MVPressive

I have to say, MVP is the most impressive baseball video game I've played in a long time. I haven't put the front office stuff to the test, but so far, the on the field gameplay rivals anything I've ever seen.

I pondered listing all of the positives, but quite honestly, I don't have that kind of time. I'm not writing 4500-word reviews any more, like I did in the golden days at Calvert Games. I'll put it this way - imagine All Star Baseball without the bugs, or Winning Eleven meets baseball, or High Heat with better control over the pitching and up-to-date graphics. The bottom line is that if you're a baseball fan, then you owe it to yourself to check out MVP, which may be the best console representation of America's pastime ever made... This is quite a potential swan song by EA.

It's ironic that EA's exclusive NFL license forces (arguably) the best football game out of the market (NFL 2K5), and Take Two's semi-exclusive MLB license is forcing the best baseball game out of the market (MVP)! More and more, I'm leaning towards just keeping my favorite version of a game for each sport, as opposed to running out and buying the latest and the greatest. In case your interested, here's my current list:

• Best football game - EA's NCAA Football 2004
• Best basketball game - Microsoft's Inside Drive 2004
• Best baseball game - EA's MVP 2005, All Star Baseball 2004, FPS Baseball '94 (slight edge to MVP)
• Best soccer game - Konami's Winning Eleven 8, Worldwide Soccer Manager (edge to WE8)
• Best boxing game - EA's Fight Night 2004 (I haven't played FN 2005 yet, but I think it will be my favorite when I get my hands on it)
• Best racing game - Codemaster's ToCA Race Driver 2 (I'm not much of a racing fan, so take that for what it's worth)