MVP Baseball 2005 from EA Sports

Well, it is that time of year again. The time of year when flowers are supposed to start blooming and animals should be crawling out from hibernation, unless of course you still have six weeks of winter left. Unfortunately for the people up north, it's still snowing, raining, and the only thing blossoming is my need for spring break. We only need to hear one thing to cheer us up. No, not birds chirping but the phrase "pitchers and catchers report."

The national past time is back, and so are the baseball games for '05. I am dubbing this the "year of competition." This is the last year every game company with a MLBPA license can use it because, as you know (unless you have been hiding under a rock), Take Two has bought the exclusives to the MLBPA and all it's likenesses. Each company trying to outdo the other, first cutting prices and then releasing their game a week in advance, all of this means finally, you the consumer come out on top. After arguably a mediocre year in sports gaming, the new slew of baseball games starts this new year off with a bang. EA has come to the plate swinging for the fences, and even though they have taken some ugly swings, this years offering is better than last year’s.

Presentation

MVP comes with new modes of play as well as the modes present in last year’s. There is Play Now, Exhibition, Dynasty, Manager Mode, Homerun Showdown, and Scenario Editor. New to this year are the Owner Mode and Mini Games.

New to Dynasty mode is an A minor league team for every MLB team. There are some prospects for each team, other prospects have fake names just as some ML players. All of the top 100 prospects are in the game, just most of them have a fake name. Most of the dynasty mode is the same as last year but this year there is spring training added into the mix. You play spring training games as well as use the mini games to boost players ratings. The only thing wrong with that is there are no fielding drills. So you can make them a better hitter or pitcher but not a better fielder. Trades seem to be fine this year, it is not easy to get the players you want, unless they are talent less. Also during the season I was offered four trades, none for superstars. During the off season I was offered Ken Griffey Jr. for Randy Wolf. It was cool to see a trade that made sense because I had a plethora of pitchers but no centerfielder (Lofton retired). Nice end of the season. My A team was the only one to make the playoffs (that’s right, MVP has minor league playoffs). The awards were given to worthy players. You cannot sim through the playoffs unless you are in them. Then comes the off season. The draft is still in the off season.

Manager mode still leaves much to be desired. No graphics at all, this wont please you manager mode types.

Owner mode is pretty much dynasty mode but from a different perspective. You manage everything from ticket prices to getting people to come watch your ball club, anything to make money. You start off building your own stadium, which can only be used in that particular mode. There are not many options at your disposal for building your park. You pretty much pick from a few options for every part of your park, so no creating another Fenway type stadium. Then you have to use that park for your home games if you want to generate any money. Once you get past the “create-a-park” this is pretty much like Madden’s owner mode. You hire coaches, upgrade your stadium, etc. There is an added “Fan Happiness” meter which helps out and you can now filter your inbox. One helpful thing in Owner and Dynasty mode is the Positional rankings. With this you can put any player you want in a particular spot and when/if you let the cpu optimize the roster they will take this into account. On that note the cpu optimization is better than last year, when I used it I didn’t have to move players around. When you start your franchise in Owner mode it will be hard to generate money, because you did pay for a stadium, but stick with it. In owner mode I only received one trade offer, most likely because I was 10 million in debt.

I can almost promise you that you will enjoy the Mini Games for MVP as much as you do for Madden. So if you hated them, you are likely to hate these. The batting game consists of you taking control of a player and trying to hit the ball a specific total distance while being told where to hit it and how to hit it (grounder, fly, etc.). There are ramps to elevate grounders for more distance, and vortexes which bounce your ball back your way. You also get more distance for hitting certain objects, like a thousand for a moving tractor and fifty for a stationary bus or car. In the pitching games you have to hit the small boxes with a specific pitch. The boxes are color coded in the strike zone. The game is like some Tetris/breakout type game. The pitching game is either timed or untimed.

There are unlockables like last year, 63 stadiums and 15 players to be exact, but a lot of notable players/stadiums have been left out.
Still no playoff mode nor can you control more than one team in dynasty/owner mode.