The exhibition and single console gameplay are still as good as the PS2 version. There are lots of nuances in a baseball game and plenty are here – umpires have their own personalities and so do the players. While the players aren’t perfectly detailed, you can get a general impression of who’s batting without having to look at their jersey. Ball physics are good; you can get a feel for where the ball is headed based on contact with the bat. Loading times seem to be longer then the PS2 version and the graphics are just okay – it does not meet the expectations one might have for a PS3 game, but they are a step above a PS2 game. I think of it as a PS2 game with anti-aliasing turned on .It is not even close to the detail provided in the Japanese import Professional Baseball Spirits.
In franchise mode, you’ll see many more trades than in the PlayStation 2 version, although having David Ortiz in the rumor mill as a potential trade is rather laughable at this point in time.
The online part of the game is an unmitigated disaster as of this writing. First, every time you login, you’ll be asked to download a roster. You won’t know if this is a new roster or if this is the same roster you’ve already downloaded, which seems rather crazy. Of course that’s if you can connect; trying to login was an exercise in frustration. While that seems to have been fixed, what still is broken is the online mode. Out of multiple attempts to try an online game over eight days, I was only able to connect once and the lag was so bad that after four innings my opponent quit. The game's official message boards have over 200 messages in the support section, most of which are dealing with online problems and Sony seems to be aware of the problem but cannot replicate it. The only good news with the online is that you can download other players' slider set-ups easily.
Overall, MLB 07 The Show is a bit of a disappointment. It’s still a fun game, especially if you haven’t played the PlayStation 2 version (I still would choose it over MLB 2K7), but I expected more from this game. Given the ongoing issues, it is tough to recommend this game if you like online play – hopefully this will be fixed soon. Right now the baseball game to beat on the PS3 is Konami’s Professional Baseball Spirits 4, and even with the language barrier, it’s still a more enjoyable game.
