Customer Reviews

MVP Baseball 2005

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

MVP Baseball 2005 is the closest game currently on the market to give you the most in-depth baseball experience possible. In my opinion, the only people not liking some aspects of this game will be New York Yankees fans. It's not only Manny on the cover, but also the intro video, cracks and comments throughout the games and even a song praising Boston's first title in 86 years. Well, all I can say is, if you can't overlook those things, you're missing one fantastic game. Let's break it down:

Owner Mode:
New this year is Owner Mode where you begin with picking a stadium (not one of the existing ballparks, but a starter stadium) and making a few upgrades (seating, lights, whatever you can afford before opening day). You can add a restaurant, set ticket prices, make promotional days and on and on.

You have a financial advisor for the season, budget reports, player contracts, etc. One note: Yes, you can be the owner and play the game just like you would in Dynasty Mode. You can sim, play individual games, manage the game or sit in your luxury box and watch it all take place. There is so much to this mode that I couldn't possibly fit it into this review.

Dynasty Mode:
This mode is essentially the same as last year. Keep the owner happy, the players, do contracts and play the games. It's been updated and tweaked for more user friendly experience. And I can't leave out that this year, you even have single-A teams in addition to AA, AAA, and MLB.

Mini Games:
Instead of just a Home Run Derby, EA has included a variety of features that can teach you different aspects of the game. There is batting practice, pitching practice and also a scenario editor. To me, I found it to be an enjoyable experience especially when hitting the cars and busses over the outfield wall. This seems like a throw back to Triple-Play 2000 when you had target practice.

Graphics:
Simply amazing. Need I say more? The players faces and stances are mirrored to their real-life counterparts. Cutscenes, and animations are gorgeous. The only thing I found a proble with was the crowd...even in 2005, they are still wooden-looking. That's a sacrifice you have to make and it doesn't detract from the game experience.

Gameplay:
What a shift from last year! Pitching is now a lot more realistic with the way you use the meter. Instead on the old meter where you set power and tried to hit right spot, they have upgraded it to you having to stop it and exactly the right moment, if not, you risk and early or late breaking pitch. In rookie mode, it's not as big of a deal as it is in MVP mode. Make some mistake pitches in the higher levels and you're asking for trouble.

Batting is great! When you foul off a pitch, a little screen comes up and shows you how you hit it. Fouling off a pitch is a mistimed swing, same as a swing through. Gone is the animation where you swung, missed the ball and it popped up the crazy box to show you missing it. Instead, this year, they have the popup box, yet include the ball trail so you see how you missed it.

Fielding & baserunning is comparable to last years version with some great upgrades to visuals. There are plenty of dives, showboating grabs, wall jumps, and take-out slides.

Ok, I could go on & on with this review because, like I said, this is the most in-depth baseball game I have ever seen. If you want the best out there, MVP Baseball 2005 hits a Home Run. See you ONLINE for a head-to-head contest!

When "High Heat", the previous baseball sim went out of production due to the bankruptcy of the software company, there was a void in the market, and Electronic Arts' first few offereings in this genre were far from acceptable; riddled with holes, bad plays, lack of flexibility. MVP 2004 was their first serious attempt to produce a realistic basebal sim, and they didn't do too badly although it took several releases of software patches last year before the gamer had anything like a realistic product.

MVP 2005 is almost perfect. I generally play it on a pc, in Dynasty mode (where you take command of a major league team, it's AAA AND it's AA minor league affiliates, and play them season after season....)On the plus side is the real names of ALL players who are members of the players union - the player editor allows you to change, for example the name to Barry Bonds of the Giants, and give him the correct skin tone! The player editor is a powerful tool, allowing you to adjust hitting, fileding, running and pitching elements so, if you find a player who is not a member of the union and want to put him into your team, it is relatively easy to do so.You can even create him if you wish rather than alter an existing computer-created player!

There are also differing difficulty levels (the rookie level is so absurdly easy you will rapidly get bored with it) and I have yet to find anyone who has played an entire season at the highest level and NOT finished at the bottom of their division ! The rendering of the stadiums is superb (although EA skimped on the renderings of the crowd - VERY poorly done!),and player motion is excellent, even accomodating unique batting stances for the major players, such as Julio Franco of the Atlanta Braves and his very unique stance. You can control player development from your AA and AAA farm system, absolutely superb programming from a gaming viewpoint.

On the minus side, you will spend an eternity changing game settings to create a realistic game; too easy and you will get bored with winning 20-1 with every game; too high and you rapidly get discouraged with the computer opponents seemingly endless stream of home runs hit against your best pitchers! There is also a double commentator feature, which some people find annoying, others love. Personally, I have the commentary turned on for realism, although sometimes it can get a little inane. You can charge the mound if you get hit by a pitch; you can dive or run for a catch; you can steal bases; everything is there in dynasty mode except for one detail: if you have the settings so the umpires make occasional bad calls, you can't have your manager rush out of the dugout to argue a bad call (and risk getting thrown out!; a minor detail, but important, nonetheless.

However, if you are prepared to research the correct names and information online for ALL the minor league players, and change their names and information as appropriate, and spend the time adjusting game settings so performance is not too easy or too hard, this is DEFINATELY the best baseball sim EVER to have come out for both the computer AND the gaming console market.

I'm not sure who issues the rights to gaming comapanies in professional sports. I only know that it happens. And it happens that EA Sports does not have the rights to put Major League players in their game anymore. What a shame. And shame on whichever powers in Major League Baseball, because this means there is no 2006 game for the PC. Thus the high price for MVP 2005 which, a year after its release, is more expensive than MVP 2006, the game that reverts to the alternative by simulating NCAA baseball.

I have enjoyed PC formatted baseball performance games for the last several years. Before EA sports, I played High Heat baseball, which was the dominant PC game a few years back. Now there are none. This will not cause me to go out and buy a new platform, such as the X-box, Gamecube or whatever just to be able to play the games there. No, it will just be counted as another loss. Major League Baseball has made every attempt to abandon the 40+ crowd for the past two decades. I don't know why.

Until they pour water over the smouldering of my burning desire for baseball, there is still MVP 2005 for me. I won't take the time to modify and create rosters to make it the fun it should be. I don't have the time.

Thank you EA Sports for the wonderful game. RIP, MLB.

MLB 2005 is essentially the same game as 2004, with some new added animations and more detailed faces. EA has also given us some new Play Modes, most of which aren't very fun to play.

There is a mini-games mode, which allows you to play a Tetris-like pitching game as one of the games. These mini games might add a couple of hours of playing time to the overall game. I have tried them once and have no desire to play them again.

There is also a Dynasty mode where you take control of a team for 3 years. Depending on which team you take on, the expectations are different. Pick the Yankees and you are expected to win, and win a lot. Take the Brewers... and well... have a good number of stolen bases I guess.

In the Dynasty mode you control your team and all the minors. Now you can let the CPU pick rosters and more, and you get constant updates about players. One big gripe I have is players keep complaining about playing time. Even if you play them every day. So I sit the guy for a few games and he is still unhappy. Are they complaining about playing too much or too little? I cannot tell.

There is an owner mode also where you can build your own stadium. The caliber of stadiums you get to build in no way matches what a MLB team would play in (unless you are the Expos/Nationals).

My biggest complaint is the lack of a shortened season. Something like a playoff tree series would be fantastic, instead of a 162 game season or 1 exhibition game.

One other complaint is the menu system. There is too much clicking involved to pinch hit or to swap positions.

Also, the announcing is almost the same as last year, and many times does not match the game play. How many times do I have to hear the announcer use the term "big boy"?

Okay, what is good about this game? The gameplay, like I mentioned, is the same as last year - and this is a good thing. I love the pitching controls. Batting is still hit or miss (literally). In 2005 they have added the ability for the hitter to "pick up" the type of pitch about to be thrown by giving the ball a color. Red means breaking, green is offspeed, white is normal.

You can now have your manager argue calls, and even get kicked out of the game. Adds a nice touch.

If you have MLB 2004, you will probably want 2005 for the updated rosters and teams (Nationals). Just don't expect a different game. If you don't have 2004, then you will like what 2005 has to offer. 2005 feels like an upgrade to 2004, and should have been priced as such. Still, it is a solid baseball game and if you are a baseball fan, it is a must have for the PC.

The only serious complaint I have about this game is the keyboard control - it's obviously designed for a gamepad. A few of the controls are crossed as a result (stealing 2nd base is the same button as an uppercut swing). Otherwise, this is a great baseball game.
The graphics seem improved over last year's. The rosters are updated with patches you can download from the web (no more having to reconstruct late trades). Virtually everything is adjustable, from the number of replays in a game to the wind up of the pitcher you take batting practice against.
I really liked the number of "legend" players they added here as well (around 60), and the idea of a "legends" team and a "heroes" team. Each can be unlocked using a reward-points system (e.g. pitch a shut out, get some points).
A few of the preferences are buried, and it makes them difficult to find when you want to change something. I still haven't found a way to play a shortened season (30 games instead of 162?) or to shorten the games during a season (3 innings instead of 9), but the baseball itself is so well done that I'm not bothered by having to play more.
Over all, I'd say it's a great game. There's something here for everyone, whether you want to just manage a game, play exhibition, own the team and build it from scratch, or play and micromanage a season down to A ball. Only a few details kept this from being a 5 star game.

The users that are shamefully selling this game at astronomical prices should be shot. There is no reason for this game to be priced so high other than the fact that one or two desperate people actually paid such a high price. If you look hard enough, you can find it for much, much less. I just bought one, brand new, on eBay for $32. I am pretty sure the most recent seller on this site, the one selling the game for $92, also got his on eBay (I recognize his name), but I can't be sure. If people pay these ridiculous and insulting prices, it will only perpetuate the situation. Tell these guys that you are not stupid.

Don't forget, EA often rereleases their older games. If you are patient, you may end up buying it on a discount software rack at Best Buy for $9.99.

This game is unplayable unless you own one of a very limited number of supported gamepads, none of which it seems are any longer available from Amazon or elsewhere. When I tried to play the game using my laptop keyboard, I discovered it required access to the numeric arrow pad for the most important commands in the game and that those commands could not be remapped to other keys, even though the game lets you reconfigure other, less important commands. Emulating the numeric arrows with the "Fn" button doesn't solve the problem unless you have three hands. Plugging in a full-size keyboard also fails, though for different reasons. You practically need to type in an entire sentence's worth of keystrokes just to throw the ball, and the keyboard routines are so buggy that the game misinterprets most of those keystrokes anyway.

The game did not support the gamepad I own, so I bought another one. It didn't support that one either. After nosing around on their tech support side I found this list of supported devices:

Belkin Nostromo n45
Interact Axis Pad Colors
EMS Joypad Converter
Gravis Eliminator Aftershock
Gravis Xterminator
Interact Hammerhead FX
Liksang Super Dual Box
Logitech Cordless Rumble
Logitech Cordless Rumble Pad 2
Logitech Dual Action
Logitech Dual Action 2
Logitech Rumble Pad 2
Logitech Wingman Action
Logitech Wingman Cordless
Logitech Wingman Rumble Pad
Play.com USB Dual PS2 to PC Convertor XP
Saitek P880
Saitek P2500 Rumble Pad (Cyborg Force Rumble Pad)
Saitek P3000 Wireless Pad
Thrustmaster Firestorm Dual Analog 2
Thrustmaster Firestorm Dual Analog 3
Thrustmaster Firestorm Dual Power 3
Thrustmaster Firestorm Wireless
Thrustmaster Wireless Dual Trigger
Thrustmaster 2-in-1 Dual Trigger

If you don't have one of those, skip this title.

Possibly the best baseball game in history. This game is truely addicting as you find yourself playing from sun-up to sun-down. There are numerous different game modes:

Dynasty Mode: You take your team to the top over a maximum span of 120 years. You draft young talent and bring it up through the farm to create the next Henry Aaron or Cy Young. You control the MLB,AAA,AA, and A clubs.

Owner Mode: Take your team to the bank as you try to earn money. You start off by creating your own ballpark to play in and possibly upgrade as you get more money!

All in all this game is great because you can download numerous updates at www.mvpmods.com. There you can find new rosters,cyberfaces, and stadiums.

This is the best PC game I've ever played. My friends and I all love playing exhibition mode where we can play each oter. Owner mode is so cool. You get to build your own ballpark and play in it. The graphics are crystal clear. There are so many fun mini games in it too. The home run showdown is incredible. This is a phenomenal edition! This game is the best it gets!!

After playing MVP Baseball '04 and now, '05 on PS2, I find that I actually prefer the older ("Classic") version. The new game is great with many of the things still present from '04 that make it fun to play, but there is a reason it was priced less than '04. There are several small reasons it doesn't rock (they brought back the same announcers, lots of batters look exactly the same-Moises Alou still bounces in the batter's box even though he doesn't do this in real life-some players don't have pictures, etc.). Then there are the big ones...

First of all, the overall graphics are great and the players are a bit more realistic and left handers can actually hit some shots only the right handers could do in '04. Plus, of course, the music is great. I only wish you could pick a playlist or leave some songs off (similar to GT3), because some songs really get on my nerves!

I tried the "Owner" mode and one of the first things I tried was to design my own park. I could be missing something, but it looks like I can make a high right field wall, but not a left field one? Not to mention it is not as high as it looks (nothing like the Green Monster) when the game starts. I would like more control and more choices if the game is going to let me "design" my own park. The stadium starts off with a minuscule seating capacity (lower and upper deck, 20K only). Yes, you can purchase more seats and this is part of the fun, but isn't this the Major Leagues? When a new park is built, it looks like a massive artistic construction with seats all around. Starting off with only a lower and upper deck would be perfect for designing your Minor League park.

After not finding a proper tutorial/FAQ for running my day-to-day baseball operations (selling tickets and concessions at the price I want), I tried it the best I could and found this also to be a confusing double-edged sword. The game doesn't take into account the team's record and even though I am winning every game, I am lucky to have a sell out when keeping prices constant. This is really odd and one of the things I thought would be great to improve upon from '04. I mean, besides the graphics of the crowd being all but crude, sellouts are few and far between even in the playoffs...Now I am so far in debt (you lose money while on the road and only have a chance to make money while at home, which is half the time), not even a rare sellout is helping because my concession sales are not tempting profits my way.

I wish I could comment on the online play, but I didn't bother to pay to play the game and then pay again to play the game on a higher plane. I do hear, of course, that this is one of the best things, to be able to play the game on the Internet (or was it the other way around...but I digress).

I'm sure things will work out in the long run, and my profit margin will come my way eventually, but why should I have to wait that long? Most people who play these games need to see some sort of positive curve or they lose interest. I guess I am one of them. If I could see that things were working, I could easily stick with it. But by making it so difficult to take advantage of one of the major upgrades to the '05 version, EA Sports has effectively stunted their own sequels growth for one of the best games ever made.