MVP Baseball 2004 (PC)

Reviewed by PETER ELEY

Herald rating: * * * * *

Baseball is an American institution, one of those peculiar games they play just so they can get to be world champs. Okay, I know they play it in Japan, but the Japanese play rugby, too, so get the picture?

Given the status of baseball in America, you would expect that MVP Baseball would be the slickest game around. It's a relatively new title, introduced last year to replace the less-than-perfect Triple Play Baseball.

And it was a quantum leap forward, but still not up there with some of EA's best sports games, such as Madden and Tiger Woods' PGA Tour.

But a lot of fine tuning has tweaked the latest release of MVP to the point where it can join those elite titles, which is all very well if you know anything about baseball and care enough to want to play a computer simulation of this so-American game.

After all, the players might be stars in the US, but can you name, say, six? Babe Ruth, Sammy de Something and the list stopped there for me before I installed the game.

This lack of knowledge didn't stop me enjoying a first-class sports game. After all, I might not know much about baseball, but I don't know much about piloting Stealth superbombers and I still enjoy playing Generals.

MVP Baseball 2004 is a great game, and is worth playing just for that. The graphics are amazing, the action is seamless and the depth of the game is astounding, from the astounding number of clubs and players to its Hall of Fame detail.

EA Sports

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