The Blog for the Sports Gamer

Sorry for the delay on the additional ASB 2005 comments. Real work calls (I’m playing Nemesis of the Roman Empire and Lords of the Realm 3 at the momemnt for review.)

I do want to play more of the game because I think it has a lot of potential and I want to try out a few tricks I read about to help fix the hitting. More later…

I hope this doesn’t sound like sour grapes or too holier than thou…but how in the $#@! do you write a review of MVP Baseball 2004 PC without even mentioning the broken Dynasty mode, the bugs in online play, the bizarre sub AI or any of the other serious problems that plague this game?

Please. Help me to understand it. Because I don’t.

I read another new MVP review today and I continue to be baffled by this sort of thing. If you want to give MVP 4.5 stars, a 95% or an A+ review, fine. If the game’s issues don’t matter to you, then hey, no harm no foul. I have loved a lot of games in the past despite glaring issues. Sometimes, for whatever reason, you simply “take to” a game. But don’t you at least owe it to a reader to say, “Hey, I love the game, but here’s what’s wrong with it…”

Maybe I’m out of touch or old or both. But I really don’t understand it at all.

I love comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.sports. Many people prefer forums, but I just get so much enjoyment out of Usenet. Basically most people who started posting in 1996 are still there, so it’s almost like a community.

Then of course are the lovely posts that start the most fun thing — flame wars. Needless to say when Jonah Falcon posted that he was getting ASB today, it really started pouring in. It was great. And after all that, what gets mention in an actual ‘discussion about the game post’? The important stuff, naturally — the fact that you can rip soundtracks. Seroiusly. Sounds like something I’d see on IGN. I can see the quote now “Sure the gameplay is awful, but if you want AC/DCs “TNT” when Manny Ramirez is batting, then look no further than ASB.” Truly classic stuff.

I’m going to continue to defer to Bill on ASB. MLB 2005 is keeping me busy on the sports side. Well, that and PES3 for the PC. Oh and in non-sports news, Far Cry and the new Splinter Cell should show up tomorrow. Yes, I play games other than sports. I don’t think Bill does but hey, someone has to….oh well, I digress….

Now this may just be something with the skill level I am playing on or a glitch in zone hitting but the CPU simply does not strike me out and the reason for this is simple — I can make contact with the ball after it hits the catcher’s mitt. I can literally be half a second late on a swing and still make good contact. This is even proven when viewing a replay. It’s really funny to watch the catcher catch a fastball for a strike, and then Austin Kearns swing and rip a single to right. Totally bizarro.

Lesson learned: No more posts with a 3 year old draped all over you. All those typos in my ASB post? Blame the kid.

…interesting. After a whopping two games of testing/playing I’m still on the fence as to whether or not I like it or not. Again — 2 games. Take it with a grain of salt. SO let me do a quick bullet list full of random impressions:

-I hate the fielding cam but you can, ahem, cough, IGN…TURN IT OFF.

-The ball physics are bizarre — especially pitched balls. I mean the breaking balls break a mile right at the end of the pitch. It’s like the original Hardball. Really looks weird.

-I hate cursor based hititng. Hate, hate, hate it. Thankfully, there is an option for zone/timed hitting. Much more my speed.

-Graphics are good. Animations are ok.

-A lot of good hit variety.

-Outfielders have cannon arms

-Outfielders also do not catch every ball that they reach — something I wish more games would do.

-There’s a fun baseball trivia game inside the special options.

-I love the fact that you can add an auto count if you want to see more walks or strikeouts. You can start each hitter with an auto 2-1 count, for example. Not very realistic, but hey..

-Franchise mode is limited to 20 seasons. Why?

-Despite some gripes, I do find myself wanting to play more. I mean it’s a pretty neat game once you get used to it. I have struck out CPUY hitters swinging and looking (a raity in baseball games.) I DO have a concern that I have only struckout 3 times in 2 games, but I may need to mess with the settings more (there are no sliders that I can find.)

-The CPU will steal bases! MVP — PBBTH!

There’s some potential here but I need to play a lot more and test out some of the other settings. But it’s not a bad game. Just different.

So there’s my almost useless two game observations. Aren’t you glad this isn’t a pay site?

Well, I don’t know about you but after MVP, I’ve been kinda taking reviews of everyone else with a grain of salt. Well everyone except Bill, naturally because he is R0×0r.

Anyhoo, the overall trend on All Star Baseball seems to be that it really is bad. No big surprise there. Bill’s earlier post about a patch for MVP does give us hope (disclaimer: I’ve only played the PS2 version of the game and haven’t played PC because of Bill’s warning). I hope they fix some issues.

In my RPG MLB game last night, Ichiro was the first runner to steal against me in a live game against the CPU. He stole the base on my 57 mph knuckler. My career with the Orioles isn’t going so well. I’m 2-1 with a 4.45 ERA. I can barely last 5 innings before my stamina is bad. I don’t know if they are going to keep me through the month of April, but at least I got a contract. Using the eye toy sure is fun to put your face in the game!

I couldn’t resist ordering Splinter Cell PT and Far Cry last night. I am seriously spending too much money on games and now because I haven’t been freelancing, I can’t write these off, nor am I getting income to offset this. I now understand why people rent games. I feel your pain!

But I digress…..

I’ll post some thoughts on the Xbox version of ASB 2005 as soon as I can. I finished up my Warlords Battlecry 3 preview for GameSpy (pimp alert: http://www.gamespy.com/previews/march04/warlordsbc3pc/) and while I wait for a Lords of the Realm 3 review copy to show up, I’ll give ASB a whirl. Well, daughter permitting that is. Man she hates it when dad takes over the TV.

This blog is not a news site. I hate news sites because 99% of the news is boring and I have better things to do than read that Gamer Dudes posted a review of Tony Hawk: The Next Sequel. That said..um..here’s some news!

An EA forum mod posted a note on the EA boards stating that the game will get a patch to fix some tech issues as well as the lack of CPU steals. I dunno if they plan to fix all the other stuff, but hey, you take what you can get I guess.

So there’s the news.

As promised, here are a couple of choice emails that I received after my MVP 2004 PC review ran on GameSpy yesterday. I post them because I care. And they’re kinda funny.

1) William Abner’s review of MVP 2004 Baseball was a disgrase (sic). Did he even PLAY the game? He failed to mention anything about the throw meter and the fielding or the fact that the homerun showdown is a blast. 3 stars for a game this much fun is just wrong. — terry

2) Do you have any cheat codes for MVP X-Box? - DavE

3) You’re just another Sega fanboi. While you didn’t mention the game, I bet you are creaming your jeans waiting for Sega to release ESPN baseball. MVP rocks. You suck. And I’m out! - DD

There were a few more posts I found on a few forums (some actually very positive) but you get the idea. My personal favorite is email #2. I mean really. Everyone knows there’s no “-” in Xbox.

By the way, did anyone catch the All Star Baseball review at IGN today? After reading it I have reached the conclusion that…I have no idea if this game is any good or not.

Well I don’t think Bill nor myself thought the blog would end up this popular. In order to speed things up, we’ve turned off the RSS feed. Hopefully that will make it faster. As I write this morning, it’s a mere 14 degrees in the geographic location known as Red Sox Nation. Being an Orioles fan has some drawbacks up here naturally. It’s hard to believe that in 2 weeks we’ll be playing baseball up here.

In other news, I think we may have to do some sort of MLB 2005 tournament. Bill already told me he’s too much of a wuss to play me online, so I need some good online competition. If you want to play, click the email us link on the left hand side of the page.

In the wonderful newsgroup world, there’s a lot of talk about the (lack of) sports gaming titles on the PC. Also, as always the case, there’s lots of posting about Jonah Falcon, but that goes without saying. In addition, one of the more fun threads deals with who was the earliest poster in the comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.sports newsgroup. Someone had mentioned my name but I only went as far back as 1997. Wait, holy crap, that’s SEVEN years. I guess I’m now officially old. What’s worse is that the thread I started talked about how “good” Triple Play 98 is. What a loser!

The first post I could find from Bill was from March 1997, where he shamelessly plugged “Nexus Gaming Online.” For about 6 months after GamePen folded, I was at the ‘reincarnation’ of that site, now titled Gaming Nexus. I think Bill did the first “quasi-good” review of ABC Monday Night Football for the PC — which was the first football game that let you change routes on the fly by right clicking on the player. The game wasn’t very good as a hands on action game, but was fantastic as a managing game, and was one of the first you could play online. Sometimes you long for the old days you know….but I digress…

Thanks to my “Thumbs Up” of G4 related programming, my Tivo recorded “Video Game Invasion: The History of Video Games” over the weekend. Granted it’s a wicked abridged version but hey, if you’ve never seen a Pong circuit board, here’s your chance. They have interviews with Nolan Bushnell, Al Acorn, and author Steve Kent. Definitely worth checking out if you can find it on again!

I was re-reading my MVP review, checking to see if any edits were made and I noticed that I used the modifier “downright” three times in a 1,500 word review. Downright ugly, downright baffling, and downright horrid.

God I suck. Yep. I’m a professional freelancer!

I’ll post some of the letters I have received from MVP 2004 fans. It seems that they love my review and had the urge to contact me to let me know of the snuggly feeling they had in their tummy while reading it. I really do enjoy all kinds of feedback, both positive and not so positive. It kinda goes with the territory when you slap your opinion out there for all to read, and GameSpy gets a hell of a lot of daily traffic. Plus, some of these letters are priceless. Maybe I’ll do that tonight or in the morning.

As I move on from MVP and MLB, I’m back to playing High Heat 2004 PC + about 10 user mods. That’ll have to hold me over until ESPN and Out of the Park Baseball 6 are released in April. As for “other” stuff, I’m working on a preview of Warlords Battlecry 3 and a review of Nemesis of the Roman Empire with a review of Lords of the Realm 3 in the pipeline. Lots to keep my busy and it’s gonna cut into my casual sports gaming time.