MVP 07 NCAA Baseball: A Diamond in the Rough

MVP 07 NCAA Baseball steps up to the plate, aiming to deliver a thrilling college baseball experience. While it doesn't boast the glitz and glamour of its MLB counterparts, this installment introduces innovative gameplay mechanics that breathe new life into the aging MVP Baseball franchise. Let's delve into what makes this game a worthy contender for baseball fans.

Gameplay: A New Era of Control

The heart of MVP 07 lies in its refined gameplay, particularly the innovative "Rock and Fire" analog pitching system. This new mechanic mirrors last year’s exciting batting system. The right analog stick does for pitching what it did for swinging a golf club. Gamers throw good pitches by lining up cursors with meters and button presses. It didn't mimic the physical act of throwing a ball. Both analog sticks work in concert to control the speed, height and break of each pitch.

Rock and Fire Pitching: A Revolutionary Approach

After selecting a pitch type using the face buttons and choosing the pitch's location with the left analog stick, players initiate their delivery by pulling down on the right stick. This starts the pitching meter, and when it's in the green area, you push the analog stick forward, moving the stick slightly to the left or right based on the pitch location. Do so, and you'll be throwing darts. This intuitive system allows for precise control over pitch speed, accuracy, and movement, making each delivery feel more engaging and realistic. It sheds the monotonous precision afforded by last years classic system, one that only relied on the face buttons for accuracy, and where there was no such thing as overthrowing the ball.

The "Rock and Fire" pitching mechanic is sublime; it's easy to learn, feels great, and is so intuitive that it's mind-boggling it hasn't been in baseball games for years. Once you've used the right analog stick to throw nine innings, you'll be hard-pressed to ever go back to the old method of pitching.

One gripe that some may have with Rock and Fire is that it tips pitches in multiplayer games. The developers considered this problem, and added the ability to remove the pitching target altogether, simply by holding R2 during a wind-up.

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Load and Fire Batting: A Familiar Swing

The "Load and Fire" hitting system, introduced in the previous installment, returns, offering players swing options. The same down-up motion is required to make the hitter load and then swing, with pulling or slapping the ball governed by the angle of the upstroke. Timing is naturally critical, because hanging in a half-cocked position saps the hitters power. When the ball reaches the ideal point of contact, you fire the stick forward towards the area of the plate it will cross. Messing up that part of the equation throws the batter off balance and leads to easy outs. One detail not addressed, though, is the elevation of the pitch; high or low, the swing is the same.

This method of hitting is an accurate way of replicating the timing required to hit a baseball. There's a small learning curve, so it might be a little while before you're spraying the ball all over the field with power, but you'll be making contact in no time.

Analog Fielding and Baserunning: Completing the Package

Fielding is also performed almost exclusively with the analog sticks and right stick handles diving and throwing. You move your player with the left analog stick and throw the ball by moving the right stick in the direction of the base you want to throw to. This works reasonably well, though players will sometimes throw to the wrong base, which is a killer in close games.

Base running isn't as intuitive as the rest of the game's controls, and the paltry manual does little to explain things. But you can have the CPU run the bases for you.

Game Modes: A Variety of Options

MVP 07 features a standard number of gameplay modes: exhibition, dynasty mode, minigames, tournament, online play, coach mode, and a scenario editor.

Dynasty Mode: Building a College Baseball Empire

Like every other college sports game, MVP 07 puts you in the driver's seat of the school of your choice, and it's your job to play the games, manage your roster, and recruit new players. The Dynasty Mode is similar to Season Mode where you pick your favorite team to play as. The teams are categorized by their conferences. They did a great job by putting in 152 college teams out of 16 conferences.

The most realistic is Hot Buzz, which faces the reality that blue-chip recruits often choose the minor leagues over higher education. The basic principles havent changed; you spend recruiting points on prospects, and anyone can be landed with enough points. But now a player with buzz, which really only affects the top 25 recruits, might snub you no matter what. When youre building a marginal program with only limited resources, this adds a huge wrinkle to the process. However, the system is still overly simplistic. Other collegiate sports games successfully incorporate multiple factors: regional appeal, competing schools, personalized cajoling, or expected playing time.

Minigames: Fun and Training Combined

The minigames aren't anything revolutionary, but they are entertaining; particularly the hitting game. The minigames are fun, and like the game's in-depth training videos, they're a great tool for getting to know MVP's unique controls. The Mini-Games are made up of batting and pitching scenarios. Batting consists of classical batting and home run showdown. Rocket and Socket and Classical are what come up when you choose the pitching mini-game. The Rocket and Socket mini-game is where you play as a pitcher. As the pitcher, you must decide which pitch to use and the destination of that pitch.

Online Play: Taking the Game Global

MVP 07 NCAA Baseball has online gameplay which allows you to play with or against people around the globe. It's a chore getting online with any EA PlayStation 2 game, but once you're online and adjust to the slight bit of lag, the game plays well. The online play keeps your stats updated.

Presentation: A Mixed Bag

While MVP 07 excels in gameplay, its presentation falls short in several areas.

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Visuals: Showing its Age

There isn't a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 version of the game to make the PS2 version look dated, but MVP's visuals still look old on their own. The player models aren't bad, but there's very little difference from one player to the next. You'll see some nice animations, particularly on running catches or hard-to-reach balls, but as soon as you notice something good, something always reminds you of how poorly the MVP engine is aging. Just when you're admiring how a batter lunged for a pitch, you'll notice that you can see the third baseman's shadow right through the hitter's chest. The grass in the outfield looks nice, but most of the stadiums look terrible, with crowds and surroundings reminiscent of a first-generation PS2 sports game.

Audio: Subdued Atmosphere

Audio that seems better suited for a golf game doesn't do much to add any excitement to MVP 07. The crowds sound as if they're politely applauding a par putt by a no-name golfer--not cheering on their school against a hated rival. But the subdued atmosphere does allow you to hear player chatter during the game. Players will encourage one another and even give tips based on the situation.

Mike Patrick does the bare minimum when it comes to calling the action. He does a nice job of getting excited when there's a big play, but he doesn't muster up much energy for the rest of his play-by-play. Kyle Peterson allegedly joins Patrick in the booth, but outside of his "Ask Kyle" advice, which is just as likely to yield a long ball than it is a strikeout, he's MIA.

NCAA License: Missed Opportunities

The NCAA baseball license won't appeal to everyone, but even people who are excited by college baseball don't have as much to look forward to as they should. For starters, the list of teams that aren't included is lengthy, and it's tough to figure out why. Like in all college games, the players don't have their real names, and though there are more real stadiums this year, there still aren't that many, and most teams play in generic stadiums. How long could it possibly take to add a team when you don't have to worry about having the real players, mascots, and stadiums? There's a team and stadium editor with a fair number of options, but it would have been nice for there to have been more teams and stadiums from the outset.

Imperfections and Omissions

There are a number of problems and omissions that do not make MVP 07 for everyone. The presentation is acceptable at best and plain boring at worst. MVP 06 suffered from the same issue, and no significant enhancements appear to have been made with MVP 07. The cardboard cutouts that make up the crowd never react to big plays or appear to be especially animated in any way.

Because college players' skills aren't as refined as big leaguers' skills, you'll sometimes see them struggle to scoop up routine grounders and make basic throws. Errant throws to first base are particularly common in MVP 07. You'll generally still throw the runner out, but it's frustrating to watch your first baseman lunge toward right field every time he has to catch a throw. It's relatively easy to move your infielders around to scoop up grounders and catch pop-ups, but it's a whole other story in the outfield. Routine fly balls that are hit in the immediate vicinity of an outfielder aren't much of a problem, but anything that is hit in the gaps is trouble because it's hard to switch from one player to the other.

While subdued crowds that seem to be nursing hangovers and are more concerned with getting a tan than keeping score may be realistic, it doesn't make for a very exciting game; neither does the game's slow pace. You can choose to skip the catcher throwing the ball back to the pitcher, but this doesn't save any time because there doesn't seem to be any option to turn off or skip the incessant fiddling of batters between every pitch.

Schedule makers have sheared about ten games from the regular season, moving from a fixed 60 games to a variable number around 50. Since college baseball doesnt have the statistical magic numbers of the big leagues, seasons pass more efficiently without any noticeable penalty. Also gone are EA Trax, the mish-mosh of lively but misplaced pop/punk songs that comprised the soundtrack for 06. In their place are a muted collection of school fight songs performed by pep bands. The opening is a reverential montage of Rosenblatt Stadium, featuring a majestic horn tribute.

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