MLB 08: The Show Review

[stockstar1138]

I am running the game at 720p/60 via HDMI

Graphics: Improved over last years version. Especially character models and lighting. I can tell what pitcher is pitching against me simply by seeing his face from the batter's box. Very impressive. Animations have also been improved for the greater. When somebody hits a homerun, its not just the pitcher that reacts, you can see all players react to the homerun in a very realistic manner. When I dive I don't belly flop, I gracefully layout for the catch. In my demo review I stated they hadn't improved much. This isn't true for all stadiums, Turner Field for example looks a lot cleaner than it did last year, so does Coors. However, I don't see an improvement in some fields especially minor league and spring training. Last year there was an excessive amount of dirt that would get kicked up and just disappear, this is pretty much gone from this years version, which is a good thing. Things like that just make the game look nicer. Crowd acts very realistic, all rasing up when a homerun is hit or before the last out of the game. Diving and jumping for balls is very sound and much improved. The Framerate is solid. It seems like they've cut out the stupid ads like the "Hurts Donut" spoof off the "Dunking Donuts" ad. Last year when your team was out in the field, nobody was in the dugout, now people are. Crowd reacts appropriate to foul balls and such.

Now for the bad (and I'm going to be harsh here). Stadiums have no rails in them. There is still way to much fan duplication, it is down from last year in a lot of stadiums, but it still looks retarded to have 3 of the same guys doing the same exact animation simaltianiosly. I don't see anytype of vendors walking around either. The stupid beach ball thing gets me, in most parks that is banned with a capital B. Some of the off field textures look like crap. Look at the buildings behind Busch Stadium to know what I mean. The flags and the trees in Jacobs Field look straight out of last gen. if even that. It seems fans like to stay in their seats constantly because I never see them get up to go piss or get food. When a firstbaseman has to stretch to dig a ball out of the dirt, he never gets pulled off the base. Outfielders have some very awkward animations when they catch the ball, and they never miss it despite a difficult catch. If you dive for the ball and miss it, it always will hit off your glove if you are close and it will bounce once or twice and then just die, it doesn't look realistic. Quite a few jaggies in the game. There is a serious lack of depth in minor league and spring training stadiums. Blu-ray is supposed to fix issues like that, please use its capacity. Thats all I can think of.

The most important parts of graphics in my view are

1. Framerate
2. Animations
3. Textures
4. AA
5. Lighting
6. Resolution (not to get confused with texture)

MLB does 5 out of 6 of these things incredibly well, and 1 of these fairly well (AA, jaggies are still very present, but its not bad). I know I ripped kind of hard into some little things, but this is what will take the best looking sports game from a 9.0/10 to a 10/10.

Graphics: 9/10.

Sound: HOLY COW! Amazing. I feel like I am at the ball park. The crowd noises and the sound effects in the ball bark are down right 100% accurate IMO. Adding to that, the commentary seems to have really picked up over last year. For example my girlfriend and I were playing Mets v. Braves in the new Nationals park and they were talking about Brian Schnieder (mets) and specifically referred to his past with Washington and how he was a fan favorite. I have yet to hear any repititions. The soundtrack sucks in my opinion, but thats okay, because MLB 08: The Show is the first full PS3 game to support custome soundtracks. The sound of the bat and the ball could be better, but it is still solid. Pitchers warming up in the bullpen have a very nice popping sound when the ball hits the catcher's mitt. I have very, very few compliants about this year's audio. More enthusiasm out of the announcers would be nice.

Sound: 9.5/10

Gameplay: I've heard a bunch of people on the Internet complaining that The Shows gameplay is almost exactly like last year. It is, and its a good thing. The Show has always prided itself on superior gameplay which once again shines this year. The Pitching meter is simplistic, yet realistically effective, it is identical to the old MVP one, which many praised, however the ball movement from the pitcher as well as his windups are much more realistice. Batter stances are down pat. They hit exactly like their real life counterparts. The AI is terrefic, today somebody bunted, it was right on the line, the 3rd baseman looked like he was going to pick it up as it was rolling, but at the last second decided to let it roll as it was apparent the runner had a good chance of making it and the ball could go foul. Shifts are effective and realistic against particular batters. Batting seems smother than last year. One nitpick is when a player hits a walkoff homerun and he isn't the one to score the winnning run, he only gets credited with a single, which is wrong, hopefully they will fix that. Also, sometimes fielders appear to be able to get the ball out of their gloves way too quick. I've only had one collision at the plate, but the catcher dropped it like a brick, I hope this isn't going to be like the MLB 99 days, where 60% of the time the catcher drops the ball. Diving and Jumping are down well. No ridiculous over the wall catches from Chris Duncan. Solid variety of game modes. Things like API are great. I have an issue with guess pitch, because you can derive what is not coming from if it highlights if you guessed right. Replay vault is great, but its not as cool as I thought, I really don't use it that much. Load times are poor. There is a good deal of information about pitcher/batter matchups and scouting, which is very key if you are a baseball entusiast.

Gameplay: 9.3/10

Online: Originally very poor, it has been improved quite a bit. I watched my brother play 3 games the other night and it seemed much smoother and playable, a whole lot less hiccups, however they were still there sometimes. Roster updates seem to be fairly frequent. However, a lack of voice chat is a pretty big letdown. The fact that online is now playable gets the score bumped up to a....

Online: 7.5/10

Road to the Show 2.0: Best career mode in Sports right now. You can now posistion yourself any way you want in the field (to a certain degree), much more movement. The scoring system is much more realistic, I get points for my defense, so I want to become more well rounded instead of just jacking up my power, contact, and speed like last year. There is also negative points this year if you do things like get caught steealing or you strike out. You can train with only 40 points this year instead of 100. Sometimes you have to read signs from your coaches. I will be intrested to see if you get called up based in stats versus attributes, but that has yet to be seen. Minor bad things, I play CF, sometimes I get put on defense out there only to see a ball get grounded to the SS. Its not even a diving play where it could get through to me. I'm playing on Veteran and have had very realistic stats so far. And when you create your player, WOW! That is in depth.

RTTS: 9.6/10

Rivalry: I love this mode, my favorite of the whole game. I play a lot against two particular people, so the fact that we can track all our stats is awesome. However, give the people a day off, I'm having to sit people out every few days, which is goofy. However, it increases player mgt. skills.

Rivalry: 9.1/10

Franchise: Very similar to last year. If I pay money to add a hot tub or more seats, I want to be able to see the improvements to my park. There is no create a stadium which disappoints me, as EA always had that in their baseball games. However, the fact that I can gain more revenue by investing more in my stadium is realistic and makes sense. As well as things like boosting player moral and attributes by adding training features and improving travel options etc. Fan reactions to standings are good as well as the off season modes. You can't relocate or create and expansion which sucks.

Franchise: 8.5/10

Replay Value: As with all sports games, the replay value has an infinite amount, so its hard to judge. There is a fairly decent amount of unlockable content, but I've seen more.

Replay Value: 9.0/10, this isn't due to unlockable content, because that could be better, but just that sports games flat out are fun to play over and over again.

Now some things aren't equal to other things. This isn't HDD where we weight extras the same as the quality of the movie and transfer.

MLB 08: The Show is the best, most realistic baseball game, I have ever played. It is certainly the in my Top 3 favorite Sports games of all time.

Final Score: 9.2/10
-.2 (for no home-run derby)
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Official Score: 9.0/10
+.10 (improved online play)
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9.1/10