I don't play many sports games at all, but I like baseball so I thought
I'd try a new one. Most people preferred The Show to the 2K series this
year, so I got that one. It's a pretty fun and accurate simulation of
the sport. The last baseball game I played was All-Star Baseball '99
for the Nintendo 64, with Larry Walker on the cover, so it's been a
while. In that time, pitching has gotten more involved and hitting has
gotten harder. In that old game, you only had to pick a pitch and
location and it would go there, and when batting, you could line up the
icon with the pitch icon to swing at it. Now, you have to time a
multi-part meter right to execute a pitch well, and hitting requires
you to rely on your own vision much more and swing smartly. There are
some helpers you can use to make it a little easier like pitch
guessing, although the online league I'm in has them turned off because
apparently they have amazing eyesight. Fielding and baserunning is
pretty intuitive, and how close the gameplay has gotten to real
baseball is impressive, although there are still some weird gaffes like
runners taking bases when there's no way they would have been able to,
and stealing bases is a cakewalk.
The presentation and
commentary are pretty good. There are some weird inconsistencies, like
an often repeated animation of the umpire throwing a ball to the
pitcher without the ball ever actually going into his glove, and fan
animation repeating too often, but the amount of stuff they crammed in
is cool. Most of the big pitchers and hitters have authentic windups
and batting stances, and there are nice touches like playing arguing
close plays. Rex Hudler is annoying and some comments are either
repeated too often or used in inappropriate situations, but it's
definitely better than it used to be.
I haven't played online
much, but the integration of leagues and mail are nice, and weekly
roster updates are great. I've spent a lot of time with the "Road to
the Show" career mode, and besides missing most of my created pitcher's
rookie season with an out-of-nowhere "fractured head" injury, it's
pretty interesting to build up his skills and move him towards his
goal. I wish your stats improved based on how you play instead of using
arbitrary skill points, but it's still cool. Too many little things
prevent The Show from being a full experience. How does it not even
have a home run derby, a simple feature present in that game I played
nine years ago? It's not important, but it's something. I am not and
will never be a sports gamer, but I'll probably continue to get
enjoyment out of this for a while.
