Every year, it is a tradition of mine to purchase the new baseball games on the day they come out, and play them until my eyes hurt.

It used to be quite overwhelming when there would be 3-4 games.   This year, however, there are only two: MLB 08 The Show for PS3, and MLB 2K8 for 360 (also available for ps3).

MLB 08 The Show 

The first game I popped in was The Show.   The first thing I noticed was that you couldn’t edit the minor league rosters without going through a tricky process.   You must enter franchise mode, back out, and then you can edit the rosters.  This means you can only edit the minor leaguers names with the default rosters.  That’s fine for now, but they should patch this.

It should be noted that the player editor/create-a-player is simply insane.  It’s almost TOO detailed.  You can edit everything about a players face, from the shape of his head, to the droop of his bottom eyelid, to the markings on his mouth, to where his zits are.

Next, I set up my jukebox, and got rid of all of the dumb songs that Sony put on the disk, and selected my 8o-song rock/rap/baseball music play list to play while I navigate the menus. Then I began my first game.  Yankees vs. Mets, in Yankee Stadium.

Phil Hughes pitching for the Yankees, Johan Santana for the Mets.   The commentators went REALLY in-depth in describing both pitchers, and their work in the previous season.   Awesome.  Adds realism.

The game started as a real nail-biter.  The gameplay is incredibly smooth at 60 frames per second with great animations. The score was 0-0 into the 5th inning.   Finally, in the bottom of the 5th, Santana left a fastball over the plate and Jorge Posada hit a pop fly into the short Right Field corner in Yankee stadium and just over the leap of the right-fielder for a solo homerun.  The fans went nuts fighting over the ball as a beachball was batted around in the background.   The famous Yankee Stadium siren and bells played as Posada crossed home plate and slapped hands with the other players.  I was pumped.   It was exhilarating…but the fun was just beginning. 1-0 Yankees after 5innings.

In the 6th, Phil Hughes struck out the side, giving him 6 shutout innings, 2 hits allowed and 9 strikeouts.   In the bottom half of the 6th, I decided to warm-up Joba Chamberlain, and Matt Vascurgan, play-by-play man, says “the Big Guy, Joba Chamberlain has begun warming in the bullpen”  Ut oh!

In the top of the 7th, I struck out batter number 10 with Phil Hughes, and a cut scene played that showed fans hanging up 10 K’s on the stadium upper deck, just like in real life!  The play-by-play guys mentioned that it was 10 strikeouts, then showed a graphic with his pitch count.  I was at 103 pitches!   Wow….i’ve never seen a player get to 100 pitches in a video game before….best of all, the game was moving along quickly, still.

I decided it was time for the big-fella….and summoned Joba from the bullpen, who promptly retired the side.

In the bottom of the 7th, i picked up a few base-hits in a row, and Santana was relieved by Pedro Feleciano.  Jorge Posada was the first batter he faced and he promptly deposited his first pitch into the 2nd/3rd row down the left-field line for his second homerun of the game, a 3-run shot making it 4-0.    Cano doubled down the left field line on the next pitch, and then Melky Cabrera ripped one into the left field gap.  I was all over Pedro Feliciano.  5-0 Yankees.

In the top of the 8th, I walked 2 guys  with Joba but got out of the inning unscathed.  In MLB 08 the show, sometimes you walk people.  The umpire will screw you out of some calls and sometimes the ball will sail and you will miss by a few inches.

In the bottom of the 8th, Alex Rodriguez led off with a monstrous homerun into the left field bullpen area. 6-0 Yankees.

That was the final score.     What an exhilarating game!  Since then, I have played 4 or 5 more games and my scores have all been reasonable.  I lost a game to the Royals, proving that in 08 the Show, anything can happen.

MLB 2K8

I really want to love MLB 2K8.   I loved 2K7, especially after they released a patch mid-summer.

The good:

The stadiums are like cathedrals.  They are spacious and look fantastic.   Every nook and cranny is there.  The lighting is awesome and dynamic…they sky of a game starting at 7pm will be fairly dusky in the first inning, and very dark in the 9th inning.

Custom music is there, and it’s awesome.   I play the standard Yankee stadium songs for in-between innings at the ballpark in the bronx.  Other stadiums get city-specific music.   I set up Boston to have only Boston songs play in-between innings.

The Dodgers will have old-school West Side rap between innings.   Washington gets “Born in the USA” or “America: Fuck Yea!” in between innings, and so on and so forth…ads a lot to presentation.

Custom player walk-up music is there, too….and it is awesome, too, except that it applies to all stadiums.  So players will have their custom music in road games, which isnt true in real life.

The signature styles are AMAZING.  Almost every player has one, and the generic ones are improved so much that they look signature.

The new controls are…well…different.   The pitching mechanic you will either love or hate.  I hate it.   It’s hard but I havnt taken the tutorial yet.  Perhaps I will grow to love it.

In the  field I love throwing with the analog stick, and the fielders are very responsive…almost too responsive, as I have run by a couple of balls in the outfield.

The bat sounds are better, but dont match the bat sounds from the trailer.

My main gripe, however, is the framerate.   The game stutters on almost every play.   It will look UNBELIEVABLY smooth and beautiful for 3/4 of the play, and then like utter shit for the next 1/4 of the play and the transition….it is almost a game killer, but I am getting used to it.

Gone are fans trying to catch homeruns….in its place is a new homerun camera.  It’s not for everyone.  I like it on signature-style homeruns, like when A-Rod does his “stand at the plate and watch the ball I just hit the fuck out of with my bat up in the air” or David Ortiz does his thing, or Vladamir Guererro does his.  On those, the cam looks cool.   So do the replays…

but when Derek Jeter his a galactic homerun and throws the bat like a jackass, it doesnt look right.

I have played some close games but it still seems like 2k8 is plagued by too many homeruns.  I am going to mess with the settings when I get home and see how it plays out.  I’ll be back tonight with screenshots.

Here is the overall verdict by catagory:

Graphics:
Stadiums:  MLB 2K8
Crowd visually: MLB 08 The show
Player Models: MLB 2K8
Cloth Physics: MLB 08 The Show
Player faces: MLB 08 The Show
Lighting: MLB 08 The Show (Even though 2K8 has dynamic lighting, the show looks better)

Gameplay:
Score realism:  MLB 08 The Show
Pitchcounts/fouls:  MLB 08 The Show
controls: MLB 2k8
Computer AI: Draw–both seem to be pretty good, so far.

Audio:
Commentary: MLB 08 The Show
Crowd :   MLB 08 The Show
Stadium noise:  Draw —custom music is the only thing saving 2k8 here.

Franchise:
Depth: MLB 2K8  —GM goals, the ability to get fired, hired, etc.
Replay Value: MLB 08 The Show  …you can sim games quickly and advance deeper, faster.

Minor Leagues:  MLB 2K8  — All 90 teams, a lot of fake names for real players (look for initials…almost entire AAA and AA teams are there), and a bunch of stadiums…though the downloadable content hasnt arrived yet, as was promised.

OVERALL:

MLB the Show 08 wins because it is simply a more finished product, and plays a much better game of baseball.   The commentary is insane.  The little cut scenes and things like that are awesome.

MLB 2K8 has a ton of potential, but having to mess with sliders 800 times before I can get the game to play a non-homerun-derby 9 innings of baseball is just too much of a pain in the ass for me.