Visually MVP looks incredible, if not, IS the best looking game this year. Sure the colors and some visual quirks make it look less than realistic and more like a cartoon than the rest, but you can’t deny that the overall package looks stellar in comparison to the competition. Beginning with the game’s presentation and menus, everything is simple to navigate, easy to read and comprehend, and just draws you into the game itself. The setup and camera work makes you feel like you are watching a TV broadcast, with great close ups and emotional cut scenes. Player models are by far the best of the bunch this year as most everyone is represented correctly. The pitching and batting stances look fantastic, and even the player’s faces look amazing. What’s more, each player is polygonal in every way, so you won’t see any mapped on faces in MVP, as they are 3D replicated. While not every player is represented perfectly, or even at all, you got to admit they got most of the superstars appearances correct. There is a lack of variety in the faces though, specifically when seeing a created player or fictional player, as there are less than 20 faces for these players. Not a huge distraction, but hopefully something EA will rectify next season. Player animations are nice, but become repetitive quite quickly. Transitions are pretty smooth, with only a few jerky spots in some double play moments. In the infield there are dozens of animations, but the outfield is weak in this department. You will also see very similar dives and jumps for all players, with very little variance between them. The ballparks have also been replicated fairly accurately, but most fans will notice that the blueprints aren’t spot on in some parks. This year MVP has initiated crowd participation, and the worse you do or play, the less fans will be in your park come year’s end. This was done in Madden, and I’m happy to see EA continue this trend in their baseball game as well. The parks are also alive, with active scoreboards, jumbo-trons that show replays, fireworks for HR celebrations, major stadiums specific HR nuances (Shea’s Apple, Houston’s Train, etc.), and even the dirt from the baselines kick up and stick to the players clothing. All these little details are nice touches and shows that EA truly wants their franchise to be the Madden of baseball games. Throw in both wide screen and 720 progressive displays on the Xbox and you have a pretty package indeed.

MVP also does very good job in the audio department. The game’s sound effects are spot on, with a nice range of bat sounds, from the crack of a line drive, to the dull thud of a foul ball, the on field sounds are very good. MVP’s commentary is insightful and in sync with the live action. We may have finally reached the point in gaming where the commentary isn’t moments behind the play anymore. The crowd is also the best this year in terms of sound, as the crowd will actually be emotional during key moments, and quite during lulls in the game. EA also took crowd interaction one-step further by indicating when only a few thousand are on hand for a game. The difference is very noticeable, and if you are a team doing poorly, the sound of only a few people routing for you is depressing to say the least. The game also supports Dolby Surround sound and the result is amazing. MVP gives the feeling of true 3D sound which gamers will please pleased to hear from ear to ear. Overall EA did a remarkable job in audio as well, and just goes to show why they are a leader in what they do.

Game play in MVP is very solid, if not geared more for the casual fans in most aspects of the game. I can understand where EA went with this title, and it shows they wanted to appeal to the broadest audience possible. You will have purists who like this game, and you will have casual fans that also like this game. The game has a great sense of realism, while making it fun enough to keep the “not so baseball fans” interested in the later innings. Pitching is back and better than ever. MVP, like last year, has the best pitching in any baseball game as it puts you in full control of each pitch you throw. You must pick a pitch, a location, then correctly time your thrown on a meter and hit your accuracy mark. This mark deteriorates the longer you are in the game, and is smaller for less effective pitches. Every detail is critical to your success, so if your placement, pitch, or timing is off, you can say hello to Mr. Longball. Hitting on the other hand is not so precise, and actually I hate it. While hate may be too strong of a word, I got to wonder why they strayed away from Zone batting. Most games now days offer Zone batting, which are the norm and the most accurate hitting type if programmed correctly. EA decided to go a different route by giving gamers a version of advanced timing called the Pure Swing System. While it works in some ways, it’s broken in others. The gist of the batting is that you time the ball, but instead of aiming for the ball and location, you choose whether you want to hit the ball in the air, ground, or pull the ball. If a ball is high and away, you don’t have to necessarily aim high an away to make contact, as you can swing down to try and pull the ball for a grounder down the line if you wish. While you can aim for the ball to provide better contact, the game doesn’t demand you do so, which takes some of the challenge away for the hitting scheme. Is this fun and simple? Yes. Is this accurate and realistic? No. I can see where EA was trying to go with this idea, so in certain situations you may be able to try and hit a ball to deep center field to bring that runner from 3rd in. Unfortunately if a nasty breaking ball comes your way, and is meant to have you ground out, all you need to do is time and aim up to avoid grounding out. But how do you know it’s a breaking ball? You don’t, and so you just try to hit up anyway rather than trying to accurately hit the ball into play. This takes all the guesswork and total realism out of the hitting. The result is many hits on all difficulty levels, far more than there should be in a real baseball game. This also throws the box scores out of whack when it comes to league leaders, as batting averages will most likely be higher than normal. Run production is still accurate, but 20 plus hits a game is unacceptable.

Lastly, the fielding is great in the infield and a nightmare in the outfield. First I must mention the throwing meter. It is a tool that allows you to try and put a little extra “stuff” on the ball, but the results are not good and end up allowing for more botched plays and blown double plays than necessary. Thankfully this can be turned off, and hopefully will be eliminated next year. Along the base paths you can pull off great diving stabs, leaping over the shoulder catches, and tremendous double plays. In the outfield, your players move in molasses. If you play too shallow, there is no way you’re going to catch up with the ball. This is fine, but when it takes even longer for your man to get to the ball in play, and from the warning track having to throw to the relay man is absurd. Failing to utilize the cutoff man from the wall results in the ball dying in the outfield, just shy of the infield, with your players standing still and not reacting to the ball. Here you must pull your player out of position and go for the ball yourself. All the time, the CPU knows of this fact and runs a triple or inside the park HR on you. This happens very frequently and with even the best of fielders. I can understand that if you have a weak armed outfielder, this makes sense, but when a guy is rounding 3rd and heading home, I should be able to rocket a throw home, and not have to use a cut off man all the time. Now before you scoff at me and tell me to adjust the sliders, here is a tip…if you have to adjust the sliders to make the game play correctly, then the game is broken to begin with right? Sure these details can be fixed, if only slightly with the sliders given, but don’t forget, all the other aspects of the game may be affected by this. Sliders also allow for a game to play too similar from game to game with no real surprise or chance to be blown out or blown out. I guess if you choose to tweak the sliders enough, you may get the game to play the way you want, but what I want is randomized results, and sliders don’t provide this. You may think by the way I routed the fielding glitches and sliders I don’t enjoy MVP, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. In the end, MVP is a frantically fun baseball game, if not the most fun game on the market, but to me realism is the key, and when I want to play a dynasty, I want the box scores as accurate and diverse as possible. This is where MVP fails me most, but it’s still very good and very solid, just spotty at times where it seems most critical.

MVP has loads of options to choose from. The game modes are as follows; Exhibition, Season, Dynasty, Online, and two showdown mini games for hitting and pitching. If you want to play online, you’re going to have to have a PC or PS2 to do so as the GC and Xbox versions don’t offer it. The online play is a first for MVP baseball and it shows. You can’t change your lineup or starting pitchers before each game, so playing a series with a friend may get stale after a while. The game doesn’t really suffer from any hampering lag issues, which is a good thing. Also on the PS2 you have voice communication to brag to your friend on the beat down you’ve given them. Dynasty Mode has been updated and very deep and innovative. Not only do you have to keep your players happy, by either upping their contracts, trading them, or giving them more playing time, you also have to tend to your AA and AAA squads. New to baseball games is the ability to play all the games of your AA, AAA, and MLB squads all in the same season. Now that’s a lot of baseball. What makes this so intriguing, if you play all your team’s games, you will know personally who is doing great and not so great, and not relying on a stat sheet. Does that minor league have really hitting potential, or is he just getting lucky by hitting the classic, ground ball with eyes. Playing each game gets you even more involved in managing your squad than ever before and this is one of the major reasons to own MVP this year. Everything is fed to you through emails, from your franchise performance, to who is a pain in the locker room. It’s this spoon fed method that is a welcome change, and gives the game a more emotional atmosphere. MVP dynasty is the best I’ve played this year, and I hope to see even more improvements next year as well. If playing over 400 games a year wasn’t enough, try making it through 120 seasons of this. MVP also incorporates legendary players and uniforms, with a great assortment of all time greats to choose from. These players have to be unlocked, and you can even choose to have them become free agents in your dynasty once unlocked. Not that anyone would really want to face Ty Cobb or Babe Ruth and watch his E.R.A. skyrocket.

Overall, if it wasn’t for a couple of hurtful glitches, that I personally just can’t get past, MVP would be the best game this year. In the eyes of many it is the best, and I’m happy they enjoy the game. For me, purity is more important than flash, so I give MVP 2nd nod in the round of games this year…but a damn close 2nd it is.