Intersting and somewhat dissapointing... From IGN XBOX Board (Editor Hilary Goldstein)
"There are a few easy reasons why there was no ESPN baseball review on Friday. For one, VC wanted us to wait until the week of release. More importantly, we just got the review build this week and I am the one now doing the review, since Aaron (who was originally going to review the game) left the Xbox site.
Now if you check previous years, you'll see that I'm one of WSB's biggest fans. I didn't want to play a lot of the preview build we had because, like the OXM demo, it was pretty shoddy. I figured, the review build must be a different experience. Well, the review build is certainly better. However, I called WSB 2K3 the best console baseball game of all time. I still believe that. Don't expect me to make that kind of declaration for ESPN Baseball. It is not the best baseball game ever made.
Because I feel that way, I want to give myself ample time to play a lot more game over this weekend before doing a review. If I'm going to pinpoint the subtle reasons why this year's Sega game is less than the previous year, it can't be done after playing only a dozen games (as was the case up to this Friday). I'm playing a lot of games this weekend so that my review can fully explain the problem areas for this year, as well as any improvements. Expect a review Monday or Tuesday.
Two reasons Fight Night and MVP were Friday reviews. First, EA gave us exclusive online review rights for Friday for both these games, and as stated earlier, VC wanted us to wait until Monday. Secondly, we had near-final builds of Fight Night and MVP for almost a month prior to the review. Jeremy has had a lot of time to play Fight Night and I was able to play some 70 games of MVP before I hit my Friday review. Because I only received review code for ESPN Baseball a few days ago, I haven't had that kind of time. And baseball games take time to review, especially if you're gonna have to tell a bunch of hardcore fans that the game isn't what it was the year before.
To be honest, I actually doubted myself going into the weekend. I thought maybe I didn't enjoy ESPN Baseball as much because I really bought into MVP this year. But today I did a test and played three innings of ESPN Baseball and then three innings of WSB 2K3. The differences are so obvious even my girlfriend could point out multiple flaws.
As for coverage, there are a couple of reasons why IGN hasn't done much with ESPN Baseball this year. For one, the preview code was not particularly great, so it was hard to get enthused to do extra features. But, honestly, the main new additions (first-person and duel) are pretty shoddy, as you've probably read in some magazine reviews. Doing features on bad aspects of a game doesn't really make much sense. And unlike MVP, it just wasn't as easy to point out any big gameplay improvements. Yes, there are some, but none of them are particularly outstanding. Also, EA gave us a lot of stuff for MVP, like giving us info on how the batting had been updated and such. VC hasn't been nearly as giving on baseball this year. They mainly deal with Jon, who runs the sports channel, but if they gave him anything, it would go up on his site.
I'm not trying to say that ESPN Baseball is bad this year, but it's not as good as last year. The only thing I've really enjoyed so far is the new GM Mode, which is a more advanced form of Franchise Mode. I'll keep playing through the weekend, but I'm not gonna rush the review just because we had a Friday review for MVP. We also had an early review of ASB and I think MLB for PS2.
The fact that EA is not yet on Xbox Live is as much a fault of Microsoft as EA. They are not lazy about it, they are not in love with Sony, they just want to make money. So does MS. They'll figure out a solution at some point, but it's like two rams butting heads. It's not like one ram is more responsible for the situation than the other.
"There are a few easy reasons why there was no ESPN baseball review on Friday. For one, VC wanted us to wait until the week of release. More importantly, we just got the review build this week and I am the one now doing the review, since Aaron (who was originally going to review the game) left the Xbox site.
Now if you check previous years, you'll see that I'm one of WSB's biggest fans. I didn't want to play a lot of the preview build we had because, like the OXM demo, it was pretty shoddy. I figured, the review build must be a different experience. Well, the review build is certainly better. However, I called WSB 2K3 the best console baseball game of all time. I still believe that. Don't expect me to make that kind of declaration for ESPN Baseball. It is not the best baseball game ever made.
Because I feel that way, I want to give myself ample time to play a lot more game over this weekend before doing a review. If I'm going to pinpoint the subtle reasons why this year's Sega game is less than the previous year, it can't be done after playing only a dozen games (as was the case up to this Friday). I'm playing a lot of games this weekend so that my review can fully explain the problem areas for this year, as well as any improvements. Expect a review Monday or Tuesday.
Two reasons Fight Night and MVP were Friday reviews. First, EA gave us exclusive online review rights for Friday for both these games, and as stated earlier, VC wanted us to wait until Monday. Secondly, we had near-final builds of Fight Night and MVP for almost a month prior to the review. Jeremy has had a lot of time to play Fight Night and I was able to play some 70 games of MVP before I hit my Friday review. Because I only received review code for ESPN Baseball a few days ago, I haven't had that kind of time. And baseball games take time to review, especially if you're gonna have to tell a bunch of hardcore fans that the game isn't what it was the year before.
To be honest, I actually doubted myself going into the weekend. I thought maybe I didn't enjoy ESPN Baseball as much because I really bought into MVP this year. But today I did a test and played three innings of ESPN Baseball and then three innings of WSB 2K3. The differences are so obvious even my girlfriend could point out multiple flaws.
As for coverage, there are a couple of reasons why IGN hasn't done much with ESPN Baseball this year. For one, the preview code was not particularly great, so it was hard to get enthused to do extra features. But, honestly, the main new additions (first-person and duel) are pretty shoddy, as you've probably read in some magazine reviews. Doing features on bad aspects of a game doesn't really make much sense. And unlike MVP, it just wasn't as easy to point out any big gameplay improvements. Yes, there are some, but none of them are particularly outstanding. Also, EA gave us a lot of stuff for MVP, like giving us info on how the batting had been updated and such. VC hasn't been nearly as giving on baseball this year. They mainly deal with Jon, who runs the sports channel, but if they gave him anything, it would go up on his site.
I'm not trying to say that ESPN Baseball is bad this year, but it's not as good as last year. The only thing I've really enjoyed so far is the new GM Mode, which is a more advanced form of Franchise Mode. I'll keep playing through the weekend, but I'm not gonna rush the review just because we had a Friday review for MVP. We also had an early review of ASB and I think MLB for PS2.
The fact that EA is not yet on Xbox Live is as much a fault of Microsoft as EA. They are not lazy about it, they are not in love with Sony, they just want to make money. So does MS. They'll figure out a solution at some point, but it's like two rams butting heads. It's not like one ram is more responsible for the situation than the other.
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