Monday, March 09, 2009

MLB 09: The Show--The Red Ring Of Arggghhh

There are times when I play a great game and one little thing drives me crazy.

Crazy!

I started a Road To The Show career in MLB 09: The Show on Tuesday. Last year, there was a slowly roating blue circle to designate your player. Fine in most games, but totally unnecessary in Road To The Show mode, because you're only controlling one player.

As an example, I'm a pitcher. I don't need a circle to find my player--he's the one on the mound.

The reason this bothered me so much is that otherwise, The Show looked just like real baseball. There were no other cues that it was a video game.

This year, I was very hopeful that we'd be given the option to turn that circle off. Well, no, but that's not the problem. No, the problem is that they've ADDED this flashing red circle around a batted ball (when you're playing as a pitcher in RTTS mode, at least).

It's the old Fox puck enhancement (which was a colossal failure), essentially, but it's in my favorite sports video game. Damn it!

So again, I have to ask the question: why make a game that looks 99% like the real thing, then add intrusive elements that can't be turned off? How can people who are so incredibly good at what they do overlook this?

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