MLB 07: The Show

[example1]

So, both the 2K7 and O7 The Show titles are out. I have The Show for PS2 but haven't played it yet. I'm too busy nerdily updating rosters so I don't have to do it deep into a season.

 

Interestingly, the character created for Matsuzaka has the option of throwing a gyroball but it appears nobody else does. That's pretty cool. Also, they seem to have added a few pitches while losing a lot of the minor league editing from last year's version. The minor leaguers appear to be there in Franchise mode, but you can't edit them outside of Franchise.

[riverside sluggers]

I am perplexed that they didnt put Matsuzaka's actual name down, in the game its Tate Baik. I had to edit the name. Then I had to edit his face, because in my game he had red eyebrows with no hair on top

 

Also I find funny but at the same time kind of a sucker punch to Dustin Pedroia... it says his name but his picture, game appearance are not him, its the former Sox Dustan Mohr. For some reason thats been a problkem, I remember yahoo sports & redsox.com for awhile having the wrong picture in there.

 

Ive just played 1 spring training game so far, more to come

[BSN07]

when the final rosters where done, matsuzaka might not have been signed, or they might not have had his permission to use his image ect. Just like Bonds is always some other name, but the LF is always a left handed hitting black guy.

 

How are the contracts set up in the game? Is it alot of guys are signed for one yr then there FA? And is the game play harder with the new pitching( I read that the pitchers comfort level with a pitch helps or hinders its effectivness). Is the fielding smooth? I can't wait until it gets here, but i'm holding out for the PS3 version, it has a new mode where you plays from your created players persective on offense and defense no matter which position you play, and I heard its pretty bad ass...

[BoSox21]

sweet, im gonna be picking up The Show asap

[jacksonianmarch]

So, both the 2K7 and O7 The Show titles are out. I have The Show for PS2 but haven't played it yet. I'm too busy nerdily updating rosters so I don't have to do it deep into a season.

 

Interestingly, the character created for Matsuzaka has the option of throwing a gyroball but it appears nobody else does. That's pretty cool. Also, they seem to have added a few pitches while losing a lot of the minor league editing from last year's version. The minor leaguers appear to be there in Franchise mode, but you can't edit them outside of Franchise.

 

you never could edit them out of franchise mode. I am in the process of putting the top 125 or so prospects into the game and making sure I nab players with A's for potential. That is what I'd call this game, potential. I like the catcher calling the game idea. I love the confidence meters changing depending on which pitch you are relying on. The circle showing you the range of your batter gives you a much better idea of where your guy can hit and when you guess a pitch, it shows you the amount of red space the guess covers. And the gyro is nearly totally unhittable. It comes in at 94 and moves more than any slider in the game. So, I took "Tate Biek" and changed him to Betances and created another Matsuzaka. I want the gyroball, it is totally insane.

[jacksonianmarch]

when the final rosters where done, matsuzaka might not have been signed, or they might not have had his permission to use his image ect. Just like Bonds is always some other name, but the LF is always a left handed hitting black guy.

 

How are the contracts set up in the game? Is it alot of guys are signed for one yr then there FA? And is the game play harder with the new pitching( I read that the pitchers comfort level with a pitch helps or hinders its effectivness). Is the fielding smooth? I can't wait until it gets here, but i'm holding out for the PS3 version, it has a new mode where you plays from your created players persective on offense and defense no matter which position you play, and I heard its pretty bad ass...

 

the contracts still suck. I have a long and a short way of fixing it. First, you must set your franchise to force trades when starting it up. It may also be beneficial to have the CPU ignore salary cap (not for you mind you). The long way is to play out your first season however you want. Then, at the end of the season, you get the option to renegotiate contracts. So you renegotiate with everyone on your team to get the proper length. Then you force trade for everyone in the league and just make sure the length is appropriate so they come available when they are supposed to. The shorter way is to just track every player at the end of the season that hits the FA wire and put them back on their team. You will have to do this for your first season regardless because you cannot renegotiate with any player from another team whose contract is expiring.

[BSN07]

I wonder why it is so hard for baseball games to get the contracts right. Madden does a pretty good job with contracts, why can't the baseball games?

[He Hate Me]

MVP was pretty good about that, but every once in a while guys who were signed to 5 year deals would disappear from your team during FA lol

[jacksonianmarch]

and MVP 05 or 04 to this day is the only game that expanded its rosters to 40 at Sept 1. I always thought that was neat. The one catch was that the game was much more prone to freeze after Sept 1, but I got through it.

[jacksonianmarch]

btw, for anyone who wishes to create a top 100 or so and create a realistic minor league system for their team, a good site for stats is http://www.thebaseballcube.com . Also, to create an accurate repertoire, check BA, scout.com or rotoworld for pitchers so you can accurately create their velocity and secondary pitches. It will take about 5 hours to do the entire list.

[BSN07]

I have all the time to do that.... But they don't have the game here yet.... Thats one of the only things that I havent liked about living here, is we get everything later then you guys do.... But hopefully I will beable to get it within the next couple of months and maybe we can all start a league!

[BoSox21]

can anyone tell me how different MLB '07 is from the '06 version? im hoping they're very similar, gameplay-wise, with a few bugs fixed

[jacksonianmarch]

07 the show vs 06 the show or the other version?

 

As for the differences in the show, they are impressive.

 

First of all the layout is a bit better on the eyes. They incorporated a throw meter so you dont make throws from the CF wall with Juan Pierre on a fly to homeplate. The harder you throw, the less accurate you are.

 

They included a hitters zone which essentially gives you a movable circle which shows how much plate coverage your hitter can get. The circle is bigger for the better hitters.

 

Now when you guess a pitch and a location, the location lights up and with the better hitters, a larger area lights up. Therefore, no more pitches exactly what you are looking for, exactly where you wanted them getting past the pitch guess. You get to see the zone your are choosing.

 

They added a ton of new stances and now you dont have to cycle through each one. They created it so you have to choose a stance to see what it looks like, so creations are easier. Same goes for windups. Hell, Jon Lester has his own windup. 40 pages worth of hitting stances and 20 worth of windups with 15 on each page.

 

They added pitches, something I always love. Matsuzaka has a gyroball, but nobody else can throw it. The gyro is a 94mph slider like pitch that essentially starts on the hands of a RH batter and breaks off the outside part of the plate. They added a running fastball that has very strong screwball like movement as opposed to the slight cut a 2 seamer had. They also added a sweeping curve and a 12-6 curve to the repertoire. I havent seen those yet, but will soon.

 

And the players have a cleaner look to them. I heard they fixed some of the glitch of balls clipping through players and robbing HRs that are way out of the park, but I have only played one game. This brings me to the downside. The contracts are all f***ed up and they have no top prospects like MVP gave in their final version. I created the top 100 and am currently in the process of making an entire yankees minor league system consisting of their best prospects from the DSL levels all the way up to AAA.

[example1]

I wonder why it is so hard for baseball games to get the contracts right. Madden does a pretty good job with contracts' date=' why can't the baseball games?[/quote']

 

I would guess that its because there is a salary cap in the game that doesn't exist in real baseball. The Red Sox--on the default setting--have a limit to what they could spend, whereas in real life if John Henry woke up one morning wanting to pay Roger Clemens 100m for one year, he could... he would just have consequences. It drives all of the prices/values down.

 

Jacksonian, even by going through the first season it is POSSIBLE to sigh guys to absurdly cheap contracts. Contracts appear to be effected by position, age, and ratings. In last year's game as soon as you make Papelbon the 2nd best pitcher on the team and a starter, he's looking for 14m a year; whereas after a mediocre 2005 you can resign Schilling for like 7m a season. It's weird but I think its colored by the cap. I've put too much thought into this.

 

My Review: I have only played one game, the Red Sox vs. the Royals; Matsuzaka vs. somebody. My first review is that the game is considerably smoother than last year and has added a lot to its repetoir. I think the hiter's contact zone is a pretty good idea. It is basically a target-circle that shows what the batter can hit with a swing. Obviously better hitters have a bigger zone than others. It moves quickly and seems big enough that you can make good contact.

 

Pitching with the help of a catcher is pretty awesome. I'm not sure if its 'smart' enough to have Varitek be better than Mirabelli but its nice to have confidence that you don't have to think too much about every single pitch. It's easier to get into a rythym. At first glance the game seems really good, but we'll see...

[example1]

Also, there are quite a few more pitches for your pitchers to throw (4 different curveballs). I prefer pitching in baseball games to hitting, so I like that addition.

[Optimist]

I played the '06 version of this game once. My 12 year old cousin challenged me to a game and I agreed. He went on to beat me 19 to 1.

 

I haven't picked up a video game controller since that day.

 

[jacksonianmarch]

just finished putting the minors together. That was a f***ing chore.

 

game time!

[example1]

just finished putting the minors together. That was a f***ing chore.

 

game time!

 

Congrats dude. You did the top 150?

 

I'm more inclined to do the as many Sox players as possible first, even if it means I have to create a Jed Lowrie

 

So are you creating all the players at the beginning of a Franchise, saving it and essentially playing from there?

[jacksonianmarch]

yes I am. I am actually saving two copies, one as a master copy in case I want to play later and one to play. It is actually pretty cool. The work is very nerdy but the reward will pay off until 08 comes out.

 

Okay, first game played on veteran setting, won 3-2 against Kazmir. Couple things.

 

First off, hitting is much harder. The speed is amazing and the break is crazy, but that could have just been Kazmir and his filthy stuff

 

Second, this game is very choppy on PS2. I do have a pretty old PS2, but it has never been this choppy with any other game. It is annoying but is not so much so that the game is unplayable. The choppiness is only while the ball is in the air, once a fielder gets it, it goes away.

 

They still havent found a way to incorporate walks into the game. Guys who are supposed to be wild will go 3-0 on you and then become a strikes machine. My team is supposed to walk som 500 times this season and I couldnt buy one.

 

I love the variable umpire, it works best with good pitchers. I got a lot of calls with mariano and wang, but got nothing with myers or farns.

 

And the calling pitches is very big. It helps playing as Mo a lot. Mariano is so one pitch centered that he gets hammered in most video games. Not anymore. And the variable catcher makes you want to attack the hot zones more, something I was amiss at doing in the 06 version.

[jacksonianmarch]

also, if you create the minors you will more than likely want to play a few games. I typically play one game per day, either MLB, AA or AAA depending on who is pitching. Right now, I am starting a AAA game with Hughes on the hill and the next game I will play will be a AA game with Betances throwing.

[jacksonianmarch]

the running FB looks like a spiral coming out of the hand. It is strange.

[example1]

Yeah, I do the two saves thing too. It is essential. it's too bad there's no way to save the franchise rosters as the system default rosters.

[jacksonianmarch]

no kidding. BTW, just noticed a few new things.

 

You can now user control slides.

 

Infielders bobble the ball more and they actually have a drop on the transfer on DP's with the umpire doing the proper signal and everything, it is pretty cool.

 

And if you fool the cpu on a pitch, lets say a curve when they are thinking heat, they have an out in front swing that makes them look real foolish. Its pretty nice.

 

And the more you use a pitch, the more you get "comfortable" with it and your meter goes up. If you use the pitch and give up a hit, you get less comfortable with it.

 

The 12-6 curve is the nastiest pitch in the game aside from the gyroball. If you have a pitcher who can throw it (I created Hughes with a dirty one) then it is essentially unhittable as it goes from what looks like the top of the strike zone down out of the zone.

 

Walking is possible in the minor league games, I walked 3 times I think.

 

Overall, gameplay is much better than last yrs, the only problem is that I created the entire yankee minor leagues and I am playing the cpu generated s*** players. I may need to slowly recreate the minors for every team, something I am not currently thinking of doing. But if you dont do it, you will win every AAA and AA game by a lot.

[example1]

no kidding. BTW, just noticed a few new things.

 

You can now user control slides.

 

Infielders bobble the ball more and they actually have a drop on the transfer on DP's with the umpire doing the proper signal and everything, it is pretty cool.

 

And if you fool the cpu on a pitch, lets say a curve when they are thinking heat, they have an out in front swing that makes them look real foolish. Its pretty nice.

 

And the more you use a pitch, the more you get "comfortable" with it and your meter goes up. If you use the pitch and give up a hit, you get less comfortable with it.

 

The 12-6 curve is the nastiest pitch in the game aside from the gyroball. If you have a pitcher who can throw it (I created Hughes with a dirty one) then it is essentially unhittable as it goes from what looks like the top of the strike zone down out of the zone.

 

Walking is possible in the minor league games, I walked 3 times I think.

 

Overall, gameplay is much better than last yrs, the only problem is that I created the entire yankee minor leagues and I am playing the cpu generated s*** players. I may need to slowly recreate the minors for every team, something I am not currently thinking of doing. But if you dont do it, you will win every AAA and AA game by a lot.

 

For NCAA Football I was able to buy a memory card with entirely updated rosters. Any chance such a thing exists for MLB games?

 

I had the same problem last year, because if you make your MiLB guys worth anything they are so much better than everyone they play that games become meaningless.

[jacksonianmarch]

For NCAA Football I was able to buy a memory card with entirely updated rosters. Any chance such a thing exists for MLB games?

 

I had the same problem last year, because if you make your MiLB guys worth anything they are so much better than everyone they play that games become meaningless.

 

I have started playing the minor league games on Allstar and it is a little better. What I may do is just edit teams as I play them and not do them fully. Something like just increasing the contact and power of everyone of their hitters. AS level pitching is tough enough to keep me in single digits, here is to hoping.

[Cocos Disciples]

Does anyone have this game for PSP?

[Ray10]

Sounds awesome I can't wait until I get my copy of the game this week. I've been itching for this game for awhile now. And does anyone know if they finally put the C on Varitek's jersey in the game cause I've been wanting them to do that and I'm sure everyone else has too.

[jacksonianmarch]

Note to gamers. NEVER start a pitcher with his endurance bar below 100%

 

I created Joba Chamberlain and thus far he had an ERA under 1, but his last game was a CG shutout. This means that his next turn in the rotation, his endurance bar was around 90%. Well, he faced the sox AA afiliate and got smoked. Ellsbury took me deep twice and he ran out of gas in the 4th. So never start a pitcher with less than 100% of their endurance.

[NateGrey]

.. Hope it comes out on the Wii ..

[Cityofchampions33]

Anyone have a review on MLB 2k7?