Product Description

MLB 08: The Show PS2

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5314 in Video Games
• Brand: Sony
• Model: 97583
• Published on: 2008-03
• Released on: 2008-03-04
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platform: PlayStation2
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .57" h x 5.43" w x 7.52" l, .38 pounds

Features

• Umpire Personalities - Providing even more realism to the diamond with unique tendencies and animations
• My Sliders (Up/Downloadable) - Gives users the ability to create their perfect game settings offline by adjusting game sliders
• King of the Diamond - A classic playground duel from childhood where a pitcher and batter from opposing teams will square off head-to-head
• Home Run Derby - Lets gamers pick the lineup and set the rules for the traditional homerun contest of Major League All-Stars
• Season Mode -Tests the true baseball fan's commitment and allows them to make a run for consecutive rings with multiple seasons

Amazon.com
Already widely considered the most authentic baseball game available, MLB 08 The Show is set to provide fans with the most realistic baseball experience to date with innovations such as a more immersive Road to The Show mode, enabling gamers to play both offense and defense from the created player’s perspective.

Providing players with some additional performance incentives, the MLB franchise introduces the new Progressive Batting Performance feature, which will both reward players for superior performance and penalize them for hitting slumps. Specific to each individual batter, players will be rewarded with slight contact bonuses, or punished with slight decreases in contact, based on how that batter performs beyond his "natural ability" while under user control.

Features:

• Exhibition mode/quick game: gamers can select their favorite team and compete against the AI for a quick game on the go
• Historical greats: offers historical greats, giving them the opportunity to go against the legends of the past
• Release point pitching with confidence meter: the ultimate pitcher/batter interface returns
• Playmaker fielding: the fielding interface brings the player attributes together with the user's skill level
• Multi-branch fielding: Branch Point technology goes to a new level as gamers can now take full control of fielders and break out of any animation in the process
• User-controlled slides: players can now control base runners in attempts to advance and/or score

Customer Reviews

MLB 08, The More Things Change...
How does the saying go? The more things change, the more they stay the same...

Well, that's pretty much the mantra of this latest installment of the MLB franchise. With some new tweaks (and some new bugs), MLB 08 has crash landed on the PS2 console with a few changes that may either excite or disenfranchise some gamers.

First of all, the biggest change is the Guess Pitch feature, which no longer gives you the help of an exact location of pitches as last year's version did. For some, this change makes the game more difficult, as they could always hold back and wait for that perfect fastball in the lower half that you could rocket over the wall with relative ease. Now, should you select the new option for the Guess Pitch feature, you are only given an indication that the pitch will be in the area you guess. So, if a low and inside fastball is thrown by John Lackey, and you're clever enough to have selected the area you think the pitch will go, you can no longer rest assured that your guess will lead to an automatic base hit because the pitch could be low and waaaaaaaaay inside. You swing, you miss, or you chop the ball into the dirt. This, of course, adds to the realism of the game more and creates situations that n longer hinge on your habit of always guessing low and down the middle (Which was what I did all the time in MLB 07).

Another improvement is the Rob Home Run feature. I particularly love this because timing the jump was always the most difficult thing to do in any of the baseball games. Now, this doesn't mean that you'll have any more luck at robbing the home run, it just means that you can. Still, the ball may be too high, or your player might not be too fast, but the added excitement of snagging a foul ball in the stands or a home run from over the fence increases the playability factor exponentially.

Other than those things, not much else has changed between versions of this game. There are still bugs-a-plenty...outfielders that continue to run against the wall even though the ball has ricochet back into the field of play. Shortstops that inexplicably snag sure-fire homeruns out of thin air, and the plethora of foul balls the CPU hits even after getting a batter to an 0-2 count on off-speed pitches.

The umpire feature never seems to be of any prominence. I remember the advertising for this series that bragged how an umpire's strike zone varies depending on the ump's personality. Well, that is a crock because the strike zone variable seems wholly random. Sometimes, an ump will call an outside pitch a strike, but later on that same ump will call an inside pitch a ball. The probability is wholly random, as I see it.

Base running is still an incredible blunder. It is impossible to send a runner to steal a base. it is reliant on the computer, and taking the CPU option off results in a confusing button configuration that never seems to be wholly accurate or effective. I long for the days of EA Sports easy stealing and base running system...want your runner to advance to third on a slow roller up the middle? Just press the Left directional button and they're off to the races. In MLB 08, the controls are incomprehensibly convoluted, and having to memorize button procedures takes away from the fun of the game.

As always, the announcer team is morbidly banal...many of the same one-liners and comments were just repackaged into this game. It's gotten to the point now where whenever I hear "The 3rd base coach had to do a skip-to-my-lou", my body instantly seizes and my bowels release. OK< not really, but it's as annoying as listening to Tim McCarver in the playoffs. Either get new announcers or write new scripts for these guys cause recycling these "gems" demeans my intelligence.

Things that are missing: Fan interference!? How about a little love for the guys who lean over and try to snag foul balls? Also, an easier way to manually update rosters during the course of a season would be preferable then having to do it before starting a franchise by adjusting the rosters for those unfortunate enough not to have a PS2 with internet capabilities. And those bugs! Ugh! I'm not talking about the ones that swarm Joba...I'm talking about the others. Like a pop-up skied up the middle beyond second base that the catcher has to run through the infield to get? What's up with that?

Anyway, those points I raised are more nit-picky than anything. MLB 08 is still a quality baseball game, better than 2K's. The gameplay is smoother and the myriad of options regarding gameplay blows the lid off of the shell that is 2K. I would recommend this game for the hardcore baseball fans. Especially if you have an internet connection for your PS2 so you can get updated rosters, because as fun as it is to reflect on the times when Santana was on the Twins, it's extremely annoying to have to face him in the course of a season in the American league.

Review from a first-time MLB series buyer
Having never played any of the previous MLB series games, but having played the fantastic MVP Baseball 2005 nearly to death (best baseball game ever), I bought MLB 2008: The Show mostly because I needed updated rosters, but also because the reviews were better than 2K Baseball. Immediately I was drawn to the Road to the Show feature, an RPG-like feature that lets you create your own character, build their stats through the minors, and before too long live out your dreams in the majors. The fun value of this is quite high, but the logistics are a little sketchy, which is how I'd review the game as a whole.

I'll give some examples. The Hitter's Eye allows you to predict which pitch you think will be thrown and where. Unfortunately, once you master this (and it doesn't take long), hitting on the most difficult level becomes a breeze, and pretty soon your whole team is batting .300 plus. Then there's the ability to make forced trades and editor individual players to better match their real-life stats. While I did enjoy tinkering with the players, you can only do so before you start a season, not during. And good luck trying to make trades during the season - you've got to sacrifice your best players for a trade to go through, because you can't convince anyone that a young player is a "prospect."

And then there are a ton of flaws, bugs, and little annoyances scattered throughout. A few of the bigger ones: The Rays still wear uniforms that say "Devil Rays" (despite getting the new name right everywhere else). The stadiums have incorrect or completely made-up backgrounds (Seattle, where I'm from, has a few random generic buildings behind Safeco Field instead of the easily recognizable Qwest Field arches and the tall, black Columbia Center, and there are many more stadiums with similarly generic backgrounds). And stealing bases or tagging up and running is virtually impossible to do with the game's convoluted controls (the only way I can tag and run is by tagging/running everyone on base, not one base at a time, so sack flies are very difficult to execute). What happened to just using the arrows on the controller as bases, and tapping the appropriate base to indicate a steal? Example: man on first and third, don't want to steal home but do want to steal second, so instead of sending both runners you just tap the "up" arrow and steal second. Problem solved.

In the end, the game can be very fun because you win all the freaking time on the hardest of difficulties, and it can be very frustrating because it's not very realistic and flaws and errors aboud. The fun does tend to win in the end, barely, and I have played the game through twice (once in season mode, once in Road to the Show). I just wish they'd put more time into making it a cohesive and realistic experience than an arcade game, which is what this ultimately feels like.

Riddled with BUGS!!!
I've had the last few versions of this game, and there isn't much difference, if any, from last years. EXCEPT BUGS!

Game freezes, miss-catched pop flys by AI players, called strike check swings (when reviewed on "replay" the call is always wrong), and just weird things like getting "locked" into a menu during the game and not being able to get out...thus having to restart the whole machine.

Just aggravating when you're in the 8th inning and I go to my bullpen and I can't get out! Just won't let me out and I push every button, and nothing.

So, I'm only about 40 games into my "season" and I've had to restart the game at least 10-15 times and lose all my progress.

The only bug I remember in the 07 version was players missing easily catchable throws on "off action" scenes, which was nothing.