T'was the night before Christmas, and man, what a sight!
The whole crew would be working, long into the night.
Yes, this was the year, they had long been awaiting
The Show was getting overhauled, there would be no debating.
You see, this was the year that everything changed
No more mashing the buttons to play this years game.
The hitting! The fielding! The throwing and pitching!
All mapped to the R-Stick? Even Knight might stop bitching!
"We gave him some rain, and the day-night progressions,
"Full phases of the moon and team-specific concessions.
"You call this game a SIM?", Knight would say with a sneer,
"The shadows are wrong for this time of the year"...
"This game is a joke, there's just too many holes"
"Like the wrong shade of yellow on the damn foul poles"
"There's just too many mistakes for this game to be good"
"I mean, the wood grain on the bats doesn't look like it should"
But Ramone he just laughed, and said, "This dude needs to Chillax"
San Diego's on the job, and this squad is stacked!
More rapid than Virgins, The Show's team they came
They whistled, and shouted, and called each others' names.
"Now Jason! Now Kolbe! Now Patrick and Chris!
Jody, and Eric, C'Mon Joel..- Let's do this!
This is the year that The Show stakes its claim
As the best console game ever... Here we come Hall of Fame!
The Mo-Cap came out, and throws, slides and swings
Were all captured in real time, with a few extra things
"Yeah, it took a few years", said Ramone with a frown,
"To convey to the art team that shoulders ought to be round
"And arms when they swing, man, they need to have flow
"You can't swing a bat smoothly when you don't have elbows!..
So with anatomy models the team did assemble
New animations and movements- like real-life they resembled!
The crew they were rolling, just cranking along
When Kolbe shouted out, "Guys, there's still something wrong"
For years, our core gameplay has been just hitting buttons
"Is there a better solution? Cause man, I got nothin'
"Then Jason spoke up and said, "You know, I've been thinking"
(He does that sometimes, when he hasn't been drinking)
"What would happen if maybe, we came up with some trick
Where instead of pressing buttons, we could just use the stick"?
"We could pitch it, and throw it, and fire the ball
"We could use that R-Stick to take care of it all...
You would field with the Left stick and pre-load the throw
Then just push the R-Stick where you wanted it to go?
"The team they just stared at him, their mouths open wide
"Do you think we can do it?, Do we have that much time"?
Then Kolbe just smiled, with a grin ear to ear
"Well if anyone can do it, it's the team sitting right here".
Well revamp the engine, we'll start over from scratch
"We'll dump all the player models, and make a new batch
We'll add some new goodies for the SIM-playing crew
But keep all the classic stuff, for the old-timers too
It was then that it happened, with a glint in his eye
That it looked like Ramone might just start to cry
"Just think what they'll say!!", they all heard him exclaim..
"When I show up at E3, and get to pimp our new game!!"
So, to those at The Show, Merry Christmas to you,
And many thanks to the team, for everything you guys do
Just like a kid on Christmas Eve, I don't want to have to wait
'Cause my Christmas morning's not tomorrow, it comes on March the eighth!
~syf
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