MLB 2006
989's 2005 effort nails the fundamentals, but still needs plenty of practice.
Published: April 14, 2005
Right off the bat, MLB 2006 didn't score any runs with me because as soon as I started up an exhibition game, it froze up on me. I did some poking around online and found out that MLB 2006 does have a problem with lock-up. Thankfully, it only happened this one time for me over approximately 30 hours of play and once I did get into an actual game, I found MLB 2006 to be a very good baseball title.
989 Sports' titles during the first few years of the current generation were, for all intents and purposes, lackluster, buggy and thoroughly unimpressive, especially coming from a 1st party developer. Instead of trying to dig their way out of the annual hole, 989 took a season off, re-tooled and are now back with MLB 2006. In a few words, MLB 2006 is a good baseball title with innovative features, but I found myself frustrated with some of the more basic facets of the gameplay.
As the home team in the first game of the season, my first experience with MLB 2006 was with its pitching interface. MLB features an analog pitch meter similar to EA's Total Pitch Control, but it is much more frustrating to use. Over the course of playing the game, I was never able to effectively paint the corners of the strike zone with the regularity that I can in MVP Baseball.
In the outfield, things are much smoother. As a diehard baseball fan, I am thoroughly impressed with the quality and variety of MLB's animations. Outfielders shag fly balls very realistically and the transition from run to catch to throw is very smooth. Unfortunately, you have no control over the power of a throw, as you do in MVP Baseball. You just pick the base to throw to and pray it gets there before the runner. I did notice on routine flyouts with no one on base, that the outfielder will nonchalantly lob the ball back to the infield (like in real life), but the lack of control to put a little extra into a throw to get the tagging runner heading for second is frustrating. It only seems to add a disconnect between the player and the game.
On the other side of the plate, offense feels much the same. While MLB does feature a cool "guess-the-pitch-location" feature that increases your chance to make solid contact, I still feel a disconnect compared to the experience in MVP. In MLB, you can hit, bunt, run and slide like you'd expect, but in MVP, not only do you have much more precise control over where and how you hit the ball, but you also have control over how you slide into a base. Feet first vs. hands first, straight into the plate or a hook slide. While it sounds like nitpicking, the little details make the difference.
989 Sports' titles during the first few years of the current generation were, for all intents and purposes, lackluster, buggy and thoroughly unimpressive, especially coming from a 1st party developer. Instead of trying to dig their way out of the annual hole, 989 took a season off, re-tooled and are now back with MLB 2006. In a few words, MLB 2006 is a good baseball title with innovative features, but I found myself frustrated with some of the more basic facets of the gameplay.
As the home team in the first game of the season, my first experience with MLB 2006 was with its pitching interface. MLB features an analog pitch meter similar to EA's Total Pitch Control, but it is much more frustrating to use. Over the course of playing the game, I was never able to effectively paint the corners of the strike zone with the regularity that I can in MVP Baseball.
In the outfield, things are much smoother. As a diehard baseball fan, I am thoroughly impressed with the quality and variety of MLB's animations. Outfielders shag fly balls very realistically and the transition from run to catch to throw is very smooth. Unfortunately, you have no control over the power of a throw, as you do in MVP Baseball. You just pick the base to throw to and pray it gets there before the runner. I did notice on routine flyouts with no one on base, that the outfielder will nonchalantly lob the ball back to the infield (like in real life), but the lack of control to put a little extra into a throw to get the tagging runner heading for second is frustrating. It only seems to add a disconnect between the player and the game.
On the other side of the plate, offense feels much the same. While MLB does feature a cool "guess-the-pitch-location" feature that increases your chance to make solid contact, I still feel a disconnect compared to the experience in MVP. In MLB, you can hit, bunt, run and slide like you'd expect, but in MVP, not only do you have much more precise control over where and how you hit the ball, but you also have control over how you slide into a base. Feet first vs. hands first, straight into the plate or a hook slide. While it sounds like nitpicking, the little details make the difference.
