Bigger muscles, smaller balls.
Handheld sports ports have historically been the bat boys to the console games' major league sluggers. Sure, they wore the same uniforms and ran around the same fields as the pros, but you would never want to substitute one for the other.
The PSP is slowly trying to change all that, though, and nowhere is this more noticeable than in Sony's MLB franchise for the PSP. The first MLB, while not as deep or polished as its console counterpart, provided a solid game of ball in its own right, sacrificing much of the depth of its console teammate but almost none of the gameplay. The PSP version of MLB '06: The Show continues this trend by mirroring the console version in refining its swing, if not revolutionizing it.
Perhaps the biggest addition to the PSP version, which is old hat to console veterans, is Career mode. Here you manage the career of a rookie player over several seasons. All the managerial considerations you'd normally fret over in Season mode are handled by the computer, so you just have to focus on winning games and making big plays with your future star. Big plays are important, because they lead to "Training Hours" which, in turn, translate into attribute points that can be spent to enhance your player's abilities. You also have an 'interaction' menu where you can do things like talk smack about your team to the press, request more playing time, or ask to be traded. Conspicuously absent is the ability to say anything nice, but maybe some of those options will appear in next year's game.
The Show's Career mode sees a huge improvement over MLB 2006 in that it now allows you to manage your favorite team over several seasons, not just one. While it doesn't provide the depth of the console version's Franchise mode, at least now all your roster shuffles, signed free agents and other myriad tweaks don't end after a single season.
A new mini-game called King of the Diamond improves upon the format of the batting mini-game found in MVP 2005 by adding the concept of ghost-runners. If you hit a nice shot into the outfield, the game will give you credit for a double and put a ghost-runner on second. If you follow up with a homer, you'll score two runs. It's new to the PSP, if not new to you and me.
The online game also sees some improvement. The inclusion of buddy lists and instant messaging slightly bolster the online roster, although sending an IM with your PSP is probably not something you will ever want to do. Still, the online play is smooth, and getting into a game with a good connection seems much easier than it was last year, thanks in some part to improved PSP networking in general.
Many of the options associated with the console version of The Show made it to the PSP, while others were lost in translation. You can turn on or off all the advanced gameplay features and fast forward through innings, although you cannot edit rosters. You can also tweak sliders to make various aspects of the game as demanding or forgiving as you like.
It isn't likely that you'll need to dumb anything down if you played last year's game though, as the gameplay is almost entirely unchanged. Hitting, for example, is still a matter of pressing X at the right time. However, you can guess the pitch type and location, as well as swing for power.
Pitching uses the same release-point system as before, and it's still fairly difficult to place a pitch in the corners with the analog nub. Steal attempts can be queued up before a pitch, and base runners can be directed individually or altogether while the ball is in play. Fielding is a matter of catching the ball by running to the ball marker and stretching if you need to, then throwing to a base by pressing a corresponding face button. Chances are, you've played this game before.
The A.I. is great at capitalizing mercilessly on your fielding errors, although your own guys don't seem nearly as driven unless you're the one controlling them. CPU pitchers seem to catch on if you only swing at certain pitch types, and are good at throwing nasty, unpredictable pitches that put your batting skills to the test. This is a pretty smart game.
Oddly, The Show looks much better on the PSP than it does on the PS2. The graphical quality is probably the same, but at the smaller resolution everything looks tighter. Everything, that is, except for the random graphical glitches. On a few occasions, for instance, my batter's head turned completely gray during the cut scene that followed his at-bat. Speaking of which, the home run clips are very confusing. As soon as your bat touches the ball and the game decides you've hit a homer, the screen goes black and then switches to the worst home-run camera angle ever: a ground view of the white ball flying through the blue sky. Such minor gripes aside, The Show is a pleasure to watch on the PSP, as the animations and framerate are rock solid.
There's been some buzz about the game's play-calling, and some of it is warranted. If a player has had several bad at-bats in a game, the announcers' tone and diction will reflect his crappy performance from start to finish. On the other hand, they frequently make the same obvious statements over and over, so it's hard to call the commentary, as provided by Rex Hudler, Dave Campbell, and Matt Vasgersian, inspiring. You'll probably turn it off, along with the terrible rock during the menus, and leave the sound effects on, which are fine.
MLB '06: The Show may lack several of the features flaunted by its console kin, but it also lacks the competition. Considering it's pretty much the only choice for PSP baseball fans this year, this title does an admirable job of improving its game. The deep season, clean online play, and new Career mode are all big additions, and make The Show an easy call.
RSS FEEDS
