Last baseball season I went to the brink of insanity. I had nine Yahoo accounts, all of which had four fantasy baseball teams each. For those of you not good at math, that's 36 teams. It sort of paid off in that I won about half of them, one of which finished in the top 25 in the rotisserie category. This year, I'm not quite as excited about fantasy baseball. The reasons are various, ranging from a second kid due in September to the sheer madness that ensued in trying to maintain 36 teams. One of the main reasons, though, is that MVP Baseball 2004 is out and it's giving me all of what its predecessor lacked. MVP Baseball 2003 was such a fantastically fun game to play on the field, but lacked so much in their franchise mode that I wanted to create 36 fantasy baseball teams just to fulfill my experience.
MVP Baseball 2003 is the first game in what EA Sports hopes will be a very successful baseball series. MVP replaces EA's Triple Play Baseball series, which struggled to get a foothold in the baseball video game market. MVP Baseball's focus is more on graphics and gameplay, two things that the Triple Play series lacked the most.
MVP Baseball does a great job of balancing realism and arcade features in this new series. The key feature is the pitcher vs. batter interface. As a batter, you rely heavily on your hot and cold zones. When you are pitching, you must concentrate on using movement and pitching speeds, while not giving away your pitch locations.
The batter has a 3X3 grid within his strike zone. These squares are colored red, blue and gray. The red zones are the hitter's hot zones. If the batter hits the ball within this zone, there's a greater chance of it being a hit, and it generates more power if he connects with the ball. The blue squares are the batter's cold zones. Conversely, if he hits the ball when it is in this area, it isn't as likely to be a hit and will generate significantly less power. The gray squares are his neutral zones, which doesn't favor either. Each player has different hot and cold zones depending on whether he's facing a right or left handed pitcher. These zones, however, do change throughout a game, season or career. It helps to distinguish certain players beyond their ability ratings as well as offer a little bit of strategy that exists within Major League Baseball itself.
Another strategy involved in batting is aiming your swings; this is not to be confused with using a cursor to specify your swing location, which is used in other baseball games. Here, batting can be as simple or as hard as you want it to be. The most important aspect of hitting the ball isn't aiming your swing, but rather your timing. However, in order to be more successful in getting on base, you must aim your swings correctly depending on where the pitch is located. For instance, if the pitch is inside to your right handed batter, you want to pull the ball by moving the analog stick to the left.
Pitching has an arcade-like interface that is easy to learn but tough to master. You can pre-select a pitch location using the analog stick. The pitch meter is similar to a golf swing meter in that it's a half circle meter that fills up when you press a button corresponding to a certain type of pitch. One of the strategies in pitching is to stop the meter in the green area that appears when you release the pitch button. If you don't, not only will your pitch be inaccurate, but the batter will also know the exact location of your pitch.
Pitchers have many types of pitches. The types of pitches that appear in the game include: 4 seam fastballs, 2 seam fastballs, curveballs, sliders, changeups, knuckleballs, cutters, screwballs, splitters, and sinkers. Each pitcher has between three and five different pitches to use, each with a different ability level , which determines the size of the green area in the pitching meter, as well as how fast it is or how much movement there is on it.
There are some aspects to the pitching game that aren't very realistic. For instance, pitches go to the exact location you specify as long as your meter ends in the green area; in other games the accuracy of the pitch is dependent upon the pitcher's abilities. Second, you cannot tell exactly how fatigued a pitcher is after he throws his first pitch. Third, you cannot warm up a relief pitcher; he is instead inserted directly into the game. Finally, on a related point, there is no mound visit to see how your pitcher is doing and to possibly buy time while a relief pitcher warms up. Another flaw is that the catcher is perfect behind the plate. For instance, there are no wild pitches or passed balls at all. The pitching also doesn't incorporate the ground into the game. There are no balls lost in the dirt. When stealing, low balls do not hamper the catcher as he doesn't have to dig them out of the dirt.
Fielding can also be as simple or as in depth as you want it to be. There are three options you can use when fielding: automatic, assisted, or manual. The automatic setting does everything for you. This is really nice if you do not know anything about fielding or just like to concentrate on pitching. The assisted setting moves your fielders for you, but you must make the throws. This setting is perfect for those who have trouble reacting to a hard infield grounder or getting a jump on a line drive to the gap. The manual setting forces you to do everything from moving your fielders to making the throws. You may also toggle the ball tail, which lets you know which direction the ball is going, and the landing zone of the ball, which indicates where you have to be to catch fly balls. There are no dive or jump controls, they are automatically done for you when you get close enough to the ball.
Throwing the ball to a base is simple. The buttons on the Playstation 2 controller correspond to the bases on a baseball diamond. Therefore, each button throws to the specific base it maps to. There is also a throwing meter when you press one of the throw buttons; the longer you hold down the button, the harder and less accurate the throw.
The fielding AI isn't very smooth at all. Turning double plays, scooping up ground balls, and running to tag a base all look choppy and dysfunctional. The manner for which the computer AI targets a moving ball or a stationary base is really flawed. There are occasions where I've seen an infielder circle around the ball or a base for a second or two before finally reaching it. This leads to some pretty awkward looking moments. However, due to bugs in the speed around the base paths, this usually doesn't end up costing you defensively.
Base running is more awkward than it should be. Similar to fielding, you use the corresponding buttons to send your runner to a certain base. However, in order to do this effectively, you must push the button corresponding to the base the runner is on, and then move your control pad in the direction of the base he should go to. During a typical play, it's hard to keep track of everyone at one time. In order to execute a steal, I typically have my batter swing immediately to buy myself some extra time to increase my runner's lead and have enough time to queue him up to steal.
Runners’ speed around the base paths needs to be increased, because it is a glaring weakness. The runners do not get to first base fast enough. The fastest players are very rarely able to get an infield hit; I am only able to manage one every 500 plate appearances. Stealing bases is very easy if you have a fast player. However, since there are no pitches in the dirt or other catcher flaws, players with pedestrian speed will never steal second base except if there's a knuckleballer on the mound.
There are many modes available in this game, including exhibition, home run challenge, showdown series, custom tournament, single season, and franchise. These are typical game modes that you'd expect to see in any modern baseball game (or sports game for that matter). The home run showdown is different than the home run derby found in other baseball games. The batters compete simultaneously and the scoring is based on the length of your home runs rather than the home run total. There's also a "money ball" which counts for double the distance.
The franchise mode is the crowning jewel of most baseball games these days. The franchise mode in MVP Baseball 2003, however, clearly isn't its strength. It has many revolutionary features, but there are some glaring omissions and some major bugs as well.
One of the revolutionary features of franchise mode is the managerial goals. Depending on which team you take over, you're expected to accomplish certain tasks. For instance, if you have a great team, you're expected to win the World Series multiple times in a 10-year span. Conversely, if you take over a struggling franchise, you're only expected to make the playoffs a few times in as many years. Other goals are tied into player performances and many require you to break historic baseball records like Hack Wilson's season record of 192 RBIs, or Barry Bonds' mark of 73 home runs in a season. This certainly raises the bar for franchise modes in all sports, not just baseball.
MVP Baseball 2003's franchise mode has all the other bells and whistles you'd expect to find in other games. There's a salary cap, which is used to simulate varying financial power of the different franchises around the league. You can trade players, sign free agents and draft players at the end of the year. You can even play out the final innings of a simulated game by hitting the intervene button.
There are a few omissions that really limit the franchise mode in this game. First and foremost, there's no fantasy draft, which allows you to draft your team from scratch putting all the players in a common draft pool. The franchise mode only lasts 10 years, which isn't long compared to other sports games. Furthermore, there is no minor league system. By not having this, the draft picks have less value. It also takes away the strategy of dumping high priced veterans to contending teams for low priced promising rookies.
There are also some major bugs in the franchise mode. Young players do not dramatically improve; a 25 year old player won't see much of an improvement in his ratings by the time he reaches the age of 34. On a related point, the rookie classes really stink. They're filled with power hitters who have low contact numbers, horrible speed and base running skills, and can hardly field or catch the ball. The pitchers are the same way. Each rookie class breeds horrible pitchers only capable of middle relief. Rarely do I see a rookie pitcher with a pitch that's rated higher that 85, other than the four-seam fastball. Couple this with the game's lack of player development and you have a bunch of scrubs who remain scrubs. After just a few years’ progression in franchise mode, the veteran non-drafted players will still be more valuable than the once drafted players who are reaching their peak ability levels. Finally, there are hardly any injuries. During an entire season I only saw a handful of injures for the entire league, and only two or three of them were serious enough to miss more than 30 days.
These bugs and omissions show that the franchise mode is a glorified multi-season mode where your goal is to use your 10 years to accumulate as many original players to win as soon as possible. These franchise issues change the nature of the game over the ten year franchise mode. It's impossible to tailor your team to a certain style; you're forced to gamble on the home run rather than try and create a small ball team. The horrible rookies and development show that the game is based more on hoarding good young players, and rebuilding your team isn't done through the draft but through your superior payroll and weak computer bargaining AI.
The graphics are really well done, but I do have some minor complaints. The details of the players and equipment are very accurate right down the player's batting stances and the pitcher's unique windups. The physics of the ball are well done too. The frame rate is much better than other baseball games on the PS2. The pitches cross the plate smoothly in that you can tell exactly what kind of pitch it is once you've played the game a few times.
However, I do have a few complaints. First, there are only a small number of hit animations. Many of them don't quite explore the possible bounces and hops in the modern ballparks. Secondly, the way the ball bounces off the ground does not follow the laws of physics; this shows a lack of a good physics engine. Finally, the animations for the players on the field are somewhat limited.
There are graphical glitches too. If a player makes a fantastic catch, the ball won't go into his glove; rather, it will "jump" into his glove looking as if it was magically transported there. When circling the bases after a home run, the infielders will sometimes appear to shake. There are times when the player will appear to step over the base instead of touching it, but it will still count as though he did. The stadium detail isn't as good as it could be. In addition, the crowd looks very generic, especially when viewed from a long distance. Celebrations in the stadium amount to fireworks whenever you win the game or hit a homerun. While it looks nice, it fails to capture the difference of emotion between a walk off home run to win the pennant and a solo home run in the bottom of the 9th when down by 13.
The sound effects are clean and crisp; you really feel like you're there in the stadium. However, I highly recommend turning off the commentary. Like many other games, it gets really repetitive after you've established a certain style of play. Secondly, it can be very inaccurate. For instance, I hit a routine fly ball to the outfield, yet for some reason the play-by-play man thought it was headed out of the park for a home run. I'm waiting for the day when some company finally gets the commentary right and takes it to a new level. In this game, it seems to take a step backwards.
The controls are set up very nicely, but they don't offer as much control as in other baseball games. Throwing to each base is easy and intuitive. The PS2's diamond shaped buttons allow MVP Baseball 2003 to assign each of those buttons to a specific base. You can also control the rounding of the bases as well as the type of slide you make. However, the fielding leaves much to be desired as far as controls go. Diving for a ball is all determined by the computer; you have to get the player as close to the ball as possible and the computer decides whether to dive or not. The controls just do not offer the player as much freedom as other games have been doing for a decade now.
The learning curve is good, but it just doesn't have a high enough ceiling. The game is very easy to learn. However, once you've really figured things out, it can become too easy. As you increase the difficulty, you'll get into a lot of lower scoring games. The batting works well because the pitch speeds vary more on higher difficulty levels and, since timing is the most important aspect of batting, it becomes tougher to hit. However, once you've figured out how to pitch, you can really dominate on all difficulty levels. For instance, at first it was very hard to strike someone out, but since I found out the secret behind it, I now rarely give up a run and get a lot of one-hit shutouts with mediocre players. The pitching learning curve could be better, but it's effective.
Another faulty aspect of the game is the quality of managerial decisions that the computer player makes. One of the biggest strategies in big league ball is to knock out the opponent's starting pitcher as soon as possible because he is usually a better pitcher than the middle relief. The computer manager does his best impression of the anti-Grady Little, as he'll yank the starter at the drop of a hat. I once saw the computer yank a starter after giving up a hit in the middle of the 7th inning during a 3 hit shutout.
The game has some great gameplay that will have you coming back for more. However beyond that, MVP Baseball 2003 does not have the same diversity and quality of features that other sports games have included for years. The batter/pitcher presentation is a great asset to this game and is one of the biggest reasons I played it as much as I did. In addition, the long 162 game season gave me great incentive to play this game over and over and see the fruits of my labor.
There are some missing features that really drag down the replay value. First, there are no unlockables, and no cards to collect like there are in the Madden games. Secondly, there are a lot of bugs with the fielding, the speed of the game around the base paths, and with the computer's managerial decisions that will scare away hardcore baseball fans. Finally, the franchise mode makes you feel like the game is digressing with each season you complete. While these are major roadblocks to some great replay value, for the casual baseball fan out there they just won't mean that much.
Putting a value on this game depends a lot on what kind of sports game you like. For those who like the management aspect where you can draft your own team from existing MLB players, call up people from the minors, and draft powerful prospects, this game will be almost completely worthless to you. However, if you enjoy watching the game and enjoying the little nuances of the game like how the pitcher and catcher plan to attack the strong hitting lineup of the other team, then I could see paying as much as $10 for this game. The lack of an accurate speed game as well as the many fielding glitches will annoy many people in this camp, but the atmosphere that the game offers will help make up for this. Finally, if you're a casual baseball fan who would just like to play a simple game of baseball, then I wouldn't pay more than $15 for this game.
MVP Baseball 2003 is a great game, but it is definitely a work in progress. The game will probably be remembered the same way that the original Tecmo Bowl was. It was a fun game with revolutionary features at the time, but in the end it will be known for some underdeveloped features that were corrected and surpassed in later versions.
