PS3T Best of 2012 Blog Post - wozamil's Blog

wozamil's Blog

PS3T Best of 2012 Blog Post

Posted on February 27, 2013 at 10:30 AM.

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Originally posted on ps3trophies.org. We (the staff of ps3t.org) posted our top 3 games of 2012. This was my number one game

There's no question to those whom know me that my favorite series is MLB The Show. And once again, it's my favorite game of the year. Year after year, this is easily the best sports simulation out there. When you think about baseball, there are so many nuances that it makes it tough to get right. The most tricky of them is what makes me love this game the most and that's ball physics. The way the ball moves from the time it leaves the pitchers hand to the time the current at-bat ends. The way it comes off the bat, slicing or hooking depending on how good the timing of your swing is, to how it interacts with the environment.

Unlike other sports, baseball fields are not created equal. In football and soccer (yes, I call it soccer, as it should be dammit), every field you play on is identical with maybe the exception of the playing surface, grass vs artificial turf for example. So it's easy for developers to just simply change the stadium around the playing field and maybe change up some images on the ground. With the exception of the placement of the bases and pitchers mound, baseball playing fields are not created equal. Distances to the fence and the actual shape of it all vary from stadium to stadium and the foul territory is also different. And in MLB 12 The Show, you clearly see how much effort was put into the physics when see how the ball reacts when hitting any of the unique surfaces in each stadium.

And a testament to how great this game looks visually, I only had to look as far as the couch next to me. While playing late one night, in an exhibition game between my Chicago Cubs and our cross town rival, The Chicago White Sox, a friend of mine who just stopped by and looked at the TV and asked, "why are they playing so late." He thought it was the real deal. The camera angles, graphics and the commentary can easily fool someone at a quick glance that it's an actual broadcast.