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Sunday, March 30, 2008

The GameShark Top Ten: Baseball Games

"When formulating any ‘Top Ten’ list, it’s important to set the parameters. When you’re talking about PC and videogames this is particularly important. Unlike music, movies, books, and even other forms of gaming, boardgaming for example, time can be exceedingly cruel on electronic entertainment. As technology advances, many of the games of yesteryear look increasingly shallow, ugly, and even comical. This is true with baseball games, as well. Time isn’t always kind.

These selections represent more of a snapshot, a peek at what baseball gaming was like at each specific point in time. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the number one game is better, even today, than the number six game. You need to take yourself back to when these games were released and consider their impact and they’re importance on the day they hit the scene.

Finally, these lists are always going to contain some personal bias—which is part of the fun. There have been a lot of baseball games released in the past 30 years and some classics just missed our cut. Games like Baseball Stars, The World’s Greatest Baseball Game, Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball, World Series Baseball, Tony LaRussa/Old Time Baseball, right down the line. Great games all, but they just missed the Top Ten.

Special Honorable Mention: MVP Baseball 05 PC

MVP Baseball 05 is a special case that deserves mentioning before we get to the actual list. The series had a short run thanks to the exclusive licensing deal that removed EA as a player on the baseball scene. MVP Baseball 05 was the last from EA Sports, if you discount its trek into college baseball, which went over like a lead balloon."

full article here

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