You can choose to pitch using the ‘golf meter’ or the traditional cursor pitch method. It’s a nice touch to see that the ‘old’ methods of playing baseball games are available and that you aren’t just stuck with the pitch meter.

In addition to the career and season modes, there’s also online play and a new King of The Diamond mode. The King of the Diamond mode is an interesting mini game, which you can also play online. You are given a specific amount of time to score as many runs as possible. Hitting certain targets will allow you to increase your time, while other targets will decrease your time. It’s a challenging and fun little game.

The online functionality is very well done. You can even download news from your favorite teams for offline viewing if you so choose. While you can play in tournaments, you can’t form your own league.

Audio is a three man booth this time around and is still very good. The banter between the three is very impressive – it seems like the audio is very fluid and doesn’t sound like a voice mail recording. From time to time, the audio can be running behind the actual gameplay, however.

Graphically the game looks pretty good, although after spending lots of time with an Xbox 360, you certainly notice a decrease in quality. Let’s just say that the game looks great by PlayStation 2 standards. Double plays really feel like double plays – diving for grounders and the physics of the ball are amazing. You can really feel what you hit from the batter/pitcher interface. A pop up ‘feels’ like a pop up—if that makes sense.

Many years, fans of baseball games ask companies to just fix what was broken last year and keep the rest as is. MLB 06 The Show for the PS2 does just that, but adds a more robust online mode and a King of the Diamond mode that is also enjoyable. Rivalry isn’t a bad idea, but feels more like a gimmick this year. In conclusion, I’m glad that we have choices like this and aren’t stuck to one game to choose from, like in football. MLB 06: The Show is well worth your time if you’re still using your PlayStation 2.