Game Review: MVP NCAA Baseball 2007

Each year game fans typically await the release of NCAA Football from EA Sports, but during this sporting season the fans have eagerly awaited the release of EA Sports' second MVP NCAA Baseball edition. The February 6, 2007 release date came and passed with mixed reviews of this edition in the gaming series.

Since transitioning away from the Major League Baseball editions of the game, EA Sports has developed this young game with new features such as the analog swing stick. This years 2007 edition of the game now features an additional user control analog stick that controls pitching motions. The added controls give the game a more manual feel and overall have impressed users. Beginning with the new pitching analog stick is difficult, but once the user has learned the correct motions and timing, the analog stick control becomes fun and usable. The "Rock and Fire" system of pitching controls is great overall idea for the development of the gaming software; however, the system can still use further development and refining for future editions.

ESPN announcer Mike Patrick is back to call this year's edition once again. Much of the same commentary from the previous version of the game in 2006 has returned for this year's copy. However, even though much of the game calls are the same Mike Patrick continues to make the intra-game play fun. Also, other in-game aspects have been updated for the better. The stadiums overall have slightly better graphics than previously and several more stadiums have been added. Much the same way, the school spirit factor has ever so slightly increased with fight songs and such.

Overall, there were improvements made to refine the nature of the game and make it a more developed copy of the original 2006 version. The updates made were key updates and responded very well to the requests of the 2006 users; however, in the end the producers just didn't add enough new and exciting options warrant a significantly high overall grade for the 2007. The graphics are still poor and users are limited to the quickly outdating Playstation 2. In the future, the game would be better suited to follow the direction of the XBox 360 or the Playstation 3 with their higher definition and screen shot qualities. The overall score warranted by this year's 2007 edition of MVP NCAA Baseball 2007 is a B-. The game could have made more improvements to the screen shot quality but it failed to do so and that is what restricts it from the upper echelon rankings for this edition.