MVP Baseball 2005… yeah, I know it’s 2009.
Greetings all. As a brief intro, my name is Andy, and unlike the other Rusties, I’m from Central New York rather than the upper Midwest. The snowfall is pretty much the same, but the state isn’t in the shape of a mitten. No, Central New York is not anywhere near the city. The city is about four hours down. I’m a sports/video game geek, and I thought that there would be no better way to start my rantings by ranting about… a sports video game.
As the title suggests, MVP Baseball 2005 is indeed a baseball video game produced by EA Sports. Why 2005? Because EA Sports lost the friggin’ rights to MLB video gaming, which means crappy 2K Sports with their craptastic cyberfaces and godawful announcer tandem of Jon Miller and Joe Morgan dominate the game. *hurls*
Anywho, due to this, MVP Baseball 2005 is the last decent baseball game out on the market, for PC at least. MVP05 is a five-star game, due to the fact that you can edit the whole game to update it or regress it. Currently, I’m working on making an MVP 1998 version, because I’m a geek.
The game features a 125-year dynasty mode, and has an owner mode feature that allows you to control all facets of a Major League Baseball team, from building a new stadium to personnel decisions, to actual gameplay. The game has realistic cyberfaces for players and managers, and it’s very easy to replace faces to customize things to exact specifications.
Just a little bit of the shortcomings are some of the stadiums, where players run through fences. Now, I’m not one to bash the running-through-walls deal, especially because I LOVED Ellen Page as Kitty Pryde *pervert*, but this isn’t something I dig in my baseball games. Also, the first and third base coaches are missing. WTF? I’m pretty sure that in EVERY baseball game, there are guys standing in those little coaching boxes. Now, EA Sports was smart enough to put the boxes there. Just not smart enough to put the base coaches there. Oy.
But overall, despite the few flaws, MVP05 is a worthwhile game. Unfortunately, you can only find the PC version on eBay, where the game runs for about 60 bucks. Gah. I’ll keep you posted with my MVP 1998 project.
‘Til next time.
Tags: rant
March 11th, 2009 at 6:57 am
Recently I was looking at MLB 2K9 for the Wii and it looked like it might be fun. But if the 2K franchise is that horrendously awful, what is a Nintendo player to do for some major league gaming goodness?
March 11th, 2009 at 8:11 am
Unfortunately, due to the fact that MLB 09: The Show is exclusive to the PlayStation platforms (the Sonyopoly strikes again), and the fact that EA Sports lost out on the MLB license, MLB 2k9 is your only option if you want a recent game. According to Amazon.com, you can find a copy for US $19.99. Your other option is to buy MVP Baseball 2005, which, due to low supply and high demand, and the fact that it’s the end of the series for now, will run you about US $79.99. Yikes.
However, I feel that the MVP Baseball 2005 game is well worth the nearly 80 dollars because you can modify the game to update it for the 2009 season. You can edit audio to allow the announcers to say the players names, even if they weren’t in 2009, you can create player faces and import them into the game, you can change teams and minor league affiliates, and so on.
Now, with MLB 2k9, I have a few major beefs. The first is that the only new thing is the commentators and a couple new stadiums. The new tandem of Gary Thorne and Steve Phillips is great as a replacement for the DREADFUL Jon Miller and Joe Morgan “A Team” at ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. But that’s just about the only gem in this game. The new stadiums look like the game’s creators didn’t even look at the construction photos. The graphics are still sketchy at best, player faces look NOTHING like the actual player, and the game has so many bugs that the 2k Sports Development Lab might have to be condemned until an exterminator comes by.
Of course, then you have the typical issues that 2k Sports never bothered to fix. Playing defense absolutely sucks, the player animations are awful, and apparently, the 2k9 guys think that a guy like Omar Infante is capable of going yard 40 times a season. Oh, and as for the franchise mode? After simming out a season, I wanted to resign a reliever that happened to toss to a 2.94 ERA the past season. Not bad. Until I saw his asking price. Edwar Ramirez asks for 1 year, $400M. Yeahhhhh… apparently they didn’t get the message that we’re in a DEPRESSION here!!! For you Midwesterners who might think that Edwar just might be a prodigy, I’d compare him to a right-handed Bobby Seay.
According to IGN.com, it’s review of the game said that it was too easy to srike out hitters due to “too precise” pitching controls, the ridiculous contracts in the Franchise mode, and the fact that there’s NO online gameplay, despite constant promises by the 2k Sportsers that there would be.
The major review sites, including my own as a hardcore gamer, are as follows:
1UP.com: D- on XBOX, D on PS3
GameSpot: 4.5/10
GameSpy: 3.5/5 (they said it was good for a casual gamer but awful for a hardcore gamer)
GamesRadar: 7/10 (same reason)
IGN: 6.4/10 for the Wii
XBOX Magazine: 6.5/10
TeamXBOX: 7.1/10
Andy Score: 1.5/10
So pretty much, if you want major league action without a major league pain in the ass, either pony up the dough for a PS3 and buy MLB 09: The Show or toss in 79.99 to eBay and grab a copy of MVP Baseball 2005.
(Used Wikipedia for the review scores)