game
Former UVA standout Ryan Zimmerman once had to do it. So did Jonathan Papelbom, Grady Sizemore and Joe Mauer. In fact, most of today’s big league stars once had to scratch and claw their way through a rookie Grapefruit League season, trying to prove their worth to a major league roster and avoid the ignominy of a trip to the minors…or a trip to nowhere.
Traditionally, baseball videogames have avoided trying to capture this aspect of baseball the way National League pitchers avoid Barry Bonds. MLB 07: The Show puts it in the leadoff slot. Given Sony’s reputation as the Tampa Bay Devil Rays of first-party baseball game development, this is enough to give even Nationals fans a sense of hope and optimism.
 Enjoy America’s pastime from the air-conditioned comfort of your room with MLB 07: The Show. |
It all goes down in the game’s new “Road to the Show” mode. You create a player, pick a position and then, in a radical departure that takes some serious getting used to, you only play the parts of the game in which you’re directly involved, fast-forwarding through everything else. If you’re a pitcher, that means three-four innings of just hurling; if you’re a fielder, you’ll only take your hacks and field the balls that are hit your way.
During each game, the game gives you specific goals you need to meet. Succeed, and you’ll get points to improve your stats—and your chance of being offered a contract.
Sometimes, the goals the game assigns don’t necessarily feel realistic or fair—it’s tough to think you’ve “failed” in striking out Albert Pujols instead of inducing the ground ball the computer requested. Worrying about what your manager and teammates are thinking gives the game a tension that‘s missing in the franchise or single-game modes. And, since all you can control is your own performance, you begin to understand why Roger Clemens grew to hate the lack of run support from his Astro teammates last year.
Elsewhere, the deep franchise mode and intuitive batting interface you knew and loved in MLB 06 made the roster (“Home Run Derby,” lamentably, is gone). The overall look of MLB 07 is worse than Tony LaRussa on a bad-hair day. The player movements are smooth and realistic, including some nice cut scenes with batters hurling helmets in the dugout and arguing with umps, but the players themselves look waxy, their eyes blank and mindless.
Maybe we should call this MLB 07: The Robot Show.
