Infield Homer
MLB finally arrives on the PS3, but how did the jump treat what many call the best baseball game ever made?
Published: May 15, 2007
I'm just going to get this out of the way right now: I hate most sports games. The only reason why I'm reviewing this game is because:
1) We've had a great string of freelance sports reviewers take the games and disappear, and I really don't want to have that happen again.
2) This is one of the first sports games in a long time that I actually liked. So henceforth this shall be a review by a clueless non-sports guy giving his take on why MLB '07: The Show is decidedly un-crap. A little buggy and certainly not a next-gen visual treat, but fun nonetheless.
Oh, and it'll be a painfully short review.
Ask most non-baseball fans what their biggest gripe with the game is (both the real-life and digital versions), and they'll probably bitch about the pacing. Baseball is a game you get drunk and cram your face full of horrible food to, not sit on the edge of your seat for four hours, but here MLB '07 actually does the newcomer good. The oft-touted Road to The Show Mode allows you to create a player, pick a position and then work your way up from the minors all the way to the big time and on to pennant and World Series wins.
Not only does always fast-forward you to where you next appearance is, but you're constantly given challenges relevant to your position. If it's a pitcher, you might be asked to induce a ground ball or help turn a double-play. At first, all of the challenges are wonderfully context sensitive, which teaches even newcomers to, say, paint a particular corner to up the odds of milking a particular style of hit to maximize the chances of bagging outs. For guys like me that never really bothered to consider this stuff, it's a godsend, though later on, the challenges can start to get a little insane, and since completing these tasks nabs you the much-needed development points to further sculpt your player, it's in your best interest to keep on top of the challenges.
Luckily, and this is likely the other area where non-fans hate the games, it's actually fun to play just about any position, though obviously the game was designed to keep control freaks happy as much as possible. As a result, both pitching and batting are given equal love; you now have to feel out particular umpires to see how they're calling strike zones, and the new Adaptive Pitching Intelligence will let your catcher track player stats and offer suggestions as to what kind of pitch you should serve up next and where to plant it. When coupled with the Pitch Command System that rewards you for mixing up pitches (overuse one type and your confidence and accuracy with others will start to fall), but rewards you for bagging batters with a particular type (strikes nudge up the meter, and you have innate strengths you can build up, stats-wise), and the whole mechanic becomes an alluring little dance of statistics and probability in addition to just making sure you tap the buttons at the right time.
If you're actually up to bat, though, you're still allowed to peek at your own stats. With a press of the button, you can call up past performance against a pitcher, seeing where he planted pitches and even check to see how good your swing was right after taking a whiff at a ball. In fact, if you think you know the pitcher well enough, you can try to call the pitch ahead of time for a big boost to your hit if you manage to connect. That's a big if, though, and depending on the difficulty, you'll have to not only guess the type but where it's going to go, but the risk/reward payoff is amazing if you can pick it properly. It really does help paint a proper picture of the kind of mental game that's played both on the mound and at the plate, and again, it helped win me over slowly.
It's really the wealth of online options that gives the game legs beyond Road to the Show. The sheer amount of stuff you can do online is staggering, and hints at just how strong future games on the PlayStation Network might end up. It should probably be mentioned that these aren't PS3-only options (in fact, the online aspect of MLB has been improving steadily every year), but given that the series is obviously graduating onto a next-gen system, it's a nice sign of where it's all headed. Online leagues, one-off ranked and unranked games, instant messaging, challenges for players on your buddy list, constant news updates from all over the MLB and even a fairly detailed online profile card that anyone can see make for tons of opportunity to get sucked into the world of baseball. It might be a little stifling for guys like me, but then I was never the target for a game like this, and yet I'm still enticed, if not entirely smitten, with the way it all plays out.
1) We've had a great string of freelance sports reviewers take the games and disappear, and I really don't want to have that happen again.
2) This is one of the first sports games in a long time that I actually liked. So henceforth this shall be a review by a clueless non-sports guy giving his take on why MLB '07: The Show is decidedly un-crap. A little buggy and certainly not a next-gen visual treat, but fun nonetheless.
Oh, and it'll be a painfully short review.
Ask most non-baseball fans what their biggest gripe with the game is (both the real-life and digital versions), and they'll probably bitch about the pacing. Baseball is a game you get drunk and cram your face full of horrible food to, not sit on the edge of your seat for four hours, but here MLB '07 actually does the newcomer good. The oft-touted Road to The Show Mode allows you to create a player, pick a position and then work your way up from the minors all the way to the big time and on to pennant and World Series wins.
Not only does always fast-forward you to where you next appearance is, but you're constantly given challenges relevant to your position. If it's a pitcher, you might be asked to induce a ground ball or help turn a double-play. At first, all of the challenges are wonderfully context sensitive, which teaches even newcomers to, say, paint a particular corner to up the odds of milking a particular style of hit to maximize the chances of bagging outs. For guys like me that never really bothered to consider this stuff, it's a godsend, though later on, the challenges can start to get a little insane, and since completing these tasks nabs you the much-needed development points to further sculpt your player, it's in your best interest to keep on top of the challenges.
Luckily, and this is likely the other area where non-fans hate the games, it's actually fun to play just about any position, though obviously the game was designed to keep control freaks happy as much as possible. As a result, both pitching and batting are given equal love; you now have to feel out particular umpires to see how they're calling strike zones, and the new Adaptive Pitching Intelligence will let your catcher track player stats and offer suggestions as to what kind of pitch you should serve up next and where to plant it. When coupled with the Pitch Command System that rewards you for mixing up pitches (overuse one type and your confidence and accuracy with others will start to fall), but rewards you for bagging batters with a particular type (strikes nudge up the meter, and you have innate strengths you can build up, stats-wise), and the whole mechanic becomes an alluring little dance of statistics and probability in addition to just making sure you tap the buttons at the right time.
If you're actually up to bat, though, you're still allowed to peek at your own stats. With a press of the button, you can call up past performance against a pitcher, seeing where he planted pitches and even check to see how good your swing was right after taking a whiff at a ball. In fact, if you think you know the pitcher well enough, you can try to call the pitch ahead of time for a big boost to your hit if you manage to connect. That's a big if, though, and depending on the difficulty, you'll have to not only guess the type but where it's going to go, but the risk/reward payoff is amazing if you can pick it properly. It really does help paint a proper picture of the kind of mental game that's played both on the mound and at the plate, and again, it helped win me over slowly.
It's really the wealth of online options that gives the game legs beyond Road to the Show. The sheer amount of stuff you can do online is staggering, and hints at just how strong future games on the PlayStation Network might end up. It should probably be mentioned that these aren't PS3-only options (in fact, the online aspect of MLB has been improving steadily every year), but given that the series is obviously graduating onto a next-gen system, it's a nice sign of where it's all headed. Online leagues, one-off ranked and unranked games, instant messaging, challenges for players on your buddy list, constant news updates from all over the MLB and even a fairly detailed online profile card that anyone can see make for tons of opportunity to get sucked into the world of baseball. It might be a little stifling for guys like me, but then I was never the target for a game like this, and yet I'm still enticed, if not entirely smitten, with the way it all plays out.
