Fact or Fiction: Baseball Games Cometh Edition

[RaychelSnr]

It is a new week here at Operation Sports and we are creeping up on the release of the two major baseball titles. This week we have four staff members checking into the fact or fiction roundtable and answering some important questions for this week. Is MVP 05 the best baseball game ever or will MLB 09: The Show surpass it this year? Is EA or Take Two going to be bought out in 2009's weak economy? Check out their thoughts on these issues and a few more in this week's fact or fiction.

Read more - Fact or Fiction: Baseball Games Cometh Edition

[nemesis04]

It is interesting, with the MVP series being pretty much dated now there are still some components of the game that Sony and 2k are still trying to perfect. Most notably being the fielding, bat on ball physics (hit variety) and use of right stick innovation. It would have been cool to see if EA was still in the mix of making baseball games, what the baseball video game landscape would look like.

As we are here today it looks like we have two very viable choices for 09. With each company giving their own interpretation of the game. I am very happy that each game has some individuality to it and would never want the two offerings copying each other for the sake of just having a particular feature.

A little over a week and we are playing ball guys! Enjoy it!

[Azamien]

Quote:

Christian McLeod - Fiction. While MLB 09: The Show will be a fantastic baseball game, it will still pale in comparison to MVP 05. MVP 05 is still superior in the areas of ball physics, fielding, throwing and baserunning, at least based on my time with the MLB 09 demo.

Wait, what? MVP 05 had to be modded to achieve anything close to realism in any of the areas he mentioned.

I think people are putting MVP on a pedastal that it doesn't quite deserve. Was it good? Yes. Was it the best baseball game at the time? Yes. But come on, it played terribly out of the box, so to say that it's "still superior", especially in those areas (ball physics were a complete joke!), is revisionist history.

What made MVP 05 great was the ability to mod it. Otherwise it was an average title.

[NAFBUC]

MLB '09: The Show will be the best baseball game ever made.

I would say based on the demo and expecting the release version to be much more polished, yes. The one thing that The Show or 2k baseball titles can improve on is to allow user modding.

User Modding is what allowed High Heat and MVP to keep the game fresh. The Show has started to go that way with the face feature, sliders, roster vault and sound editor. That should be just the starting point. The next step would be to add real time advertising signage, a datafile that can edited on a PC format and the ability to replace player photos.

[boomhauertjs]

The greatest baseball game ever? High Heat (either 2002 or 2003).

[rudyjuly2]

I really enjoyed MVP '05 and that game got me back into buying baseball games every year. But when the Show came out, MVP '05 was quickly relegated to backup status.

I liked the fielding in MVP and really liked the franchise setup with easy depth charts and morale. But MVP (on the PS2 at least) was really flawed in the batter vs. pitcher battle and that is the heart of baseball games. You could never pull any pitch with power on the outer part of the zone. You ALWAYS had to go with pitches and pull inside pitches which isn't realistic. You couldn't get hits on balls out of the zone despite the fact it happens quite often. Pitch speed had zero relevance against the cpu! A 98 mph fastball was no more effective than an 88 mph fastball (makes no sense) and you could paint corners all day in MVP.

MVP '05 was a breath of fresh air for me but I think it's really overrated in terms of its lasting greatness. Just my two cents.

[e0820]

I for one enjoy the next gen consoles' crop of baseball games. I also thought MVP 05 was great at the time. Im puzzled as to why people dont suggest EA to bring out a fully customizable next gen version of MVP like they do with 2k's APF.

[N51_rob]

Quote:

Caley Roark - Fiction. After watching how EA has handled Madden's transition to the current-generation consoles, I do not have too much confidence in what MVP would have become. I loved MVP 05 (and still play it occasionally), but I imagine that the features that made that game great would have been dropped and then touted as new features later on.

I think that was spot on. EA has struggled bringing games to next gen. They are finally getting there but it has taken 4 years.