MLB 07: The Show

March 10,2007 - PlayStation 2 owners have been quite lucky these past two years in the wake of 2K Sports’ exclusive third-party MLB license acquisition, having three titles to choose from for their baseball fix. The MVP series has kind of become irrelevant to those looking for a professional baseball fix while the MLB 2K series hasn’t been able to take advantage of its opportunity. However, Sony’s MLB series has flourished in these dark times by rising out of its mediocre slump of years’ past to take the crown for best baseball game last year. This year, SCEA San Diego isn’t taking their success lying down, as they’ve added new modes, gameplay mechanics, and a robust online mode expected of next-gen games. Does MLB 07: The Show contend for the title once again or is it destined to miss the playoffs?

The big new offline mode this year is the Road to the Show mode, which is a streamlined version of the career mode where the focus really is squarely on you. Now, you simply fast forward between at-bats and defensive plays that involve your player. This streamlined process decreases game playtime to around 5 to 10 minutes, and makes it easy to lose hours to play “just one more game.” Your manager gives you goals to complete, which reward you with training points to upgrade attributes and become a better player. The ability to be able to skip to your next appearance allows players to skip games that they don’t participate in and further makes the long seasons seem a lot shorter than you’re used to. Franchise mode is quite deep, offering control of nearly every aspect that an actual MLB franchise has to deal with in business and player management. Luckily, you can let the CPU take care of anything you’re not interested in dealing with and focus more on just playing the game. There’s also a smorgasbord of other modes, like a normal career mode, home run derby, exhibition, season mode, and a neat mini-game called King of the Diamond which offers up a nice variety in things to do.

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed heading online, as there’s a ton of stuff to do. Besides just playing games, this year’s game includes leagues that provide some more competitive play amongst gamers. Besides the league that you can create yourself, you can join up to four more leagues. Leagues can have a series of difference, such as number of games, the amount of weeks to play those games, the difficulty level of that league, and how many teams can join. The community aspect is bigger this year, as message boards are included for gamers to chat and discuss the hot topics of the day along with polls, baseball news articles, and even the ability to send feedback to the developers about what you like here. When the season starts, real games can even be watched—if your definition of watching includes seeing the base-paths, live pitch-by-pitch reporting, and all the necessary stats to go along with that. Downloadable items here include rosters that the developers hope to update every week and sliders that users can upload and rate to help others find the right sliders for themselves. Actual online gameplay works well, with a little lag depending on the connections of both players. It’s nice to see that you can rate your opponent after the game and even choose a reason why he was a good player or not. These kinds of deep online experiences aren’t exactly a PS2 staple, so it’s nice to not require a next-gen system to get a deep online experience.

Going back to the gameplay, what is here won’t innovate, but there is definitely a solid experience to be had. While its competitors moving on to analog swinging, The Show’s batting is still button-based. Despite that, the ability to guess pitches and their locations gives a nice reward. Pitching uses the proven meter-based system that may be a little difficult to be precise, but it works largely well and gives a lot of control to the player. Pitching noobs will be glad to hear that the catcher offers a suggestion as to what to pitch and where, which helps let the player learn how to pitch without needing to make decisions solely on their own. Baserunning is a little awkward, as it’s quite complex and finicky at times, while the MVP series has made it easy to control the base-paths. Fielding isn’t too difficult, but it might be wise to alter the sliders to let your fielders move a little quicker instead of lurking about. What’s nice about the MLB 07 is that you’re able to get some help in fielding and baserunning if it’s not to your liking.

For being a sports game on the PS2, MLB 07 looks pretty good, but don’t expect dead-on replicas of your favorite players. The broadcast presentation in MLB 07 is quite good; the TV-style look works well and the pre-game lineups look really nice. There is an odd camera for the career modes, as baserunning while trying to track the ball can be a little difficult. Some kind of helpful highlighting of the ball would help make it easier to decide whether to keep running or stay back during a play.

The music included in MLB 07 is pretty much standard baseball game music here, with songs from bands like Jet, Chevelle, Fall Out Boy, Wolfmother and similar bands. The game really shines when you head into action, as the commentators—the trio of Matt Vasgersian, Dave Campbell, and Rex Hudler—are quite spectacular. It’s not hard to say that these are the best commentators in the entire genre of sports games. These guys are always on the ball with the action going on and the deep stat tracking allows these guys to comment on hit streaks, your players’ stats, and things you weren’t aware about. Just listening to these guys call your game makes it all that much more enjoyable. The sound effects perfectly round out your experience to make it feel just right.

Even with the $40 price tag, MLB 07: The Show offers up enough content to be worth a next-gen price tag. The game feels, sounds, and largely looks like a really solid baseball game. From the wealth of deep single player modes to the enticing online package, there’s really no reason to not pick up MLB 07: The Show if you’re looking for the best baseball experience around. Not since MVP Baseball 2005 has there been such a solid baseball game like this. Sony didn’t just knock this game over the wall; it’s out of the park.

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