Remembering MVP Baseball 2004 and the Infamous Left-Handed Hitter Glitch

[Steve_OS]

Long before launch angles and spin rates entered mainstream baseball discourse, there was a game that...

Written By: Chase Becotte

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[ChaseB]

Re: Remembering MVP Baseball 2004 and the Infamous Left-Handed Hitter Glitch

And yes I know there's an MVP forum, but I wanted to post this here since I dunno how many people are seeking out that forum these days, plus sure some of y'all remember this bug well too.

[Madden08PCgmr]

Re: Remembering MVP Baseball 2004 and the Infamous Left-Handed Hitter Glitch

Pretty amazing, to this day I still see people calling MVP the best baseball game. Talk about nostalgia!

The PS2-gen has completely jumped the shark (at least for me)

I spent countless hours on Madden with the PC mods.. but it just feels prehistoric now. Feel the same looking at clips of MVP

[ChaseB]

Re: Remembering MVP Baseball 2004 and the Infamous Left-Handed Hitter Glitch

Pretty amazing, to this day I still see people calling MVP the best baseball game. Talk about nostalgia!

The PS2-gen has completely jumped the shark (at least for me)

I spent countless hours on Madden with the PC mods.. but it just feels prehistoric now. Feel the same looking at clips of MVP

I will say going back and playing it for this article, it still feels pretty good, but I think we forget how much like 30 fps and even really solid animations for the time can't compare to even middling games today in terms of basic feel.

But man the soundtrack, game intro, and the vibes are still immaculate when I boot up that game even if I don't actually want to play it for that long.

[NAFBUC]

Re: Remembering MVP Baseball 2004 and the Infamous Left-Handed Hitter Glitch

Great article ChaseB! I played the heck out of MVP04.

[ChaseB]

Re: Remembering MVP Baseball 2004 and the Infamous Left-Handed Hitter Glitch

One other thing I'm spoiled by in modern times is the simulation times. It takes so long to simulate 162 games in comparison to like The Show. Do any of y'all remember who you were getting minor league rosters from at the time? Did you send the memory card away or were you on PC, or did you go to one of the peeps because you had, what was it a Max Drive to DL the rosters to PS2/Xbox? Or was it some offshoot of a Game Shark?

I remember using GeekRosters to DL rosters.

[Armor and Sword]

Re: Remembering MVP Baseball 2004 and the Infamous Left-Handed Hitter Glitch

I loved MVP 04 and then 2005 was my GOAT. I made the jump to The Show with the 2009 version which got me to purchase a PS3 and ditch my PS2 after 10 glorious fun filled years with it.

MLB 2011 finaly made me forget about MVP 2005. But man what a run I had with 2005. Thats when I finally played all 162 for 5 straight seasons with the Marlins.

Fun times.

And to this day it still had the best fielding controls and base running controls. The price you pay for these beautiful animations on The Show is less total control…..thats when I realized as early as The Show 2009 to move to auto fielding (manual throwing).

MVP College Baseball 2006 was also an all timer!!!!

[bcruise]

Re: Remembering MVP Baseball 2004 and the Infamous Left-Handed Hitter Glitch

Definitely up there with some of the strangest glitches I've ever seen in sports videogames. For the record, so was that A's bug in one of the rosters in this year's Show that caused the starter to only be able to throw eephuses. That seems like it's fixed now at least.

A quick search of the MVP forum shows that I probably hadn't migrated over here yet when that bug was a thing, but I distinctly remember lighting up MaddenMania (which was more than just a Madden forum back then) and BaseballSimCentral over that bug. It was so hard to convince people that it was actually a serious bug because many people just downplayed it into a "homer" glitch - disregarding the fact that it affected every kind of contact off the bat of lefty hitters.

[ChaseB]

Re: Remembering MVP Baseball 2004 and the Infamous Left-Handed Hitter Glitch

Definitely up there with some of the strangest glitches I've ever seen in sports videogames. For the record, so was that A's bug in one of the rosters in this year's Show that caused the starter to only be able to throw eephuses. That seems like it's fixed now at least.

A quick search of the MVP forum shows that I probably hadn't migrated over here yet when that bug was a thing, but I distinctly remember lighting up MaddenMania (which was more than just a Madden forum back then) and BaseballSimCentral over that bug. It was so hard to convince people that it was actually a serious bug because many people just downplayed it into a "homer" glitch - disregarding the fact that it affected every kind of contact off the bat of lefty hitters.

Haha yeah I def talked about it on MM as well. But what you mentioned is what I tried to explain, it was endemic but you'd get into these weird circular convos because people would just mention the homers, yeah.

[bronxbombers21325]

Re: Remembering MVP Baseball 2004 and the Infamous Left-Handed Hitter Glitch

Pretty amazing, to this day I still see people calling MVP the best baseball game. Talk about nostalgia!

The PS2-gen has completely jumped the shark (at least for me)

I spent countless hours on Madden with the PC mods.. but it just feels prehistoric now. Feel the same looking at clips of MVP

I still hear people say MVP 04 and 05 are better than The Show is today. They were good for their time, but they don't come close to holding up against todays games.

[Armor and Sword]

Re: Remembering MVP Baseball 2004 and the Infamous Left-Handed Hitter Glitch

I still hear people say MVP 04 and 05 are better than The Show is today. They were good for their time, but they don't come close to holding up against todays games.

Yeah that’s kinda crazy. But to each there own.

[jcar0725]

Re: Remembering MVP Baseball 2004 and the Infamous Left-Handed Hitter Glitch

I still hear people say MVP 04 and 05 are better than The Show is today. They were good for their time, but they don't come close to holding up against todays games.

Nostalgia maybe? I have very very fond memories of the old games, but I would never trade them in for what we have now.

Also could be the "everything that's new sucks" mentality that plagues the online community daily.

[steventonnon]

Re: Remembering MVP Baseball 2004 and the Infamous Left-Handed Hitter Glitch

I loved MVP 04 and then 2005 was my GOAT. I made the jump to The Show with the 2009 version which got me to purchase a PS3 and ditch my PS2 after 10 glorious fun filled years with it.

MLB 2011 finaly made me forget about MVP 2005. But man what a run I had with 2005. Thats when I finally played all 162 for 5 straight seasons with the Marlins.

Fun times.

Funny, my digital baseball trajectory was exactly the same. Loved MVP 04 and 05 but the baseball gods forced my hand to buy a ps3 the next year because EA stopped.

[ARMORALLL]

Re: Remembering MVP Baseball 2004 and the Infamous Left-Handed Hitter Glitch

I had a conversation with some of the devs who worked on that game when they had a reunion party at the pub I worked at. We had a laugh about the lefty glitch but talked about how great MVP 2005 turned out!

[Ghost Of The Year]

Re: Remembering MVP Baseball 2004 and the Infamous Left-Handed Hitter Glitch

The lefty glitch was another in a long line of examples EA trying to get too cute where it wasnt needed. There was no scientific data then to support lefties create more topspin and there isnt any data now to support it. I tried a few years ago to replay my PS2 sports games but I couldnt handle going back that far. But a couple weeks ago I rehooked my PS3 up and have been playing sports games from 2008 to 2013, for the rosters. Those hold up much better. I would have loved to have a EA baseball game for the PS3 like I do wish I had a EA college football game for the PS4.