MVP Baseball 2005

Honest and Unpopular Reviews No. 14 MVP Baseball 2005 (GameCube) Nothing released since has been better, and that includes every game The Show has put out. Barry Bonds hit career homerun number 756 nineteen years ago today, passing Hank Aaron on the all-time homerun list, and the best baseball game ever made could not legally use him in the game. In 2003 Bonds pulled out of the MLBPA group licensing deal so he could license himself instead. EA couldn't use him after that. So they made a guy up and put him in left field for the Giants with Bonds' ratings and Bonds' birthday. 99 contact, 99 power against righties. White guy, buzz cut, number 51 instead of 25, generic stance instead of that armored elbow out over the plate. They named him Jon Dowd after an assistant producer in their Vancouver office. Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow did the commentary. The actual Giants broadcasters, calling play by play on a made up left fielder standing in for their own franchise player. I spent most of 2005 playing this game. Easily my most played game on the GameCube. Hitter's Eye was the big new thing that year. The ball changed color in the pitcher's hand before he let go of it. Fastball white, breaking ball red, off-speed green, sinker pink, knuckleball orange. Nothing since has read a pitch that cleanly. Dynasty mode had real double-A and triple-A affiliates with real minor leaguers in them, and Owner mode gave you 30 years to set ticket prices and build a bare stadium into something. Your manager could come out and argue any time he wanted. Games got rained out and stuck you with a doubleheader. The soundtrack was nine songs and some of them were in here before the bands ever put them out. The Bravery, Louis XIV, Trail of Dead, The Zutons, Dropkick Murphys with "Tessie" fresh off the curse breaking. I can still hear all of them. Then Take-Two signed the exclusive MLB deal, EA lost the license, and this was the last one. College baseball for two years and that was it. Twenty one years later people are still modding the PC version with 2026 rosters. Not for nostalgia but because the mechanics are still the best to have ever come out. The Show has had twenty years, real budgets, and a licensed monopoly, and it still hasn't made hitting feel this good. Best baseball game ever made and it isn't close. Top five sports game of all time, any sport, any era, and one of the greatest overall games to come out of the 2000s. I rate this one a 5 out of 5.