MLB 06: The Show for PlayStation 2 Reviews by Gamers

I was skeptical about playing a different game from MVP Baseball this year. I decided to rent MLB from Gamefly and honestly am not disappointed.

Overall, the game does a phenomenal job at the little nuances of the game, graphically speaking. I played shortstop a lot when I played baseball, and to see the double plays being turned in many different ways in particular caught my interest. All the little animations in the field are very well done.

The pitching system is ripped from MVP, yeah, I agree. But I do like the ability to have the baseball tail depending on the type of pitch and the handedness of the pitcher. This gives a lot of feel to the pitching and you can honestly make the CPU swing at bad pitches, which could be a pain to do without adjusting sliders in MVP.

I'm impressed overall with the franchise mode in this game, but I will say I like MVP's better from last year in that they had one extra level of minor leagues, which I liked (I love the training aspect of MVP with the minors). Other than that they did a very good job.

What can I complain about? I would have liked to see them implement the swing stick like in the other 2 baseball games out there (NCAA MVP and 2K6), but I do like the location system in place. I also hated that they did not have realistic free agents and I disliked the edit player/create player options. MVP was a lot more free in the editing department, and I love having accuracy in my games, so I give the nod to MVP in that regard. Hopefully MLB will fix that for '07.

Overall, I would say this game is a solid purchase and definitely worth renting. If you like baseball, you'll like this game. The few problems I had with it are far outweighed by the good this game does. Give it a shot.

Mlb 06 the show is Sony's new title, branching off from the MLB 200+ series. This years addition, has a lot, and brother, I mean a lot of bells and whistles. The in game graphics engine looks as good as last years edition, but with a higher polygon count in the characters.

Another enhancement this year is the 3 man in booth commentary. This adds to the feel of the game, and is a nice touch. Also enhanced this year is a deeper franchise mode, as well as a feature rich minor league system, wherein you can create a character, and claw your way up to the big time, a contract with a major league team.

The game play and controls are tight, and easy to pick up. The player models are nice and dead on, even their batting stances are there. The pitching is the same, either classic (location driven) or Slidebar. The hitting is as good as its predecessor, with the “guess pitch” option still there.

Over all I rated this game an 8. It is a beautiful presentation of the MLB experience, and it captures it very well. The online portion is good as well, with ranked and unranked games available. This game earns its 8 out of 10.