I recently received the first issue from my subscription to Baseball America. It’s awesome…but that’s not what this post is about. When I opened the magazine, the first thing I saw was an advertisement for the new MVP ’06 NCAA Baseball. Now, I was a huge All Star Baseball fan for a while, never really giving MVP a chance, even though I love the Madden series. However, when ASB died out, I switched over to MVP and wondered what the hell took me so long! EA Sports is awesome and I absolutely fell in love with MVP Baseball from day one. So…I was really bummed to find out that they lost their MLB licensing rights or something and are not releasing a Major League Baseball video game this year. Bummer. So…they decided to do the next best thing: college baseball. At first you might think, “College baseball? What’s next…Arena Football?” However, if you think about it from a business perspective, it was probably a good move. With ESPN airing more and more of the College World Series every year, college baseball is gaining popularity. Plus, because the college season begins earlier than the MLB season, EA gets to release its game before MLB 2K6 comes out. EA obviously has a solid reputation and I’m sure I’m not alone in my love for the MVP game – therefore I was willing to trust their collegiate endeavor.  After playing several games, fiddling with all of the options and simming through a couple of dynasty seasons with Jeremy Reed’s Long Beach State Dirtbags, here are my thoughts…

THE GOOD

• First of all, the gameplay is basically the same as MVP ’05. For me, that’s certainly a plus – because MVP Baseball ’05 is one of my favorite games of all time.
• During the intro, there are some cool video clips of current MLB players during their college days. You get to see Roger Clemens pitching for Texas, Bonds as a Sun Devil, Giambi and his mullet playing for the Long Beach State, Nomar at Georgia Tech and Todd Helton at Tennessee…among others.
• You may think the metal bats are annoying, but they sound perfect. And, if you hate them, you can switch the settings to “Summer League” rules and use wood bats.
• After the Tony Hawk series let you create your own skatepark, the create-a-stadium feature is something that I always wanted to see in a baseball game. Although it’s not too in-depth, it’s still a neat option for MVP ’06 NCAA Baseball.
• The throwing is better in this game than it was on MVP ’05. In the old game, when you were using the throwing meter to make a throw, if you only went a little way up on the meter, you would throw a little dribbler to your target. This time around, if you only use a little bit of throwing power, you still throw it to your target on the fly, it’s just a very soft throw. Obviously that’s not true if you’re throwing home from the warning track, but this is a lot more realistic and made me glad.
• The batter steps out between pitches and the catcher throws the ball back to the pitcher. These are minor details – but they make a nice difference in adding to the realistic quality of the game.
• And finally, there is a mid-game tuning option for all of the elements. Personally, I like to crank the pitch speed up all the way – it makes it more realistic.

Overall, the game is pretty good. It’s fun to play, but there are still some things that I didn’t like…

THE  BAD

• When I first discovered that a college baseball game was in the works, I was very excited for a “Golden Spikes Challenge.” In the NCAA Football game, there is a Heisman Challenge – where you create a player, they go through training camp and then are recruited by different schools. You pick which one you want to attend and then join the team as a freshman. You then have four years to play with that team and your ultimate goal is to win the coveted Heisman Trophy. I know that the Golden Spikes award isn’t as prestigious as the Heisman, but…c’mon…it only makes sense to have a Golden Spikes challenge. I was disappointed that it didn’t make it onto the game.
• EA is really hyping up their new “Load & Fire Batting” system. The ad in Baseball America states,

  “Past baseball video games have never succeeded in recreating the essence of what it’s like for a player to step up to the plate and take a swing at a pitch. Simply pressing a button just does not capture this feeling. There is no sense of being in total control of your swing. However, in MVP 06 the all-new Load and Fire Batting system does recreate that experience at the plate by using the right thumbstick. It’s similar to the hitting mechanic used in Tiger Woods PGA Tour with one notable difference. In golf the ball is just sitting there, while in baseball the pitch is flying at varying speeds and in different directions. Your job with Load and Fire Batting is to Load your back swing at the proper time and Fire your swing through the zone towards the pitch with the proper timing based upon where the pitch is located.”

  Sure, it sounds fun, but my first reaction is that it really blows. Often times I will try to hit the ball and it feels fine, but then I end up doing some half-assed check swing and I hit a six-hopper back to the pitcher. I can’t afford to break any more controllers! Now…perhaps I just need more time with it. I’ll admit that I absolutely hated the new Madden QB vision feature at first, but have since grown to love it. But I already switched my default MVP ’06 settings back to the classic zone hitting technique.
• You can’t change the names of the players. With my first issue for my Baseball America subscription being the college preview, I was ready to enter the names for the top prospects, only to be really disappointed that it wasn’t even possible. What gives? You can put in names in the EA Sports NCAA Football game!
• And, why can’t you save replays in the baseball games? I love saving cool replays on Madden and wish I could do the same for this game. I realize that Madden brings in a LOT more money, but it doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult to add.
• There’s no batting practice. I would much rather take plain old BP than the shitty arcade-style batting practice game they make you play. For a company that has the motto, “If it’s in the game, it’s in the game!” you’d think they would have normal batting practice. I don’t go to as many college games as I would like, but I don’t think any teams are taking BP with ramps and tractors out in the field. I would also love to see pitching and fielding practice.
• The baserunning can be clunky at times. It says that to advance all runners, you hold down the left trigger – however, I’m still not sure that works and I’ve been thrown out several times when I had plenty of time to beat the throw- it’s just that my guy either didn’t go when he was supposed to, or stopped, came back to the bag and then tried again. Also, players don’t run automatically when there’s two outs.
• The swings look really funky sometimes. Most everything from EA Sports looks fantastic, but some of the swings in this game are downright awful. Oftentimes, players will slide their back foot toward home plate when they’re swinging. No college hitter in the nation does this, and you would think that EA would try to perfect an aspect that is about 75% of the gameplay. Check out these screenshots I took of a bad swing and notice how much the hitter’s foot slides toward home plate upon missing the pitch…

• And finally, there are just a few minor quibbles I have about the game. One thing I really liked about All Star Baseball was that hitters could wave their bat through the strike zone, like many players do, while they’re waiting for the pitcher to start his delivery. You couldn’t do this with MVP ’05, and it’s still not possible with this year’s installment. Again, this is minor – but it’s something that I would enjoy and I think that it adds a nice element in making the game more realistic. The final minor quibble is that all games have four umpires. Again, I don’t make it out to many college games (although that’s one of my New Year’s Resolutions), but I really doubt that very many NCAA games before the College World Series have more than two men in blue.

So, as you can see, the bad traits of the game seem to outweigh the good ones, but obviously I’m grading on quality instead of quantity. Sure, there are a lot of complaints I have with the game, but they’re not equal – either to each other or to the things I enjoy about the game. The most important thing is that it plays virtually the same as MVP ’05, and that’s important. I loved that game and, although this one is different and it doesn’t seem that as much care was put into it, it’s still fun to play and I’m sure help me kill some time before MLB 2K6 comes along.