This is simply put, the best sports game I have played. It is not flawless, it has frozen on me a couple times, and they seem to hit lots of doubles. Otherwise this is the best sports game I have played. The road to the show game would be enough on its own, but it has several other options, like season and Franchise mode.
Road To The Show (Long Winded, but will give you a glimpse into the game)
You create your virtual player and pick any position including Catcher. You can get pretty detailed on the facial features, with some options on the actual body type. Then you get to pick your players uniform options. Again it is pretty comprehensive. You pick bat colors, tape, do you want Pine Tar, helmet type, shoe colors, batting gloves and colors of the gloves, etc..
Once you have chosen you player and appearance, you assign some extra points to categories you want to improve initially. If you are a pitcher, you would probably worry less about batting stances, etc...
Ok now you are ready to play. You have the choice of picking a team or being drafted. I chose draft and ended up on the Blue Jays. I was sent to their minor league AA affiliate. I am not sure if this is a default. I also created a catcher who was drafted by....The Bluejays and sent to their minor league affiliate. I may have to do it again to see if this happens all the time.
I am a starting pitcher, but the Blue jays are Deep in that position so I start as a reliever. I do ok the first few games, and earn training points. The training points are like XP in a RPG. The team will give me set goals to meet. Some are performance goals, some are stat building. Once I hit the stat requirement I see a checkpoint and can work on any other stats I want. It is important that you hit your goals though. Ignore them and promotion is impossible.
I continue to pitch well and make the all star team. I get several hundred extra points that way and get promoted to starting pitcher. I am immediately traded to the Nationals minor league team, where I finish the season as tied for most wins, ERA leader, WHIP Leader and win % leader. I think promotion is right around the corner. Since I had a 1 year contract only, I am offered a new 2 year contract and a position on the AAA starting roster.
The promotion lasted one day. I am demoted to AA and start the season there. About mid season I am called up and have a good AAA year. Earning an invite to Spring training. I do ok, but not great, but the Nationals make me their No. 5 starter. We SUCK, starting the season 0-8. I take a lead into the 8th in my first game only to see the bullpen blow it. I then win the next 5 games as we claw our way back towards .500. I am given training opportunities along the way in the form of mini games, like knock out the blocks with the pitches, or hit these pitches, which help raise my stats.
Suddenly the Nationals are at 17-24 and winning more frequently, we have a young pitching staff, decent core, looks like things are turning in Washington and next year we may be a contender. I check some stats and look up the trading rumor mill and there I am, looks like I am trade bait. 2 days later I am a Cub. So I am now pitching for the Cubs, I am at 7-1 for the year and in the hunt for an All Star appearance and an early favorite for the CY Young... I can't wait to get back to the game....
Overall the game would have been amazing with just the Road to the Show mode, but with all the extra features it is a must buy if you like sports games. In Road to the Show, you can just play the parts you are in, so it is easy to whip out the game for 30 minutes, or play a bunch of games in a couple hours. This mode should be the de facto standard by which ALL sports games base their player creation modes.
9.5/10 - points off for the massive number of doubles to singles ratio and freezing issues.
......as a side note, if you play and see a player named guncrazy ask to play you, avoid him like the plague. Here is a post he put in the PS3 boards about the game. At first I thought it was a brilliant take on all the idiots who quit in games they are losing, but subsequent posts confirmed he was only an idiot and this was a real post...
guncrazy56 Obsessed
Posts: 1,269
Registered: 08-17-2007
03-09-2010 11:55 PM
Message 5 of 15 (442 Views) 0 I usually quit when im losing online and offline. I spent $60 to win not get cheesed. Im sorry when i hit a guess pitch fastball down the middle and pop it up to the catcher I call that cheating. No major league player would ever do that. So heres a fair warning, if i play you and im losing I WILL QUIT. And to me the game doesnt count. I will call the game devs and demand my record be reset. I think im going to turn my slider all the way up and turn the cpu all the way down so I can win every game. I should have gotten 2K10. Sony fails yet again.
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