Video game review by ERIK LEIJON

For the dozen or so remaining baseball fans in the city, this year’s line-up of baseball titles has taken the field. While 2k Sports has the exclusive MLB licence across all platforms, three games beat them to the punch and reported to spring training early.

MLB 06: The Show (PS2/SCE, SCE San Diego) has an MLB licence because 2k Sports’ exclusivity deal does not include first-party titles, so Sony gets to release another ball game for their console. Having not played this series before, I was extremely surprised by how much depth The Show had. There are two types of franchise modes, which offer significantly different gameplay off the diamond.

Regular franchise mode is what fans are used to—taking a team over multiple seasons and trying to build a dynasty. You control the big league team and all the minor league affiliates, both in the player development side and the economic side. The Show’s franchise easily covers more ground than last year’s 2k game, and intelligently borrows its presentation from the MVP series.

The other mode, career, is better than getting a fastball down the middle. Instead of taking control of a GM, you create your own likeness that must start from single-A ball and work his way up to the majors. Since you can’t make line-up changes, your off-the-field activity involves using up training hours to improve your doppelganger or to talk to media and management. Just by instituting these minor changes, career mode feels like a whole new ballgame.

Another new mode is King of the Diamond, which turns the baseball field into a carnival game and looks like baseball-meets-cosmic bowling on ’shrooms.

The presentation, which in sports games has lately been overshadowing the games themselves, is simple and effective. Matt Vasgersian’s play-by-play announcing is rarely repetitive and flows seamlessly. The menus are sleek and rarely cluttered, which has been a main problem of the 2k Sports’ line-up.

The gameplay is well balanced, although I wouldn’t advise allowing the overzealous AI to control your base running. Being able to guess which pitch is coming is a realistic addition that recognizes how a batter needs to think. The only true complaint about The Show is the ugly graphics, which pale in comparison to last year’s 2k Sports and EA’s games.

A slightly stripped-down version of The Show is available on the PSP, and is an excellent portable representation of the game. A great feature is that if you need to stop playing in the middle of a game, you can turn it off and it will pick up where you left off later. The sound effects are also mind-bogglingly good for a portable.

The PSP features the King of the Diamond and career modes, and has a fairly in-depth franchise mode (which they confusingly call season mode).

Without an MLB license, EA turned to the NCAA, thus creating a game not a single Montrealer could want. Just as well, MVP 06 NCAA Baseball’s (Multiplatform/EA, EA Canada) graphics look like a step back from last year’s MLB MVP, and The Show has surpassed them in terms of batter interface.

The presentation, buoyed somewhat by having ESPN on board, is hurt by not having real players. The play-by-play commentary isn’t as fun when Mike Patrick can only refer to players as “seniors” or “sophomores.” It would be fun to have a few college teams in an MLB game, but NCAA baseball doesn’t warrant its own game like basketball or football. Wannabe architects might like the ballpark creator mode, but baseball fans would be better off playing with the pros.