your own team and rules not seen since the SNES days.
Right out of the box I ignored all the teams and made my own. On to Dynasty Mode! After a few tweaks in the settings, people could finally hit home runs more often and it felt like I was playing baseball and not little league. Turned off the energy effect as there is no way people playing catcher suck that bad. Kept the metal bats though, loved the *ping* sound. Turned off the announcers after they repeated the same thing 10 times (less than one game).
There is only one team to manage (instead of A, AA, AAA, and the actual team you care about) so you even get to play some BASEBALL! What a welcoming from traditional MVP baseball where you end up wasting all your time managing and never playing (or playing 60 out of 165 games). I really liked the fact I can play every game of the season, manage the team, and still enjoy it. Not perfect yet, but much better than most games.
Dynasty mode is fun but after a couple of seasons you can see where this game needs improved. Menu's don't work to help you compare who you have been trying to recruit all year. There is no way to drop someone's scholarship or kick them from the team unless they are a walk on, you can always bench them for a year and they will more than likely leave... (my personal favorite save just before the end of the season, make them a senior in the edit mode and let them graduate!). The fact the players only stay consistent for a few years at a time before you have to make some major changes was great and kept the team fresh.
All said though, there is a lot of polishing and things that could be improved. I already mentioned menus that should have been included. But what else?
1) the ability to customize your ball park as your team prestige grows
2) Ability to change your uniform over time or unlock different ones - there were the prestige awards you could get, but that only lasts for 5 challenges...
3) Pick-offs by the catcher.
4) Season length or at least the ability to try and setup your own season for the next year. (Enough playing top ranked teams with my 0 prestige startup!) It would be nice to have some control over your teams schedule.
5) Team history. Keep a history of the best players to ever hit your record books. As players come and go it would be great to look at the books and say, "remember when had that 15 win season!" Right now when a player leaves unfortunately so does the memory. So much for Dynasty.
6) Get rid of the announcers and provide an alternative! Remember when baseball games had background music in them? Sure I can just turn on my stereo, turn off the announcers and pull it off, but it would be nice to have some in-game music that changes when the bases are loaded (or in scoring position), the inning gets over, etc. Sorry in-game sound tracks matter even with sports games IMO.
There are more to name, but there were other things I did like about the game though:
1) Tournament modes. Finally I don't have to write out my own trees and play one game at a time. The game does it for you!
2) BYU doesn't play on Sunday. Betcha did not know that, but the programmers did their homework and got it right. It made my expansion team feel like it was in the conference. It was great to beat them twice on double header Saturday!
3) Player awards. Conference awards, Freshman of the year, etc. Makes you attach to your players and feel the pressure as you try to make them the best possible. (again though, a history book would have been nice)
4) Custom soundtracks! Handles up to 50 in the queue.
The problem I see more and more with baseball games is the desire to tie them to NCAA or MLB rather than to the sport. I will welcome any game that lets me pick the season length, Tournaments (throughout the season), Tournaments to finish the season, Player awards, etc. This one comes up short in bringing me 100% baseball again but its the closest I've seen in years.