MLB 08: The Show

The usual method of creating a sports game nowadays is to update the rosters, fix a few of last year’s mistakes and then call it good. Thankfully, the developers of MLB ‘08: The Show did none of that as they strongly improved over last year’s iteration with fixing technical issues, including a lot of replay value and lots of stats to compare and contrast players.

If you’re a fan of a highly in-depth franchise mode, then you’ll feel right at home with MLB ‘08. This is personally my favorite portion of the game due to my love in stat tracking and MLB ‘08 has tons of it. Starting off, you’ll be able to go through spring training evaluating your players and getting ready for the season-long chase for the pennant. When you are ready to advance to the season, you’ll have the ability to work on two of your farm teams to call up players that are doing great and demote others that aren’t so hot. Also in your power is to hire all the management, from scouts to the farm director to further the development of your players.

Outside of trading, signing, releasing, and drafting players, gamers will be able to set ticket prices, upgrade your team’s stadium with new seats or the field itself, work on promoting your players in the press, signing advertisers and even making decisions on which corporations are able to put their ads up on your empty signs in your stadium. There’s a lot to be managed here, so if you have the time to dedicate into your own franchise, MLB ‘08 for sure treats you right.

Beyond of playing the multi-year Franchise Mode, gamers will have the chance to play in a single game, a season, the Manager Mode, or jump right into the “Road to the Show.” Road to the Show is a game mode that allows gamers to create their own player and try to bring him up through spring training and become a starter on the opening-day roster. When you finally hit the field with your up-and-coming star, you’ll notice that there have been improvements made with the base-running to see where the ball was hit if you were on base and looking to advance. The Road to the Show is the heart of the game and should attract many new fans to the series if they have always wanted to start from the bottom and earn your way to the top.

In terms of gameplay, players will be able to see a lot of new tricks when playing the game. When they are ready to pitch from the mound, they’ll see the addition of a cursor to indicate how the pitch will be thrown. This essentially deals with the breaking point of the ball and is a lot more intricate than you may have expected. Knowing when and how the ball will cross the plate is great when trying to strike out your opposition.

If you don’t feel comfortable with throwing a certain way against your opponent – and also how to bat against a particular pitcher – then don’t worry since Sony has provided the ability to check out your opponent’s tendencies beforehand to think about how you want to pitch or bat. Just beware if you are playing against a friend who’ll stretch out the game with overanalyzing every pitch he wants to throw to you even though he’s down 12-0 in the game; this is where the game will become tedious.

Visually speaking, Sony is pinching out as much as it can with MLB ’08: The Show on the PS2. The game runs great without any real framerate problems. On top of that, the players in the game are realistic looking for the power the PS2 is able to put out. I’d dare to say that this can compete with the first generation of MLB games on the next-gen systems with graphics. The graphics overall are an improvement over last year with the technical issues that were fixed.

Overall, MLB ‘08 has solid commentating and a great online experience. While both are neither dramatically improved, they both hold constant from last year’s edition with quality.

Gameplay: 9.0
The game modes within MLB ‘08 are very attracting with the amount of stat-tracking and depth they have included. You could easily spend an entire month, or better yet, the rest of the year playing the Franchise Mode that is included.

Graphics: 8.5
Not running into as many technical issues as last year, the graphics are a fine improvement.

Sound: 8.0
The soundtrack isn’t that enticing as it could’ve been since the same song played three times while playing for an hour. With the short list of licensed songs, players may find themselves muting through the menus.

Difficulty: Medium
Depending on your history with baseball games, this’ll either be easy to get the hang of if you know your way around the PS2 controller with MLB games or very hard if you’re a newcomer.

Concept: 8.5
The Road to the Show mode is incredibly exciting to play through as a rookie and earn your position as a starter.

Multiplayer: 8.0
There’s enough here to entertain your friends with a solid MLB experience. The online is basically the same as last year, but having the ability to join a league and trash-talk online is still intriguing as ever.

Overall: 8.4
MLB ‘08: The Show is catered towards the stat freaks out there (me included) and it’ll grab a hold of you and never let go. It’s an addiction that may put you in rehab as the franchise has so much going on with team managing and focus on the players. MLB ‘08: The Show is definitely an incredibly worthwhile game of your time and attention.