Average Customer Review: ( 25 customer reviews )
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First off, the fielding. You can play with manual fielding, but you CANNOT manually dive for balls or climb the fence to rob homeruns. To me, that is flat-out pitiful. I get the feeling, they will change that for the next version. Also, as someone mentioned, the ball hardly ever goes into the fielder's glove, yet you still make the catch. Graphically, that's a downside. It really looks ridiculous when it hits their head & such. Also, many times that happens when the computer robs you of a home run. Which pisses me off as well. The fact that the computer has no problem climbing fences & robbing home runs.... not to mention diving for balls, wtf!

Also, you will not be able to stop sacrifice flies. Your throw meter doesn't come up until you have the ball in your glove. But, on double plays, you can do 'future' throws. Like before the ball gets to your turnover player, you can press which base you want him to throw to & how hard you want him to throw it, before he catches the ball. They should have installed that for sac-flies too. & also, double plays look horrible graphically, because the base runner does not disrupt the throw at all, he slides right on through your turnover player.

Now, for the people/morons who said it's impossible to hit home runs, walk, & steal bases..... They have no idea how stupid they are.

To hit a home run, simply press UP & the direction you want to hit it. If it's on all-star or pro, you will have to pick up the pitch quickly & if it's coming inside, pull it. If it's going over the outside, go opposite field. You can pull pitches on the outside, but you're less likely to hit it out. It's better to slap it opposite field. On rookie, timing is really all that matters. I hit home runs on pitches out of the zone when I played on rookie.

On all-star, the computer will throw balls much more often to try to get you to chase bad pitches. & if you can lay off those & work the count, you will get walks much more often. And, it will help you get good pitches to drive. Hey! That's like, realistic!

Stealing being difficult is semi-understandable. When I first started playing I did feet-first slides every time & stole 1 base out of like, 20 attempts, no joke. But, then I read the book & found out to press 'up' along with 'a' to do a head-first slide & now my steal rate is about 75%.... at least with my fast guys. A minor qualm I have is only being able to take 2 lead-off steps. But, that is enough. Make sure you take those 2 steps or you will not get the steal. If your player has a 70 speed or less, more than likely you won't be able to steal anyway.

I have absolutely NO qualms with the pitching. It's sick! & the first baseball game EVER MADE in my opinion where pitching is FUN & doesn't make me sick close to turning the game off.

A couple things they could add, like someone said, is better batting animations. Like, Sammy's hop, or Soriano's bat flip, etc. I remember the Triple Play series had players staring down home runs & I loved that.

2 of 3 found the following review helpful:

Loads Of FunMay 12, 2003
By Wayne A. Edwards
There were two reasons why i bought an Xbox: 1.I was tired of fooling with the computer and the computer games. Instead of spending [the money] to upgrade my computer, I bought an Xbox which is as close to computer a game console will get. 2.I wanted to buy a quality Baseball game. I am happily satisfied with my Xbox and MVP Baseball 2003.
This game is lots of fun. It has great graphics and sound. The gameplay is exciting and engaging. Best of all, no batting cursors! The batter/pitcher interface is unique and the true highlight of this game. You can control location, break and speed of your pitches. The pitching gauge lets you know how effective your pitch will be and how tired your picher is also. Batting is all about timing and location. The Franchise mode is engaging as you manage your players and your budget. My only gripes are the exclusion of features i liked in Triple Play (Showing pitch counts, bullpen warmup, homerun animations and showing pitch locations). I've rented WSB2K3,HHB 2004 and ASB2K4. I was impressed with all of the extra features in all of these games ..but they just weren't as FUN as MVP Baseball 2003.
I hope next year's has all the best additions that the other games have but still retain the exciting game play included in this game.

2 of 3 found the following review helpful:

Best baseball game avalible!!!Mar 22, 2003
By Gil Lowerre
this game is outstanding. i haven't played the other games from this year but i think this may be better than all of them. the rosters are very current, from january 23, 2003. For yankees fans they do not have matsui or contrerres, but with a great create a player option you can make them yourself. The franchise mode is great, with specific goals for what ever team you are. For instance if you are the yankees a goal is to win 1000 games in 10 years, but if your a worse team like the reds it is only 700 wins. For gameplay there is an excellent throw meter. This meter allows you to choose whether you want to throw harder and less accurate or softer and more accurate. The game is very realistic with errors and on throws from the outfield the option to cut off or let it go. Hitting is easy, its all timing. If you swing at a good pitch and time it perfectly then it's outta here. There are injuries that can affect your franchise, but you can call up real minor leaugers. When running the bases you can alwasy slide by pressing A, and if you press up and A you slide head first. There is no home run derby but instead something better. You pick any two batters and choose a distance,(1 mile, 2miles) and whoever hits the ball that total distance first wins. In that mode there are also bonuses for hitting a homer, money balls that count multiply the distance by 2, but also you lose distancee for whiffing or hitting a foul ball. Also, the music in this game is fantiastic. I love it , and MVP baseball definatly has the best of any game. The graphics are very good, maybe not the best out there but still pleasing to the eye. I love this game: 5 stars. If i could i would give it 10. My opinion: best baseball game you can buy. Buy this as fast as you can if you are a die hard baseball nut like me.

I hope this was helpful to you.

Best Baseball Game Ever!!!Jul 17, 2004

This game is really cool.
You can practically do anything that you see in a real baseball game.
I also like the pitching meter which is so easy to learn and how the controller vibrates when you are close to pitching a ball.
This is to all the people who want to try out this game: rent it first to see if the game is good then buy it right away if you do like it.

~Peace Out~

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