Editor's note:  Larry is a new author  joining the team here at Talking About Games.  Please give him a warm welcome!

Breathe in…and breathe out. Do you know what that wonderful aroma is? It’s the smell of freshly cut grass, pine tar, and full-grown men sweating like pigs. That’s right; it’s the smell of baseball season.

Once again, Sony’s MLB ’08: The Show represents 2K Games’ only opposition in the baseball gaming realm, and it does a darn good job at holding its own. With unique game modes like Road to the Show and King of the Diamond, deep statistical analysis, and RPG-style character advancement, The Show offers enjoyment for even the mildest of baseball fans.

If you’re a newcomer to the series, the amount of tools at your disposal can seem overwhelming. But fear not, as you will soon find yourself drooling over your .425 batting average and sprinting through the race for the pennant. On the flipside, baseball aficionados will know what’s coming, but will still be surprised at the level of addiction this game provokes.

It’s a full count with two outs, and the pitcher’s tossing you some heat. Hit the jump to knock it out of the park.

“Advancement” and “originality” are not words that appropriately describe The Show. All in all, there aren’t any new additions to the series’ latest iteration. Instead, Sony opted to refine and refocus many of the outstanding issues the game has had in years past. Little touches here and there have been added to each of the game’s modes, making the overall experience feel much more complete.

Road to the Show, Sony’s hallmark game mode, has seen the most considerable amount of retooling this time around. However, the premise remains the same. Your goal is to become the best of the best, one of the all time greats. Your pot of gold at the end of this rainbow is the Hall of Fame.

You begin by creating your player: picking your name, number, primary and secondary positions, batting stance, accessories, appearance, and attributes. But therein lies the rub. The character creation process is surprisingly thin, with only four or five options for each physical attribute. Considering this game mode is The Show’s calling card, a more extensive level of customization seems warranted, and it’s reasonable to feel let down by such a limited process.

Once you create your player and choose your team, you’re thrown into spring training, where you must battle against your fellow position players for a roster spot. At this point, it won’t matter how well you perform. It’s impossible to make the big-league club after your first spring training. You’ll inevitably be tossed onto either the AA or AAA roster. While this would normally feel like a let down, the new Advancement System makes your stint in the minors very fulfilling. You have the opportunity to earn points in every game you play. These points are then used to hone your player’s skills via the Training menu. By raising your abilities and performing during games, you’ll earn the respect of your manager, and give yourself an opportunity to move up in the organization.

One of the largest benefits Road to the Show offers lies in its rapid action. Games are fast-forwarded to your player’s next opportunity, whether that is in the field or at the plate. While, at times, this can pull you out of game a bit, it allows the season to move at a breakneck pace. You’re never forced to sit through plays in the field when you’re not involved, and you won’t have to watch the at-bats of your fellow teammates. The result is a game that takes roughly one-third the time to complete compared to a standard exhibition game.

While all of this adds up to a relatively basic game mode, it ends up being an obsession-fueled time-suck, but in a good way. After testing the waters in all of The Show’s game modes, I found myself returning to the Road to the Show for the vast majority of my baseball gaming. You can’t play perfectly, but it sure is addicting to strive for perfection.

Road to the Show does, however, have its downsides. The game’s controls change between game modes, and while some of these changes are described in the game’s manual, others are not. The biggest difficulty here lies in the throwing controls. During a standard exhibition game, pressing circle throws toward first, triangle throws to second, square to third, and X to home. But, in Road to the Show, these controls are reversed: square to first, X to second, circle to third, and triangle to home. Under normal circumstances, this is no big deal. But, this change isn’t noted anywhere in the game’s manual or in the game itself, and it takes quite some time and some missed plays to learn the change.

When baserunning in Road to the Show, the camera sweeps around the field to give you an angle on the ball while it is in play. While this year’s camera is vastly improved over its predecessor, you’ll often find yourself wondering if that line drive your teammate just hit is going to be caught, as at times you won’t even get a glimpse of the ball’s destination, and you’re forced to guess. For the most part, this only happens during sure-thing base hits. But, fielders have been known to make spectacular catches, and it only takes a single playoff loss caused by a botched camera angle to cause inordinate frustration.

While the Goal/Advancement System provides a wealth of motivation during your career, it can also be the source of much aggravation. At any point during your career, you can view your player card and scouting report. Here, you can see exactly how the scouts around the league view you as a player, rating assets like batting, fielding, speed, and potential. Early in your career, these assessments will obviously be very negative. However, even with stellar performances, it becomes plainly clear that these scouts are a fickle bunch, and they are not easily impressed. Sporting a high batting average or stellar home run and RBI numbers will not be enough for the scouts to give you praise. And until the scouts love you, your chances of moving up in the organization will remain slim.

In King of the Diamond mode, you pick a pitcher/hitter team and wage all out war against other duos in a ladder tournament played in baseball’s version of Pee-wee’s Playhouse. The diamond is filled with targets and cardboard fielders. Your goal is to score more points than your opponent by hitting pitches around the colorful carnival, putting ghost runners on the base paths and attempting to drive them in, thereby scoring a run. Conversely, your pitcher’s job is to keep the opponent’s batter from knocking balls around the ballpark. It’s a very simple, very fast-paced arcade game that’s great for wasting time.

The Show also sports your standard game modes like Exhibition, Home Run Derby, Rivalry, Franchise, and Manager Mode. Although these options fill out the game’s roster of baseball goodness, they hardly offer anything unique or groundbreaking that you can’t find in other baseball games. If you’re like me, you’ll feel guilty playing anything less than a full 162-game season. And with each game weighing in around thirty minutes, you’re looking at over eighty hours of gaming if you want to complete a single season, much less lead a franchise to multiple World Series championships. Quite frankly, when games in Road to the Show take a mere ten minutes to complete, it becomes difficult to force yourself to go back to these standard game modes.

The core mechanics of The Show remain relatively unchanged from years past. Pitching is relegated to a simple three-click meter, affecting the strength and accuracy with which your hurler tosses the ball in from the mound. Moreover, your fielders’ throws are mapped to a single button press, a mechanic that has been commonplace in baseball games for years. Hitting also uses a single button press to swing the bat. And while these mechanics have proven effective over the years, they feel very dated when compared to 2K’s use of the analog sticks for these same actions. Simply pushing a button to throw the ball to first base puts very little control in the player’s hands, and you’ll often find yourself wondering why that throw you just made sailed over the first baseman’s head, allowing the runner on third to score.

And then there’s the online play. Now to be honest, I wasn’t expecting much here. Baseball games are notoriously infuriating online, as your opponents often will only throw pitches outside of the zone. And if you’re like me, it’s impossible to avoid the temptation of swinging the bat at anything that is thrown your way, resulting in strike out after strike out. Add to that the fact that in The Show’s single player modes, your batters seem to have some difficulty even making contact with pitches outside the strike zone. But in fact, the online experience is a ton of fun. Your batters receive a very tiny boost in their contact ability, thereby making it much easier to hit those balls on the edges. And with the exception of a few (very slight) hiccups here and there, the game runs very smoothly, especially considering it’s running on “old” PS2 hardware.

Once your online games are over, you have the ability to rate your opponent. A one star rating indicates a cheater or a quitter, while a five star rating denotes a great experience with a first-class opponent. The average of these ratings is displayed next to every player’s name, giving you a quick glimpse into each individual’s “fun” level.

And of course, with an internet connection comes a constantly updated roster service. Every time you log into the online realm in The Show, you’ll receive prompts explaining the latest roster moves around the league. Any team you play with during an online match will automatically be using the most current roster available, and these rosters can then be downloaded to be used in single player. Although this is a very minor addition, baseball fans will be ecstatic when they don’t have to play hundreds of games with a player their team traded four months ago.

The Show will certainly not make you weep with its beauty. In fact, there are some moments that will make you say, “What were they thinking?” But overall, the game runs very smoothly on the PS2. Framerate issues are practically nonexistent, and short load times keep you in the action as much as possible. Occasionally, you’ll see some texture-tearing when the camera swings around in Road to the Show. But, these moments are rare, and it’s very difficult to spot them if you’re not intentionally searching for them.

Once again, Sony added extra animations to this year’s game. Thankfully, you won’t see the same fielding and throwing motion from every outfielder on every play. Events within games feel much more varied. Even mound visits and infielders’ celebrations feel very natural.

And once again, unless you turn them off completely, you must still suffer through the mumblings of the trio announcing the games. The play-by-play announcer, Matt Vasgersian, actually meshes very well with the game. In fact, he meshes so well that you often won’t even really notice he’s talking. His partners, however, will raise your blood pressure. Rex Hudler and Dave Campbell come along for the ride again this year, and their vast repertoire of eight catch-phrases will sometimes make you wish there was a mute button on your controller. But as Lou Gehrig said, “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth, because Sony gave me an Options menu so I can turn these obnoxious commentators down to ‘zero.’” Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly like that, but you get the picture.

All in all, MLB 08: The Show is an exceptionally fun and addicting game. It may not innovate or break any new ground, but that doesn’t matter. The hours will simply fly by as you play your way toward the World Series.

If you’re looking for your first baseball game, this one’s for you. The controls are simple, and the gameplay comes in bite-sized increments that are perfect for a pick-up-and-play gamer. The hardcore baseball fans will have a blast with The Show, too. Advanced pitcher/batter analysis and goal systems will give you plenty to tinker with, and the infatuation you’ll develop over raising your player’s attributes will keep you coming back for more. However, if you’ve bought 2007’s installment of The Show, you should probably rent this one before committing to it. There are not many changes from last year’s game, but the experience is fresh enough to be right for a lot of gamers.

Final Score: 8/10

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pcfree said:

Nice review Larry. Welcome.

May 05, 2008