Getting excited for baseball season? Me too! So, I bring you MVP Baseball 2005.
Ok, there's not too much to this game, so I figure the best way to review this is to recount my initial expierience with the game from the start button. Let's begin.
From the start button, the first thing that jumps out at me is the music. Most of these sports games get a famous music list, such as Disturbed for Madden, but this game has seemingly all unknowns. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty good music! But, songs like "Funny Little Feeling" by The Rock & Roll Soldiers, and "Tessie" by The Dropkick Murphys is the extent of the fame that's on this game. Maybe someone like Batbum had heard of these bands previously, but I'm just an everyman when it comes to music, and I've never heard of them before this.
Then, after that nonsence, I decided to start a dynasty, and choose to do the fantasy draft, instead of using current rosters. Plus, just for realism sake, setting fair trades to on. Sure, this would make it hard to get talent, but I felt it would be more immersive. This brings me to my second point, and that's the fact that the rosters were more out of date than I originally thought they would be. I know that alot can change in 8 years, but there's a good chunk of players in this game that aren't playing anymore. Randy Johnson, Chipper Jones, John Smoltz, and Roger Clemens are all playable. Plus, this is the early years of players that are now peaking, so it may be easy to mix that up, and take a pitcher by name that you think is really good, but in the game has less than ace stats. For example, in this game, Zack Greinke is a rookie, but now, he's a starting ace of the staff. Also, this is Roy Halladay's early days, so he's not quite as dominant of an ace as he is now.
By the way, if you don't know the terminology I'm using, then an Ace is used to describe potentially the best pitcher on a staff, and one of the best pitchers in the league. One team can have more than one Ace.
This problem also works the other way around. Let's use Roger Clemens agian. He has the very obvious problem with using a certain substance, so obviously is made fun of, now. However, in this game, he actually is a force to be reckoned with. Not that he wasn't a good player, but you can only think of the problems for that team when the problem come out, and it gets really funny to think about. Also, Travis Haffner is a total powerhouse in this game, but now, I haven't heard about him! He might of retired, or he's in the minor leagues. I don't know.
Another thing is that there's more of an emphasis on the bullpen in today's game than in 2005, so when I was selecting my team, I didn't recognize most of the bullpen players in the game. The only 3 I recognized were Billy Wagner, Mariano Rivera, and Bob Wickman. Trying to pick a team for the bullpen is like trying to win Wheel of Fortune with your hands tied behind your back, and blindfolded. It surreal to travel back in time like this to see how different the game was then. The game was more focused on offence, than pitching, then, and it really shows.
By the way, another termanology lesson incoming. The bullpen is used to describe the back up pitchers. Their job is to come in to the game when the starters get tired, or are allowing a bunch of runs. It pays to have a good bullpen for longevity reasons.
So, once I got over that fact, I've selected my team, and I'm ready to play an actual game, I realize the control in this game is basically flawless. There's a pitching meter that, as it should, if you hit perfectly, no matter the stamina, the pitch will go exactly where you wanted it to go. Stamina simply reduces how easy it is to hit the meter dead on. Not hitting your mark on the meter has disasterous results on the pitch. Either you hang it, and it gets the skin blown off of it, or it's way of and an easy ball. Basically, I like this system better, because it actually feels like a real f@%king game. The downside to doing it this way is that it's too easy. Either that, or I'm the godsent child from space, because I was able to fire off a 2 hit complete game shutout, then 2 perfect games in a row, AND it was agianst an offencive team. I feel that it could be a bit more difficult, especially since the scores were as follows; 9 to nothing; 8 to nothing; and 10 to nothing. I think it's too f@%king easy, like fishing with dynamite in Walmart.
Apologies to the people reading this who know baseball, but this is for those who don't. It's another baseball lesson. A perfect game is the term used when a team gets through the enitre baseball game without one hit, one error, one walk, or one run. The other team can't have a single base runner to be considered a perfect game. Also, the starting pitcher has to go the whole game, otherwise, it's a joint perfect game. Perfect games can also go into extra innings, but I don't recall that ever happening.
OK, I'd better rap this review up before it becomes a class. If you're a big baseball fan, it's worth a look, but chances are, you're playing the new one as we speak if that's the case. If you're not big into baseball, then I'd recommend either watching the MLB, first, if you haven't given it any chance at all, or playing Mario Super Sluggers, which is baseball, but with super natural elements to it. Now, if you don't excuse me, I've got some preseason to watch. *Oh, come on, ump! That was a strike!*