best baseball game ever period
User Rating: 10 | MVP Baseball 2004 GC
I must say at the outset, to be fair, that I am a huge fan of the EASports banner. I love Tiger Woods, College Football, Madden, etc. However, this is the first year I have purchased the EA baseball offering. As everyone knows, Triple play was a joke, and last year MVP just was too much of a rookie to make the cut in my library. The last few years, my baseball game of choice was All-Star baseball. However, after seeing the reviews, I decided to give MVP a try, and man was I blown away!! First off, graphically, the game is great. The players look good and the animations and movements are outstanding. The crowd still looks a little too "2-D" but other than that it is great. I am a huge Royals fan from Kansas City, and they have Kaufman stadium rendered perfectly. Down to the little details on the scoreboard like the Royals thanking their guests at the game. (Every Royals fan sees this at every game. Second, the sound, in my opinion is very good. The commentary does not make me wince, and does not seem overly repetitive. They even have the little details here as well, like the stadium announcer and the broadcasters each pronouning some names differently. I think that is a very nice touch. The gameply is great. One of the first things I notice is the hitting and pitching. Pitching was pretty quick to pick up. The fielding is very good, as they have really emphasized defensive position and footwork in determining the success of fielding attempts. It just adds to a very realistic sense of the game. The hitting is very good, however, a little difficult to pick up at first. However, I like this because one of my biggest criticisms of other games is that it is too easy to hit, and thus batting averages and HR totals are WAY too high. Finally, the Dyansty Mode is very well done. The same mode in last year's All-Star Baseball was good, however, the interface was not very user-friendly and the system suffered for that. MVP makes the interface much easier to use, and therefore much more fun. The one criticism is that perhaps there is too much here. Having the minor league teams is very cool, and a nicce touch. However, there almost seems like their is too much to worry about. Plus, it seems like every player is not happy with their contract. (Of course, that could be because I am playing as Kansas City and they have no money to pay anyone anyway.) Regardless, this is the best Dynasty mode I've seen in a baseball game, and definitely ranks up there with EA's similar modes in College Football and Madden. All in all, MVP 2004 is FANTASTIC and will be the standard bearer of baseball games this year. But are we surprised, EA owns the market in almost every other sport, it was only a matter of time wasn't it?
