Post by Bytor on Nov 11, 2009 14:28:32 GMT -5
-Visuals- 8.9/10
This is what a baseball game should look like. They actually set it up so that it appears you are watching a true TV broadcast. The angles seriously look as if you are watching from a TV feed. It zooms when it needs to, sweeps around the stadium when it needs to and even shows the play from different angles on replays, allowing you to actually decide not only how you want to view the play but from what angle and how close, awesome job. The players themselves are rendered extremely well, Manny looks like Manny, Chipper looks like Chipper etc. They also actually rendered facial expressions really well and the animations are also excellent. The stadiums look very, very nice as well, and all things considered so do the crowds (although you will notice a repletion of the same character quite a few times in the stands, which I actually found to be funny, lol).
-Sound- 9/10
The announcers here do a very, very good job, only occasionally will they say something which doesn't quite fit and normally it will be about the chances of a hard hit ground ball being fielded or about the possibility of extra bases. Of course eventually you will get somewhat tired of hearing the same old comments but that is inevitable, after all, there is only so much room on the disc. The sound of the bat hitting the ball is great, the boos and cheers of the fans reflect what is going on and the music fits nicely in recreating the feel of being at a real game.
-Gameplay- 9.1/10
Batting , pitching and fielding are all an improvement over last years version. It still requires great pitching to have a great game but hitting is a tad more simplified, not only allowing check swings (although at least half the time the umps will say you went around) and a better feel of hitting the ball by pulling or even going to the opposite field, overall a great job. Playing a season will take you weeks but the real joy is Road to the Show. I played as a pitcher and then as a SS and both times it took me a full season of AA and as a SS a season and a half at AAA, all the time having a great gaming experience. The goals are multi-faceted and while tough are no where near as hard as they were in 07, here you can actually have positive results even though you technically didn't achieve your goal, an aspect that makes it much more like actually playing your way up through the minors, simply weeks and weeks of fun.
-Story- N/A
It's baseball!
-Overall- 9/10
By far, and I mean by far the absolute best baseball game I've ever played. It does almost everything right and even the small things (way too easy to steal bases for instance) don't detract from the over all experience.
