MLB 07: The Show review

[stockstar1138]

this game looked mediocre, but i love baseball so i got it. was i ever wrong. i have 2k7 for the 360 (definetely better than the ps3 version), the show kicks the crap out of 2k7. this game is one of the best baseball games ive ever played and i have bought a baseball game every year since 97.

Riverly - This is the best feature of this game. my brother and i have always played baseball together (offline). this allows us to keep track of all of our stats for the year against each other. kind of nice to see how certain players do against each other and make adjustments to how we pitch to them and what not. i give this mode a 10/10

Road to the Show - I was most disappointed in this mode, i was really excited about it, and it is cool, but a let down. im a catcher and since it fast forwards through plays im not involved in, it constantly interupts the fast forward and every time all i get is a pop up behind the plate or a bunt. its boring and annoying. im sure another position would be better due to more versitility however. hitting is very solid, in fact i will go as far as saying it is the most realistic batting experience ive ever encountered in a game. baserunning is solid. there are some bugs though. getting a contract is one of them. i hit .320 with 1HR and 10 RBI in spring training and didn't even get a AA deal. thats crap. another issue lies with the fact that i start every game and usually play all 9 innings, not realistic at all for spring training. they have a huge catalog of names. my last name is not a popular one and it was in the game. very cool. load times are not good, but not bad either. all together it is fun, just ot as much fun as i thought it would be. (7.8/10)

Franchise - Just quick since this is getting long. there is quite a bit of stuff to do, however not as much as in other sports games ive played (7.5/10).

Gameplay - The gameplay is incredibely solid. Hitting is very fine tuned. pitching with the api is very good. defense is solid, you don't have bad fielders scaling walls like you do in 2k7. diving looks a little glitchy sometimes as the player looks like he bellyflops. they are off on some ot the batting stances, but not by much (9/10).

online - very good, havn't done a whole lot online though. (9/10)

Graphics - the graphics blew me away. they look a lot better than the screens or videos. players faces are detailed, i can tell who is who very clearly. the crowd looks magnificant, stadiums look good (some better than others, others looking good, some looking amazing). another thing i like over 2k7, is that the name of the developing comapny and the game aren't plastered everywhere in the stands. ie. the scoreboard in dodger stadim on 2k7 has "2k7" on the bottom 15 times. some issues i found are with home plate staying perfectly white the whole game, dirt falls off cleats (very cool), however then it just disappers (not cool). sometimes the umps leg goes into the catcher. 1080p/60fps, enough said. (8/10)

soundtrack - not good, doesn't matter that much (5/10).

a small problem is that the game says 1080p, but kept playing in 720p, i checked all my settings, all good, still 720p. i had to go in to the system and tell it not to output in 720p or 1080i in order to get 1080p to work, but it does and it looks great.

overall - 8.8/10, very worth for a baseball game.

[Steverhcp02]

i agree with everything except franchise is very deep and rewarding imo, compared to many other baseball games.

[stockstar1138]

well, i believe that mvp 2005 had a better franchise and that was two years ago. you could build your own stadium and such. certain madden games allow you to relocate your team, change uniform colors and patterns, and design your own stadium. ive mostly done road to the show, but from what i did last night with franchise, it wasn't nearly as in depth as other sports games. also i just want to point out this is a ps2 port and sceas first ps3 baseball game and it is this good. next year will be stellar.

[Smallville206]

Thanks for the review I will be picking it up this week.

[CJS234]

You just answered my question thnx. i was wondering if it really was 1080p. By the way, I find this to be the best baseball game Ive ever played and ive been playin since the PS1. I love/hate the road to the show. the new version is kind of annoying, but if you use the classic version you just play the game regularly and you bat as everyone and throw every pitch, etc so you might wanna try that.

LOL spring training is gay. I hit over .400 with 2HR and 15 RBI and all I got was a AA deal. Thats good for at least AAA.

Also when you begin creating your player, I dont like the fact that you dont get that many attribute points. you can only modify like 2 or 3 to the max (maximum varies by skill) unlike MLB 06 The Show where you had a lot more points to spend.

[Smallville206]

Funny that PS2 version got better reviews than the PS3 version. I have the PS2 version already because I was so impatient to wait another month. I will be picking up the PS3 version though just for the improved frame rate and graphics.

[Smallville206]

I just picked it up. It looks and plays great though one game I played they hit a ball down the line into the corner where it proceeded to go THROUGH the wall giving the batter a inside the park home run. My fielders just stood there staring at the wall. It happened in the very 1st inning.

[chan1490]

On my Panasonic Plasma TH-42PX60, playing the game leaves a one inch black space on either side. Does anyone else have this issue of the game not filling the whole screen?

When I change the display on my tv to JUST or H-FILL, too much of the game gets cut off; yet it fills the one inch blackness.

I changed my settings on the PS3 so it outputs at 720P, but nothing worked.

Any suggestions?

[Spankey]

Originally Posted by chan1490

On my Panasonic Plasma TH-42PX60, playing the game leaves a one inch black space on either side. Does anyone else have this issue of the game not filling the whole screen?

When I change the display on my tv to JUST or H-FILL, too much of the game gets cut off; yet it fills the one inch blackness.

I changed my settings on the PS3 so it outputs at 720P, but nothing worked.

Any suggestions?

There is a setting in the Options menu to stretch the screen horizontally or vertically.

I just picked the game up yesterday because I was really sick of MLB 2k7. I heard The Show's graphics weren't "as good" as 2k7 but the gameplay was better. Based on the movies from the Playstation store, I was intrigued.

MLB 07: The Show blows 2k7 out of the water in just about every way, even graphically. It is solid and polished in every way.

When people look at the graphics of 2k7 the one thing that stands out is the detail of players faces, and uniforms. OK, those are two nice things, but The Show does everything else better. The Show doesn't have nearly the amount of jagged edges around players, the stadiums are filled with proportionately sized fans, frame rate is far better, and the game runs smooth as silk. I could go on, but I actually think it is safe that The Show's graphics, while different, are more pleasing than 2k7's which cheated some shots by matting some shots with detailed textures.

The Show is also much easier to use when it comes to saving profiles. I have never had the game freeze like 2k7 did. I can save a profile and just play. 2k7's menu system just became too convoluted and I never knew if a preference I chose to save, actually saved. I would almost have to run through the menus everytime I wanted to play a game.

Audio-It's a baseball game. Fans cheer. What else are we actually looking for here? Actually I even hated the occasional obnoxious fan in 2k7.

Gameplay is just solid. You want to play baseball, you play baseball. Great announcers, logo screens, and a glitch free game. 2k7 is a corny bush league attempt at baseball. The Show was made by professionals and it shows. Best game for my PS3. 8.5/10.

[Spankey]

I found THIS REVIEW which summarizes my feelings perfectly.

Visually, The Show is just fine. While player detail may not look sensational, the 3500 animation strands rendered in the game are absolutely impressive. Besides some finer details on MLB 2K7's athletes, the rest of the game looked poor. The terrible mip-mapping effect that makes the whole field look like a washed out texture, during pitching or batting, really put me off. Likewise, the framerate is without a doubt the worst I've ever seen in a sports game. The Show doesn't have any of that. It features a superb and clean picture that renders from 720p up to 1080p.

The details on some of the athletes are fairly good and recognizable, but it's sort of clear that the game is highly modified PS2 game. What makes The Show a standout is the stunning strands of animation - the players move as if they were real, and that goes a long way in terms of immersion. There's also no choppiness or jerkiness between one animation and the next, everything connects seamlessly. And best of all, the framerate is silky smooth at 60 frames. The Show may not have cloth physics or the greatest player models, but the rest of the aesthetic package more than makes up for it.

[JTK]

I can forgive a lot if the gameplay is well done.

Would you all describe this as a "pick up and play/have fun" game or is there a fairly steep learning curve involved?

[stockstar1138]

Originally Posted by JTK

I can forgive a lot if the gameplay is well done.

Would you all describe this as a "pick up and play/have fun" game or is there a fairly steep learning curve involved?

let me put it this way, the most realistic hitting simulation ever.....the hardest thing to do in sports is hit a baseball. i use to play on rookie in other games and win 50-4, this one, i get a run for my money even on rookie. i played on the all-star setting, go blown out of the water 15-2. its not an easy baseball game. however, you will have some fun with online or offline multiplayer. with online you have to have a ridicioulusly good connection, because timing is everything, you can't have any slow downs while pitching/hitting.

[Spankey]

Originally Posted by JTK

I can forgive a lot if the gameplay is well done.

Would you all describe this as a "pick up and play/have fun" game or is there a fairly steep learning curve involved?

Very fun. Hitting may take time to develop an eye and timing, but otherwise, the learning curve is about 20 minutes. I love it.

[Shin-Ra]

Unfortunately a lot of gamers prefer next-gen games to be flashy with stuff like depth of field blurring, even if it's unrealistically strong and highlights the aliasing on characters in the foreground that aren't being blurred. Then there's the slowdown and/or tearing it usually introduces.

It's all about graphical polish for me so I prefer the look of SCEA's The Show.

[stockstar1138]

speaking of funny glitches, like the inside the park homerun. i had a play where after i had tossed a guy out at first, i threw to second for no important reason, for some reason the first baseman just launched the ball into the air straight up and it never came down. im sure next year the show will be built on ps3 and this kind of stuff will go away. it makes for some good laughs though. oh and i wasn't playing the game, so the camera started panning, i saw the umpire take the bat from the player and swing it like a golf club. funny.

[The Don]

the one thing I miss is the rumble when you're pitching...this would let you know you're outside of the strike zone when the ball disappears....

sometimes I have no idea where my pitch is headed...

[stockstar1138]

yeah, well i play more with my brother than anybody, and for years we have had to turn rumble off, because the other person can hear it and will know if it is strike or a ball. in all reality, i think its better with out rumble, its not like a real life pitcher has rumble to know where he is throwing it, he just kind of has to aim.

[The Don]

Originally Posted by stockstar1138

yeah, well i play more with my brother than anybody, and for years we have had to turn rumble off, because the other person can hear it and will know if it is strike or a ball. in all reality, i think its better with out rumble, its not like a real life pitcher has rumble to know where he is throwing it, he just kind of has to aim.

I can never hear the other person rumbling...

plus it only rumbles for a brief moment...that's where the chess match comes in..

[stockstar1138]

Originally Posted by The Don

I can never hear the other person rumbling...

plus it only rumbles for a brief moment...that's where the chess match comes in..

it only rumbles for a brief moment if you are near the strike zone, the farther away from the zone you get, the louder and longer it does. so on an 0-2 pitch trying get somebody fishing, you can hear it and it ruins the game. throwing high heat causes it to.

[The Don]

Originally Posted by stockstar1138

it only rumbles for a brief moment if you are near the strike zone, the farther away from the zone you get, the louder and longer it does. so on an 0-2 pitch trying get somebody fishing, you can hear it and it ruins the game. throwing high heat causes it to.

I have the ps3....so there is no rumble feature