MLB 10: The Show is one of the most impressive looking sports games ever made. Stadiums are re-created almost to perfection, player models look nearly identical to their real-life counterparts and the game of baseball’s little nuances are captured throughout each game. The gameplay is also refreshingly realistic. You are rewarded for working the count while batting and punished if you do not mix up your pitches on the mound.

Simply put, The Show deserves most of the praise it gets. But how does the game stack up as a text sim? Text simmers are notoriously finicky and often nerdy. That deadly combination makes text simmers some of the most critical and hard to please gamers out there. Text simmers need realism, customization and screens that are easy to navigate. If we do not have those three core elements, our attention span shrinks exponentially.

That said, can baseball text simmers add The Show to the baseball text sim hall of fame? Does it fit in with greats like Out of the Park Baseball, Strat-o-Matic and Diamond Mind?

Realism

I have simmed through 10 seasons in two different franchises to test The Show's statistical accuracy, and I have been pleasantly surprised. I have not discovered glaring statistical oddities such as a player hitting 85 home runs or a pitcher compiling 20 complete games. Overall team and league totals in most major statistical categories are a little off when compared to real life, but it is not noticeable unless you are a text-sim nerd like me.

I was also happy with the minor-league system, drafting, player progression and injury rates. However, I am a little unsure how the game sims minor-league games. Many prospects seemed to underperform in the minors, which makes me wonder if the game sees all the players as major leaguers, checks their ratings and then sims accordingly. Then again, prospects still progressed realistically, so the low-minors stats are really not that big of a deal as long as you monitor progression.

If I had to complain about the game’s realism, it would probably have to be in the trading department. CPU trades happen too often for my liking and sometimes a team’s trading strategy would never happen in reality. For example, in the first season of one of my franchises, the Red Sox traded Buchholz, Lester, Beckett and Ortiz. They got good value in return, but in reality, the Red Sox would never blow up their pitching staff and trade Big Papi in the same season. Also, the Yankees traded Jeter during the first season of both of my franchises. They got a couple of good prospects in return, but in reality, the Royals will win the World Series before the Yankees trade Jeter. Certain players on certain teams need to be untouchable as long as they remain productive. You can remedy the trade situation by taking control of all 30 teams if you wish.

I have not tried playing the game in manager mode yet, but it looks intriguing. Front Office Manager attempted to capture the realism of a text sim while adding a graphical element. It failed miserably. If manager mode puts out the same realistic numbers that it did in sim mode, watching games play out will be a treat.

Customization

As pleasantly surprised as I was by The Show's statistical accuracy, I was equally disappointed by the lack of customization options. However, the more I thought about it, the less disappointed I was. Unlike Out of the Park Baseball, you cannot customize The Show exactly how you want to play it. There are no options for realignment, custom-league structures or era settings. You are pretty much stuck playing the modern-day version of baseball.

However, the more I played the game, the more I realized this was not such a bad thing. I doubt the game designers had text simmers on the top of their list of market demographics they needed to please. A good amount of time obviously has gone into developing both regular and Road to the Show modes and the designers have done a solid job with both. Perhaps down the road more customization options can be added to grow the game even further.

Navigation

I did not have high expectations in the navigation area, but ended up being impressed. Menus on console sports games are often clunky and require multiple button presses to accomplish a few simple tasks. For the most part, menus in The Show proved to be very functional.

Setting your lineups against left-handed pitchers and right-handed pitchers with or without a DH could use a little tweaking. Instead of having to hit L1 or R1 to toggle between the aforementioned lineup options, why not try to get them all on one screen? It might require eliminating player photos, but it would mean we could see all of our lineups on one screen without having to toggle back and forth between different screens to see if we had Justin Morneau hitting fourth or fifth against right-handed pitchers with a DH.

Final Thoughts

In the eyes of this text simmer, The Show gets a lot of things right. While not as strong as Out of the Park Baseball or Strat-o-Matic , the sim engine produces fairly realistic statistics and results. Trades need some tweaking, but trading is far from broken and may actually appeal to gamers who like a lot of player movement. The stats produced by The Show really shine when compared to other console sports titles. For example, Madden's sim engine produces several players with 30-plus sacks or over 2,000 yards rushing. You won’t find any such absurdities in The Show.

The Show's menus are also easy to navigate, making the sometimes mundane tasks of carrying out daily tasks and transactions relatively painless for a console title. While the lack of customization hurts, you get over it pretty quick and start crossing your fingers that more customization will be included in future versions.

In the end, The Show does not belong in the baseball text sim hall of fame. However, as the years go by and (hopefully) improvements are made, voters may one day enshrine The Show as the first console title next to mainstays like Out of the Park, Strat-o-Matic and Diamond Mind.