Wednesday, March 31, 2004
A Quite Decent Baseball Video Game
Finding a good baseball video game for Playstation 2 has been a nightmare. Triple Play 2002 was pretty good. MLB 2004 was an absolute nightmare--I think I lost every game 8-0. I could not score for the life of me, and I never figured out why.
But I picked up MVP Baseball 2004, the one with Albert Pujols on the cover, and I think it's damn good. The glaring flaw is that Barry Bonds, as a result of his not signing into the MLBPA group licensing agreement, is not in the game. I had forgotten about that, and I was stunned to see in the lineup that the Giants' starting left fielder was...Jon Dowd. I thought, isn't that the guy who wrote about Pete Rose? Needless to say, this Dowd character was given an immediate demotion to Fresno, and I headed to the "create player" feature. And looky here! The created player model that appears when you first start looks like...Barry Bonds, complete with long pants over the shoes. Nice. I entered his name, gave him 100% abilities in pretty much every category, and brought him to the team. And when Bonds stepped up to the plate, the announcer--Duane Kuiper--says his name. "Bonds comes to the plate." Nice sidestep, EA Sports.
Oh, and the Giants roster when you first start out has that same Duane Kuiper, and Mike Krukow, the two announcers in the game. Kuip's the second baseman and Kruk's one of the putchers, just like they were in real life for the Giants, like 20 years ago. Needless to say: Demotion.
So my season is underway, and coming off Brett Tomko's sparkling 5-hit, 8-strikeout shutout of the Padres, I am 2-3 on the year. I'm just getting my bearings on the "Pro" level, the second lowest of four. When I get better and start to kill the computer I'll switch up to "All-Star" or whatever the next level is.
It's a great game. Realistic player movements and a nice replay feature. It's worth the $49.99. Here's an about.com review of the game.
But I picked up MVP Baseball 2004, the one with Albert Pujols on the cover, and I think it's damn good. The glaring flaw is that Barry Bonds, as a result of his not signing into the MLBPA group licensing agreement, is not in the game. I had forgotten about that, and I was stunned to see in the lineup that the Giants' starting left fielder was...Jon Dowd. I thought, isn't that the guy who wrote about Pete Rose? Needless to say, this Dowd character was given an immediate demotion to Fresno, and I headed to the "create player" feature. And looky here! The created player model that appears when you first start looks like...Barry Bonds, complete with long pants over the shoes. Nice. I entered his name, gave him 100% abilities in pretty much every category, and brought him to the team. And when Bonds stepped up to the plate, the announcer--Duane Kuiper--says his name. "Bonds comes to the plate." Nice sidestep, EA Sports.
Oh, and the Giants roster when you first start out has that same Duane Kuiper, and Mike Krukow, the two announcers in the game. Kuip's the second baseman and Kruk's one of the putchers, just like they were in real life for the Giants, like 20 years ago. Needless to say: Demotion.
So my season is underway, and coming off Brett Tomko's sparkling 5-hit, 8-strikeout shutout of the Padres, I am 2-3 on the year. I'm just getting my bearings on the "Pro" level, the second lowest of four. When I get better and start to kill the computer I'll switch up to "All-Star" or whatever the next level is.
It's a great game. Realistic player movements and a nice replay feature. It's worth the $49.99. Here's an about.com review of the game.
