That's right folks, I got the game. Let me give you a little background on the interesting story behind this whole PS3, MLB 08 The Show thing. First, let me tell you that I originally had no intention of buying a PS3. I've been a fan of the Xbox 360 and I didn't need another gaming system to take up more hours of my life. Then baseball happened. For those that know me, you know that 95% of the games I play are sports games. Break it down even further and you know that Madden and NCAA football take up about 85% of that time and the rest is devoted to baseball games. Unfortunately the Xbox is severely lacking in the baseball category. I mean severely. I think I wrote a fairly bad review of MLB 2K7 on my blog last year. I read even worse reviews of the 08 version so I passed on it. The reviews were so bad that I didn't buy a baseball game and just kept playing Madden. Even when I saw it stocked on the shelves at the store on base, I still passed. It was a miracle. But the baseball itch started coming around. I didn't know how much longer I could hold out. I heard about MLB The Show 07 and how much better it was than MLB 2K7. Then the 08 version came out and I read even greater reviews. So there was my dilemma. A good baseball game on another gaming system. What was I to do? Drop $400 on a new system for a game? I've done that in the past, but now that i'm getting older and wiser, I just can't spend that kind of cash for a gamin console. I decided it would take a miracle of sorts for me to buy a PS3. Then it happened.
I have a Blu-Ray player at home. It's the very first one ever made. I mean the very first original model. It's kinda like having the first ever Betamax player ever made. It was cool. It played all my Blu-Ray movies, albeit with more delays and more freaking updates than I care to endure. The worst part about it was the manual update since the player didn't have an ethernet connection. Occassionally I ran into a movie that wouldn't play. Most eventually played after an update was put out. Then things went south. I bought a few newer movies and they wouldn't play. Then movies that worked before stopped playing as well. Eventually it got to the point where I had a $750 paper weight. WTF? The icing on the cake was the eventual win by Blu-Ray over HD. Now I was really stuck. I could no longer continue just buying HD movies and not Blu-Ray. There was only one alternative. Kill two birds with one stone by buying a PS3 to solve my baseball craving and my Blu-Ray issues.
So there they were. Stacks up stacks of PS3's at the store. Everyday I would walk in there and stare at them. Was today going to be the day I broke down and bought one? I really needed it for the movies but the baseball game was an added bonus. I decided that I would buy one when I got that baseball game. The release date came and went and the game never showed up at the store. They never got it in stock. A week went by, then 2. 3 weeks later and nothing. I held off on the movie watching. It was getting to the point where I was just fed up with waiting. Yesterday I went online and finally clicked "submit order" on ebgames. Off it went, along with Mario Kart for the Wii. I was relieved. Finally. So I figured I had at least a week before the game got here before I had to actually break down and buy the PS3. For shits and giggles, I went to the store after I ordered it. I think the only reason I did that was because I had this funny feeling. I waited all this time for it to come in to the store and nothing. I finally had enough and ordered it online. I walked in, went directly to the electronics section and there it was. Around 20 copies. I couldn't believe it. What kind of dumb luck is that. Needless to say I broke down. After work I ran back there, bought a PS3 and the game and drove like a mad man home. Now here we are. I only wasted 20 minutes of your life with the backstory instead of getting right down to it and giving you the review. Without further delay, off we go.
The first thing you notice is the presentation. Wow. Blows away the MLB 2K series. It's just worlds apart. The graphics are okay, but better than then 2K. I'm sure it would be better if I was running 720P on my tv as opposed to 1080i which to my knowledge isn't as good a picture. Unfortunately I haven't yet mastered changing the PS3 display settings and since my TV is only 720p, i'm stuck with the auto configuration. Overall, i'd give the presentation an A and the graphics a B+ (subject to change when I fix the settings)
The gameplay is just unreal. You don't know how happy I was to play a game and see how smooth a baseball game is supposed to be. If you've ever played MLB 2K7, you'll know exactly what i'm talking about. No choppiness whatsoever. Just smooth gameplay and no lag. It's fantastic. The mechanics of the players are off the chart. Different animations and movements. It's not robotic. There is also more room for mistakes like in real life. Not every throw is dead on. People get pulled off the bag quite often and unless you time it right, pitching and throwing is difficult. Much like in real life. Of course there is quite a learning curve for us Xbox users. I haven't touched a Sony game console since the way before the original xbox was released. Even on the veteran setting, it's a bit difficult. I was almost heartbroken because it doesnt have the "pick up and play" feel to it. If you've never played it before, it's going to take some getting used to. After a few games of striking out and losing games, I finally had to try Road to the show.
Now that feature is just flat out cool. It's basically like the Superstar mode in Madden where you create a player and have them play out a career. But this is different. This is more realistic. You don't start off on a major league roster (although you are an invited guest to spring training to start your career). Once you get through spring training, you are then assigned to either AAA or your AA affiliate. I haven't gotten that far yet though so I can't really comment on it. Although the realism is great. So far in 3 games i'm 1 for 13 with only a single. I can't seem to get a hit which is probably like real life. Although defense i'm almost there. There is a cool option to skip through the other parts of the game and only play when you are actually involved. I selected that option in order to avoid a 30 minute game. I knew when I was on defense, the ball was coming to me. Nothing got by me and I got a few good calls on double plays to at least not get too beat up by my coach because of my hitting. Although I did miss a chance to pull a double play and also didn't cover the bag during a steal attempt. My bad. Overall the gameplay is smooth as well with the players looking like real people when they make a play. No catching the ball without looking and all sorts of backwards looking things.
I haven't really played enough of it to enjoy it so I can't give it a 5 out of 5 rating yet. It's awefully close though. I'd say at least 4 maybe 4.5 right now based on what I saw. Once I play it more this weekend i'm sure i'll have more to say. Including more of an opinion on the interface during the season, which happens to be plentiful and confusing. And it's damn near impossible to trade in that game. It kinda sucks because it's too realistic in that aspect. I want to make unfair trades and stick the Yankees with high cost, low quality players for some of their young guns. Ah, I guess i'll have to try playing a realistic season and see how it goes. I can't wait to get to the offseason already.
Yet another funny advertisement from our Thai friends. This time, it’ s a commercial for a Thai Tomyam Noodle. I simply love this kind of advertisment; so much that I would buy their noodles so that they can make more of such advertisment in the future! LoL! By the way, the video is not English- subbed[…]
Posted by: YouTube | May 14, 2008 at 01:11 AM