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| Out by a step. |
In addition to the exhibition single game mode, MLB 2005 provides several
other modes of play. You can also guide your team through the playoffs or an
entire season. There is also a franchise mode that is a deep simulation of
running a major league ball club. You are given a five year contract as a
general manager and as long as you can meet some basic goals for success you’ll
be given another five years. In addition to playing all of your team’s games for
each season (although you can let the PS2 simulate the results if you want to
avoid playing every game yourself), you run the team’s front office and can set
the price of tickets, upgrade your team’s training facilities, and market your
team in print and on TV. The franchise mode is pretty comprehensive and should
please all gamers outside of the most hardcore simmers.
MLB 2005 also comes with a unique career mode that lets you become a player
in the game. You can customize your player’s name, features, position, and
statistics, and if you have an EyeToy you can even snap your picture and put it
on the player’s face. You have your choice of several head types and then you
can arrange your picture onto the head model to line up the features. It won’t
create a player that’s your spitting image, but it does a pretty good job of
making your player resemble you. Once you’ve created your player you are taken
to spring training where you will play in exhibition games as you try to make
the major league roster. As you accomplish on field goals you’ll be awarded more
stat points that you can use to improve your abilities as a player. If you make
the team, then you can play through the regular season as well. The career mode
continues until you fail to make the team, are cut from the roster, or decide to
retire your player. When playing a game you control all of the players on your
team as usual except that your customized player is added to the roster which
gives you a more vested interest in your team’s performance. The career mode is
a great addition to the game and adds a far greater degree of personalization to
the game than can your standard create a player feature found in most other
games. In fact, you may well find that you spend more time with career mode than
the other game modes.
If you have a Network Adaptor you can also go online to play against other
gamers. The game will keep track of a couple dozen statistics for each online
gamer, and you can examine key stats on a potential opponent before challenging
him or her to a game. You can even create or participate in custom tournaments
against a group of online gamers. While you can play the game via a modem, you
may experience some lag during play that is not present for broadband players.
In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated:
82%. MLB 2005 is more for the casual sports gamer than the hardcore
sports sim fan, but it has a lot of nice features that will make that first
group quite happy with it.
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