My Love Hate Relationship with The Show

[jskatt21]

First of all let me preface this with the fact that I am a diehard baseball fan, season ticket holder of my favorite team the Minnesota Twins, a huge sports fans, and a huge sports gaming fan.

I love The Show. Best baseball game ever, and best game ever in my opinion, and each year they raise the bar.

The struggles I have noticed I have, is as each year all the sports games get better in terms of features, and graphics, they also push the envelope in making it as realistic as possible. The problem this creates with me is each year I spend more and more time making it replicate real life.

I start a franchise with Knights rosters, get all my music set, play for a while, then a trade or injury happens, and I make that happen. Then it seems more and more I am spending more time making it replicate real life than actually playing and enjoying the game.

I am holding off on buying The Show 11, partly because of finances, and partly because I want to re-learn how to enjoy the game. Instead of putting all my efforts into making it mirror real life, and having all the Sounds of The Show accurate, which is a pain because players like to update their songs each year, I am going to try and enjoy the game itself. I may add some team specific sounds (homeruns, wins, etc.) but I want to enjoy the game.

This is not a knock at the guys that do all the work needed to enjoy the game, if I had the time I would. But as I spend time doing all of this I find myself further and further away from enjoying the game.

I did this with Madden last year, which in my opinion is miles away from The Show, but it helped me reconnect with a game I enjoyed for years.

Sorry to ramble on, just trying to enjoy games like I did when I was younger. To much focus on realistic, takes you further away from enjoying a great game.

[bwiggy33]

It really depends on the person. Every person's situation is different. For instance an adult with a wife and family isn't going to have as much time to play the game because of work, spending time with the wife and kids, and any other problems that may come up. This means that they may spend more time playing the game since they don't have a ton of time to set the sounds, rosters, etc. A college kid like me has a much greater amount of time to play. I, like you love to set the rosters and sounds to make it as realistic as possible. Also I can afford to do that because I know that I will eventually play the actual game. Also I believe that it doesn't take all that much time to edit all of that stuff since the rosters are done so accurately by Knight and many others. As I said though some people don't have as much time to edit stuff like that. All in all I believe that it depends on what the person wants out of the game, and also how much time they have to play it. I fully understand what you are saying though.

[DickDalewood]

I understand your dilemma, but I'm not quite following your logic... You're going to reconnect and re-learn how to enjoy and have fun with MLB 11 by holding off on purchasing it?

How exactly well that help? Why not, instead, buy the game, and do like I do? Immediately start a franchise, updated rosters be damned, and just immerse yourself in your own little baseball world. The other thing that helps; stay away from message boards for a little while Visit these forums for too long and you'll soon be convinced that every game is a mess of unrealistic bugs and glitches. Once this puppy drops, you won't see me around NEARLY as much.

[DJ]

Quote: Originally Posted by DickDalewood

I understand your dilemma, but I'm not quite following your logic... You're going to reconnect and re-learn how to enjoy and have fun with MLB 11 by holding off on purchasing it? How exactly well that help? Why not, instead, buy the game, and do like I do? Immediately start a franchise, updated rosters be damned, and just immerse yourself in your own little baseball world. The other thing that helps; stay away from message boards for a little while Visit these forums for too long and you'll soon be convinced that every game is a mess of unrealistic bugs and glitches. Once this puppy drops, you won't see me around NEARLY as much.

This is the way to go. Just dive into the game and have fun. And yes, stay away from the boards ... well at least the threads that are people nitpicking and complaining.

[RoyalBoyle78]

Quote: Originally Posted by DickDalewood

I understand your dilemma, but I'm not quite following your logic... You're going to reconnect and re-learn how to enjoy and have fun with MLB 11 by holding off on purchasing it? How exactly well that help? Why not, instead, buy the game, and do like I do? Immediately start a franchise, updated rosters be damned, and just immerse yourself in your own little baseball world. The other thing that helps; stay away from message boards for a little while Visit these forums for too long and you'll soon be convinced that every game is a mess of unrealistic bugs and glitches. Once this puppy drops, you won't see me around NEARLY as much.

so, so true, some people get the game and spend more time on the boards then playing the game.

[merchant1874]

Yup although I love this forum and how much everyone here loves sports I do agree it's sometimes a good idea to stay away.
I have in the past enjoyed games (not just sports games) only to have them ruined by people complaining about bugs I haven't yet experienced! Lol

Maybe that's my fault for listening too much to other people. Another problem is becoming obsessed with finding correct slider sets.

I suppose everyone is different and looks for different things in their games and how they play them

[misterkrabz]

Quote: Originally Posted by jskatt21

First of all let me preface this with the fact that I am a diehard baseball fan, season ticket holder of my favorite team the Minnesota Twins, a huge sports fans, and a huge sports gaming fan. I love The Show. Best baseball game ever, and best game ever in my opinion, and each year they raise the bar. The struggles I have noticed I have, is as each year all the sports games get better in terms of features, and graphics, they also push the envelope in making it as realistic as possible. The problem this creates with me is each year I spend more and more time making it replicate real life. I start a franchise with Knights rosters, get all my music set, play for a while, then a trade or injury happens, and I make that happen. Then it seems more and more I am spending more time making it replicate real life than actually playing and enjoying the game. I am holding off on buying The Show 11, partly because of finances, and partly because I want to re-learn how to enjoy the game. Instead of putting all my efforts into making it mirror real life, and having all the Sounds of The Show accurate, which is a pain because players like to update their songs each year, I am going to try and enjoy the game itself. I may add some team specific sounds (homeruns, wins, etc.) but I want to enjoy the game. This is not a knock at the guys that do all the work needed to enjoy the game, if I had the time I would. But as I spend time doing all of this I find myself further and further away from enjoying the game. I did this with Madden last year, which in my opinion is miles away from The Show, but it helped me reconnect with a game I enjoyed for years. Sorry to ramble on, just trying to enjoy games like I did when I was younger. To much focus on realistic, takes you further away from enjoying a great game.

I some what agree. It seems like the more realistic the graphics have gotten it's just caused our expectations of the game play being "realistic" to go even higher. Almost to the point of disappointment.

Like you, I love the game and have very few complaints. But I don't enjoy games like I used to when I was a kid. I can't get totally emmersed in a game because the second something doesn't feel right I'm looking to tweak things. And having so many "tweakable" options it's almost become a destraction, and that takes away from the enoyment of the game.

It's almost getting to the point where its getting frustrating when you don't find the perfect setting. Back in the day, the game was the game...you either liked it or you didn't. If you liked it, you played the heck out of it, if you didn't you didn't.

I will be buying the show on day one because I think it is the best sports game made but for most other games, I've been taking a pass. I used to buy basketball, golf, football and yes even games like rugby every year but I don't anymore for some of the reasons mentioned above. I've basically given up on new football games because the older Madden games sitting on my shelf are better than what's coming out these days. At least with the Show, it does getting better and they continue to add features. Like last year they made a huge leap forward with the online gameplay, I'm hoping they make even more progress in that area this year...if they do I'll be happy.

[ps2baseball]

I have recently done this with NHL 11. It has been fun. I haven't made any of the recent trades and, and likely won't.

Looking forward to doing the same with the Show, although I too may not buy it this year.