EA's MVP 06 NCAA Baseball offers more hope for sports gaming than we've had since Winning Eleven 7. Not because it's a great baseball game, though it definitely is that. The hope comes from the fact that it's a great baseball game without relying on all the exclusive licenses we wrote so much about last year. Sure, the NCAA license is an EA exclusive, but this baseball outing succeeds purely on gameplay and features, license be damned.
The first thing you'll notice when stepping to the plate in NCAA is the new swing mechanic. Gone is a button-based system; now, as in Tiger Woods, you'll swing the bat by cocking the right analog stick back when the pitcher starts to throw, then pushing it forward to swing. Angling to the left or right can pull the ball or hit for the opposite corner.
The system is strange at first -- it can feel too much like an arbitrary way to swing, but after easing into it we're tempted to say that button swinging is a thing of the past. The analog swing needs to be tuned to include a way to hit flies and grounders, but EA has added left and right trigger modifications to swing for contact or power.
Other aspects of gameplay have received a few tweaks as well. Fielding has also gone analog; now tilting the right stick throws to any of the bases or home, and pushing the stick for an extra second adds some heat to the toss. Like the new swing, it takes getting used to, but the end result is a much faster game. The throwing also pays into the younger players' propensity to commit errors, and you'll see many throws pulling players off the bag as a sophomore fielder tries to make a play.
Baserunning has gone in the opposite direction, and the d-pad now controls individual runners, leaving the analog stick to advance or retreat all runners at once. Pitching hasn't changed at all from last year's MVP system, which is just fine. It wasn't broken, and there was no need for EA to meddle with the three-tap mechanic. The hitter's eye seems slightly more prominent than before, but not so much that gameplay is unbalanced. EA might even argue that the more obvious telegraphing of a pitch is due to the thrower's inexperience.
EA has added some details to the player creation system, and we had a great time making a couple teams full of custom players to take through the dynasty mode. The creation options are excellent, and the process doesn't take long at all. With 128 colleges to 'borrow' rosters from and the option to custom create a team and stadium, NCAA proves that the game goes on quite happily without the faces and stats of Barry Bonds and Mike Mussina. More real stadiums would be welcome, but the ability to create our own has already led to some outrageous games over Xbox Live.
The online functionality is very similar to that of last year's MVP. It was the offline option to play two-player co-op that kept us going. With this system, one player hits while another runs; on defense one pitches while the other fields. When Live isn't an option, this is a fun way to enjoy multiplayer with a hint of cooperative spirit.
Bringing down NCAA's score is the labyrinthine set of save options and menus that comprise the team management systems. When you get into the way the whole thing works, the actual gameplay is excellent, but even as MVP veterans there were several instances of created teams, parks and rosters that didn't get saved. EA has done an excellent job with the gameplay; now it's time to make it all easier to use.
When seen in standard (480i) resolution, NCAA looks fine. There is a lot of aliasing and some soft edges on distant players. Generally, though, players are solid, the animations as varied and impressive as last year's MVP, and the stadiums admirable replicas. But by bumping up to the 720p option, the polish is so much better that... well, there's no mistaking it for a 360 release, but it's definitely the best-looking baseball game we've seen.
Xbox Live also has some advantages thanks to EA's deal with ESPN, which integrates an ESPN news ticker right into the broadcast display.
The ESPN integration is nice enough, but perhaps EA should have spent more time making this feel like a college ball game. The inexperience of the players definitely shows on the field, and gamers whose favorite university field appears in the game will probably feel the NCAA spirit. Otherwise, this is more like a great amateur ball game than anything else.
Mike Patrick is calling the games from the booth with Kyle Peterson as color commentary, and his work is conservative, minimal, and generally quite good. The music, on the other hand, is irritatingly agro college metal that grates the first time through. Thank Yogi Berra for custom soundtracks, then, which makes the game far easier to enjoy.
We've complained about the lack of any real NCAA feel because some gamers will no doubt be looking for more telltale college elements. But in reality, the lack of a licensed feel is the icing on the cake. With the new swing and throw systems we had a better time here than in any other recent baseball sim, and got more attached to created players than that old digital Nomar. MVP 06 NCAA Baseball proves that an excellent ball game is exactly that, no matter who's on the cover.
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