By: Ken Rodney 

The Major League Baseball season is nicely underway but if you are like me you hold on to your NHL and NBA simulators until those playoffs have wrapped up before moving into the summer sports.  Well that time is now upon us and with that in mind here is my review of MLB 09: The Show.

In talking to baseball video game fans, and I try to do this as much as possible, people have told me that realistic statistics are the hallmark of a successful game.  The Show has done a great job of creating exactly that experience.  Don’t expect your light hitting number nine middle infielder to have 65 bombs at the break, your team is going to play true in this game so choose your squad wisely.

Roster updates have become such a huge part of these games now that we’ve moved into the next generation of gaming and once again The Show does not let you down.  I personally like to play with the local nine and when I downloaded the latest update I was happily surprised to see my lineup and roster perfect including the change they made at the closer position.

The commentary is dynamic and that is very important when you are playing a season that can reach into the 180 game range.  Usually by the time you reach the halfway point of the season you know exactly the tone and inflection of everything the commentary team (in the case of this game Matt Vasgersian on play by play, Dave Campbell colour and Rex Hudler third man in the booth) are going to say.  While I’m sure this game is no different, your ears are going to perk up constantly when they mention things so specific to situations it’s actually scary.   I allowed my pitcher to field a pop up and they ripped my middle infielders for not taking charge or my number three hitter swung at the first pitch after the two preceeding hitter were retired on one pitch each and they let him have it for almost causing a three pitch inning.

Really it’s an entire TV experience they try to provide from a game opening to defensive lineups and umpires, players walking on and off the field between innings.  The presentation of this game is something to behold it’s really a very well done job of setting the baseball atmosphere.

Ahh but this should leave you with one question….how is the game play?

While I have to admit to being a bigger fan of The Show’s presentation than gameplay I think I’ve left enough room to be a big fan of both.  The movements aren’t choppy and the players react the way they should to fielding ground balls and fly balls and the action of throwing.  The pitcher movements are mapped very nicely and the hitters stepping in and out of the box create a real game feel.

Length of play is the one bad thing I have to say about this game.  Even when you skip through as many of the animations as you can and get down to the game it seems to take way too long to play an entire nine innings.  If you are someone that likes to play more than a game at a time put on some coffee because you are going to be playing for a long time in one sitting.   I tried to find a way to make the pitcher throw the next pitch a little faster but it didn’t happen.  If that sounds like a deal breaker for you back away from this one because you will be frustrated quickly and often.

I’m a big fan of this game, I haven’t purchased a baseball video game since 2005 and anyone that knows anything about the MLB baseball video game market will know what changed that season.  This is the first game that I’ve been able to say, ‘put down that 2005 game and give this one a spin’.   

Also if you are on the Playstation network look me up (K-Rod79) and challenge me and my Toronto Blue Jays to a game or send us an email at gotgame@fan590.com and tell me some of your baseball stories.  The baseball video game community is one of my favourites and I’d love to take any of you on in a game.

Rating: 8.0

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 11th, 2009 at 11:51 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.