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Written by Don Lee
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Saturday, 24 June 2006 |
 MLB06 The Show from Sony
Computer Entertainment looks like another great baseball game for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable. Being a sports fan, I was interested in playing this game on my PSP.
Fortunately, I was able to pick up MLB06 The Show for the Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP) and I was anxious to get started. Here is what I discovered about MLB06 The Show from Sony Computer Entertainment.
Let’s take a look at some of the new features in the game. First thing you are going to need to pick up is the controls. Now the pitching and batting controls are pretty straightforward using the analog stick and action buttons. The real fun is learning how to perform some of the smaller things. Picking up on these detailed moves is how you will succeed in MLB06 The Show.
You will need to create a profile first and select some overall game settings. Looking at the game’s main menu, you can choose to play from five different game modes, play a quick game or play online. There is also an Options setting where you can tweak the game play.
There are five game modes (Exhibition, Career, Season, Home Run Derby and King of the Diamond) to choose from. Now before you get started with the game play, you should probably take a look at the Options setting as you may want to change things to make it a little easier until you pick up on the game. In Options, there are a number of features that you can change to fine tune the game play to your desire. For example, you can change the difficulty, whether to hear the play-by-play, umpire consistency (try setting it to wide and you’ll find out why major league ballplayers get upset) and your batting, pitching and fielding views. The surprising thing was to find features such as calling pitchouts, setting up base running and defensive play and other features given the option as either being performed for you in automatically or you can handle this manually.
Now that you have tweaked the game play, now you can tweak the elements of the game. Now this is where you can make this game even more adventurous. Select Game Tuning under Options and you will find some cool features that you can change such as arm strength, throwing accuracy, error frequency and injury frequency among the items you can alter. Increasing the bars to extreme levels will make this game more interesting as things such as throwing the ball towards the infield, making catches and other situations less predictable but more realistic. C’mon, you don’t want every fly ball caught or every throw to be on target, right? The game is more interesting when anything is possible on each play in the field. The developers did a wonderful job offering these options so each gamer can customize the game play as much or as little as they want.
There are a number of different play options you can choose from. You can choose to play a quick exhibition game against the computer. Just select the home and away teams first, then select which team you want to play as and start the game. Under Season, you can choose to play a 14, 29, 82 or 162 game schedule. Now you can either play each and every game or you can simulate a game to get through the schedule.
The Home Run Derby mode is a take on the All-Star game tradition where you get the best home run hitters in the game to see who can hit the most out of the park. In this version, you can play with up to 10 players from a single team and you can choose the park to hit in. You can wait for your pitch but it is an all-or-nothing at bat as anything not going over the fence is an out and you only get 10 outs during the at bat.
The King of the Diamond mode is a mini game where you get the opportunity to make any kind of hit. Just score more runs thank your opponent by whatever innings you want to play. KOTD Ladder Mode is a competition where you need to play through four levels with the competition getting tougher along the way. This is a very interesting element in the game to try out when you want a break from typical baseball action.
The replay feature is very cool because you can see that home run shot over and over again but I didn’t like it during the game action because it would just randomly select plays to replay and I would find myself skipping through most of them. Luckily, you can turn off in-game replays. If you want to watch a replay of the last play in the game, you need to return to the game menu and select the replay option. You can watch a replay from different angles as well as view the play frame by frame. The replay controller provides all of the basic video playback functions you would expect.
If you’re having trouble picking up on the game, you can take a look at the extensive game tips section under Options. There you will find helpful tips to perform certain tasks in the game. The tips also show how to perform the action using the PSP.
My biggest complaint about the game is that the announcer’s play-by-play commentary fell out of sync with the game action. There were times when I would hit a home run and by the time the next batter was in the box, the announcer would still be in the middle of calling the home run shot. While this will seem a little comical at times, it doesn’t affect the game action at all. But remember that you can turn the commentary off in Options if you want.
I found MLB06 The Show to be an excellent sports game. The player details are amazing especially when you think about the amount of time and effort it took to recreate all of the player’s batting stances. Then take a look at all of the statistics and baseball trivia available and this game will seem like a baseball encyclopedia along with being a very realistic video game.
I really enjoyed the player creation feature. You can create the player of your dreams with this feature. I made my player 6’10” in height, 290lbs, primary position of center field, fat body type, a uni-eyebrow and a set of very long sideburns. I choose him to use Ken Griffey Jr.’s batting stance and strut to the plate to the tune of country music. I applied almost all of his attribute points to his offensive skills, which should give you an idea of the type of centerfielder he’s going to be. Now you would never imagine a 290lb centerfielder on a real major league team but that’s the kind of player you can make with MLB 06 The Show. Watching my 6’ 10”, 290-pound guy cover centerfield is pretty interesting to say the least but he sure hit the cover off of a baseball.
For those who want to keep your rosters up to date, you can go online and update your rosters for quick play or for online play. You can even trade players by checking out Trade Central to see who is on the trading block.
Even with some small quirkiness in the game, the developers did an excellent job providing a wide array of options so you can customize the game play to be as authentic or as basic as you would like. This level of customization is a welcomed sight for a sports game and adds to the realism in the game.
This is a very good baseball game that even the most diehard fan will enjoy. There is so much to like about this game from the quick, single player game or playing an entire season and being able to create your own player. MLB06 The Show offers all that and so much more. I enjoyed MLB06 The Show and it earns a 4 out of 5 star recommendation.
You can pick up MLB06 The Show for the PlayStation Portable or for the PlayStation 2 version.
About MLB06 The Show
MLB 06 The Show pitches and deals with the complete portable package where you can play your whole career on the road with an all-new Career Mode, sign on for a multi-year deal with an all-new Season Mode that tracks multiple seasons, and follow the action with comprehensive and progressive commentary from the three-man booth of Rex Hudler, Matt Vasgersian and Dave Campbell. http://www.mlb06theshow.com
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