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MLB 10: The Show
As most of you know, I pretty much alternate between two games every year: Madden and MLB The Show. For many years Madden was just horseshit, while The Show series has been outstanding. This year was a little different in that BOTH Madden 10 and MLB 10 The Show are excellent games.
The biggest reason I got into the MLB The Show series is the "Road To The Show". In this, you create a player, either enter the draft or pick the team you wish to play for, and then the game fast-forwards to your players individual actions. Whether it's a ground ball hit to you where you're required to field it and throw it to a base, or when you're up to bat, or when you're running the bases, the game gives you a true feel for you being the player. Part of the reason I responded to this is because it's basically a baseball RPG game in that you get points for positive performances that you can spend to improve your player. You start out as a scrub, a terrible player in Class AA ball. You get goals that you have to try and achieve and they change depending on whether you're a bench player, a backup or a starter. Goals range from: "don't strike out more than 5 times in the next 3 series", to "Drive in 5 runs" and so on. The better you do the more points you have to spend to improve your player, and eventually you become a starter in AA, get called up to AAA and eventually get the call to the Show.
There are also training sessions in Road To The Show, where you get 20 pitches of batting practice, 15 steal attempts, 15 fielding attempts or pitching practice. Doing well in these gets development points that improve your player. If you don't do so well, you don't improve as much, or at all. Catching got a major overhaul this year, probably because Joe Mauer is the cover athlete. You can now play as a catcher and call every single pitch of the game...pretty cool concept but very long games.
Graphically the game is beautiful. It was cranked to 720p this year, and the animations are simply unbelievable. Faces are solid but eyes are still screwy. Looks like Madden 11 is going to have some outstanding face design software, so I imagine that The Show 11 will have better faces/eyes. The details in player animations are excellent and it truly gives the feel of being in the game. The announcers, the stadiums, the fans, everything is very well done. With regular roster updates it's fun (and frustrating) to keep your rosters up to date compared to real life, but the game has it's share of bugs that need to be patched. They will be, just as they were last year, but it's a shame that even a good franchise like this is following the new trend of releasing a unfinished product and fixing the patches later.
This year I discovered a new mode that I'm really enjoying: franchise. Now my biggest complaint of this series is that they use BARS to show how good someone is. Not "89 overall, 90 defense, 77 speed, 83 fielding" but a red bar. So Justin Morneau is ============== while Joe Mauer is ==================. W T F. I hate that, mainly because I'm a tinkerer when it comes to franchise modes. I like to compare every single player to free agency, other teams and get the best lineups possible. In this game it's very hard to figure out if someone is better or about the same because of the stupid fuckin bars.
Anyway, franchise mode in The Show is very deep, in that you can adjust everything: ticket prices, concession prices, memorabilia pricing, parking, promotions, advertising, facility upgrades, rehab equipment, coaching staff, and more. It does a great job of truly letting you feel like you're running the club. Plus you're not just handling your MLB rosers, you're filling rosters for AAA and AA, and have the ability to send people to the single A development league. Very fun, very in-depth, but unfortunately, games take a long time to play if you're playing both hitting and pitching. You can manage games, sim games or play games, but I've been playing just my team's batting and fast forwarding 1/2 inning when I am done and letting the computer do my pitching and fielding (since I really only enjoy batting & tinkering with rosters & franchise stuff). And it's been a blast. It's fun when I get a 3 run lead, pass it off to the computer and come back to find the game tied, or I'm suddenly behind. Makes for some challenging games. That's the other great part for me: I don't win every game. In Madden I can win pretty much every game I play...not so in The Show.
There are many other modes, including online franchises, online play, manager mode, etc. but I've found the mode I like and I'm loving it. Unfortunately this means that Dragon Age, MW2, Mass Effect 2, WoW and the hundreds of other games I've been meaning to play get pushed back another couple months while I hit home runs in Target Field.
And Kyrillian, I go out of my way to beat your stupid fuckin Yankees by 10+ runs every time we play them. Damn cheaters. ;)
