Re: why did you make the jump to the show?
It's fitting that my post follows Knight's, as he (or she? I don't want to assume here) is one of my reasons for finally making the jump. If anybody else posts during my little essay here, I'm going to be mad!
I've never been a diehard baseball video game guy, just the occasional game among the classics growing up (Tone LaRussa's Ultimate Baseball on PC, some really random game where you could hit the ball out of a space ballpark on NES) until I went to college. First, it was Microsoft Baseball 2000 (I didn't research, it had Nomar on the cover, sold!). That series died (probably a good thing), so I went without for a couple of years, until High Heat came out. That was my first experience with mods, and it was a great experience for me. Once High Heat died, it was MVP 05 for me. I couldn't not buy a baseball game after my Red Sox finally won it all, naturally.
So, I loved MVP 05, and I even bought MVP NCAA 2006. Once MVP lost MLB, and then half-assed MVP NCAA, I gave up altogether on baseball video games. I would fire up MVP NCAA when I got a baseball video game craving, as the shorter season made it more palatable to me in my working years.
I guess you could say that my jump has been a 3-step process.
The first step was my purchase of a PS3. I bought it mostly because I had a PS2 as my only gaming console, and I wanted to still be able to play my old games like the MVP games. The Blu-Ray player was a pleasant bonus that I have enjoyed greatly, and the NCAA Football series has been great, but backwards compatibility was a big deal.
The second step was MLB Network. Specifically, Ken Burns' Baseball (or Ken Burns's Baseball, according to the network) and the first few innings, with all of the classic old players like Cobb, Wagner, and Walter Johnson. That made me want to go play with some HOF players, so I fired up MVP 05 again. Unfortunately, that game had so few HOFers (no Ted Williams? GFU!) that it was an ultimately unsatisfying experience, so I started researching to see what was out there for the next-gen MLB games.
The third step was this forum, and most specifically, Knight165. After coming back to my go-to forum for game comparisons (been coming here since I started seeking Owner Mode tips for MVP 05 back when it first came out), I did some surfing and came to the conclusion that MLB: The Show was the vastly superior game, particularly for Franchise mode players, which is my mode of preference when I'm not feeling nostalgic for HOFers. So, after picking the game, I went neck-deep into the forums to see if I could find any mention of HOFers in the game, or rosters dealing with HOFers. Imagine my pleasure at finding Knight's threads about all-time players for the previous years of the show...and then my disappointment that the result was one single season's all-time team, not the best players throughout the game of all time. This is in no way a slight towards Knight's magnificent work, it just wasn't what I was searching for. Still, before I gave up (I only buy two video games a year - NCAA Football and *something else*, and I could always find another #2 of some sort out there), I PMed Knight to ask if s/he knew of any rosters that might feature the best players of all time for every franchise, not just specific years. I rejoiced when told that Knight is going to do BOTH kinds of rosters this year! Thus, I now had the superior game that was going to have the features I wanted, AND the rosters that I have been seeking.
In summary, Sony, Knight deserves a little kickback for our PM conversation, because he's made you about $60...well, unless I get fired in April. The decision has been made, it's just a matter of when I get the game (which depends on my job situation and the status of the rosters).
Also, I think that if I painstakingly set every lineup on every level of my system and fill every roster slot in MVP 05 only to have the CPU auto-sort 4-5 of my A-level players into oblivion and completely screw up my MLB-AAA-AA rosters so that I have to write everything down to try to put things back together AGAIN, I may become a danger to myself, my spouse, and our kitten. So that makes the jump a little easier, too.
It's fitting that my post follows Knight's, as he (or she? I don't want to assume here) is one of my reasons for finally making the jump. If anybody else posts during my little essay here, I'm going to be mad!
I've never been a diehard baseball video game guy, just the occasional game among the classics growing up (Tone LaRussa's Ultimate Baseball on PC, some really random game where you could hit the ball out of a space ballpark on NES) until I went to college. First, it was Microsoft Baseball 2000 (I didn't research, it had Nomar on the cover, sold!). That series died (probably a good thing), so I went without for a couple of years, until High Heat came out. That was my first experience with mods, and it was a great experience for me. Once High Heat died, it was MVP 05 for me. I couldn't not buy a baseball game after my Red Sox finally won it all, naturally.
So, I loved MVP 05, and I even bought MVP NCAA 2006. Once MVP lost MLB, and then half-assed MVP NCAA, I gave up altogether on baseball video games. I would fire up MVP NCAA when I got a baseball video game craving, as the shorter season made it more palatable to me in my working years.
I guess you could say that my jump has been a 3-step process.
The first step was my purchase of a PS3. I bought it mostly because I had a PS2 as my only gaming console, and I wanted to still be able to play my old games like the MVP games. The Blu-Ray player was a pleasant bonus that I have enjoyed greatly, and the NCAA Football series has been great, but backwards compatibility was a big deal.
The second step was MLB Network. Specifically, Ken Burns' Baseball (or Ken Burns's Baseball, according to the network) and the first few innings, with all of the classic old players like Cobb, Wagner, and Walter Johnson. That made me want to go play with some HOF players, so I fired up MVP 05 again. Unfortunately, that game had so few HOFers (no Ted Williams? GFU!) that it was an ultimately unsatisfying experience, so I started researching to see what was out there for the next-gen MLB games.
The third step was this forum, and most specifically, Knight165. After coming back to my go-to forum for game comparisons (been coming here since I started seeking Owner Mode tips for MVP 05 back when it first came out), I did some surfing and came to the conclusion that MLB: The Show was the vastly superior game, particularly for Franchise mode players, which is my mode of preference when I'm not feeling nostalgic for HOFers. So, after picking the game, I went neck-deep into the forums to see if I could find any mention of HOFers in the game, or rosters dealing with HOFers. Imagine my pleasure at finding Knight's threads about all-time players for the previous years of the show...and then my disappointment that the result was one single season's all-time team, not the best players throughout the game of all time. This is in no way a slight towards Knight's magnificent work, it just wasn't what I was searching for. Still, before I gave up (I only buy two video games a year - NCAA Football and *something else*, and I could always find another #2 of some sort out there), I PMed Knight to ask if s/he knew of any rosters that might feature the best players of all time for every franchise, not just specific years. I rejoiced when told that Knight is going to do BOTH kinds of rosters this year! Thus, I now had the superior game that was going to have the features I wanted, AND the rosters that I have been seeking.
In summary, Sony, Knight deserves a little kickback for our PM conversation, because he's made you about $60...well, unless I get fired in April. The decision has been made, it's just a matter of when I get the game (which depends on my job situation and the status of the rosters).
Also, I think that if I painstakingly set every lineup on every level of my system and fill every roster slot in MVP 05 only to have the CPU auto-sort 4-5 of my A-level players into oblivion and completely screw up my MLB-AAA-AA rosters so that I have to write everything down to try to put things back together AGAIN, I may become a danger to myself, my spouse, and our kitten. So that makes the jump a little easier, too.
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