Remembering some games: MVP 06

The cover art for MVP 06, which features screenshots a million times better looking than what you'll see in the game and advertising for features that don't work well at all.

You know what game was kind of awesome? MVP Baseball 2006.

Not the one with MLB players and Manny Ramirez on the cover. I mean the janky, weird, analog stick-based monstrosity EA came up with when they lost the MLB license and shifted, albeit briefly, to making college baseball games. There’s something freeing about playing a doomed franchise that surely sold next to nothing, that barely anyone has fond memories of. I picked up copies of 06 and 07 for $3 each at a local used game store best known for overpricing the hell out of games. (Want a copy of Smash Melee? Fork over $150, you loser. No, it doesn’t have a manual or a case. Fuck you.)

I have several hours into 06 now, and I still haven’t figured out the hitting mechanic. So, you pull back on the right analog stick to charge your swing like you’re playing Mario Super Sluggers, then push it forward to swing like you’re playing one of the Tiger Woods games. I’ve always been a three-click golf player and never could get the hang of the analog stick bullshit they decided every game needed around 2006. The fielding is a mess, too. The throwing is all tied to the right analog stick but sometimes, and only sometimes (!!!) the right analog stick will make you dive instead of throw the ball!

It’s probably best for EA that they stopped making MLB games after 2005. If they shipped MVP 06 with, I don’t know, Jake Peavy on the cover with this awful control scheme, they’d have been dragged into the proverbial back alley for a beating my MLB the Show 2006. If you’re curious what MLB the Show 2006 plays like, pop in any The Show game that’s released since then. Not much has changed.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the incredible soundtrack. The bands I remember best from it are Bayside and The Forecast, both of which mastered the whiny mid-2000s emo sound that makes every song sound like a mess so pining that the average Archive of Our Own reader would ask them to calm down.

Here’s the playlist made by someone else: