MVP Baseball 2005

MVP Baseball 2005 consists of 30 Major League Baseball teams and includes all licensed players within the Major League Baseball Players' Association. Barry Bonds notably does not appear in the game due to his withdrawal from the MLBPA's licensing agreement. His "replacement" is a fictional player named Jon Dowd. Dowd bears no resemblance in appearance to Bonds, but his skills mimic those of Bonds. Similarly, Kevin Millar, who was not a member of the MLBPA due to his crossing the picket line during the 1994–95 Major League Baseball strike, is also absent from the game, replaced by a fictional player named Anthony Friese. Rosters are current as of January 12, 2005, and the game includes the then-new Washington Nationals, along with their then-temporary home, RFK Stadium. New rosters could be downloaded to the Xbox and PS2 versions via their online play menus. Minor league teams from the California, Carolina, and Florida State Leagues (High A) were added to their respective teams. However, most Minor League rosters are incomplete and feature developer-created replacement players. The game also supported online play, but the servers for the Xbox and PS2 versions were shut down somewhere before August 1, 2006. ==Soundtrack==

The soundtrack for MVP Baseball 2005 includes nine songs, all by different artists. The game was the first release for four of these songs, from artists ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead, The Bravery, Hot Hot Heat, and Louis XIV. The soundtrack is widely held as one of the best in-game soundtracks of the 2000s. ==Reception==

Critical response The game received "generally favorable reviews" on all platforms except the PSP version, which received "average" reviews, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. Famitsu gave it a score of one nine, two eights, and one seven for a total of 32 out of 40. GamePro said that the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions "[retain] the Gold Glove for controls, but the competition has made up ground." GameZone gave the PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions each a score of 9.3 out of 10, with Angelina Sandoval calling the former console version "the most solid and wonderfully addictive ballgame on the PS2. With various improvements and some very neat additions to the game, there's just no denying the fact that this is the closest to baseball gaming heaven we'll come this year"; and Eduardo Zacarias saying of the latter console version, "With great modes, gorgeous graphics and near perfect controls this one will no doubt be the franchise we turn to when we want a baseball game true to the sport itself." Natalie Romano gave the GameCube version 9.2 out of 10, calling it "the deepest, most impressive ballgame that's just too addictive." Michael Lafferty gave the PC version nine out of ten, saying, "You can learn to read pitches, fine-tune the single-player controls to give you more room for error or tighten them up to make each pitch a challenge." Romano later gave the PSP version 8.3 out of 10, saying that it "might not feel like the complete package the console version offers, but it's still one of the most genuinely enjoyable and solid ballgames on the PSP." Computer Games Magazine gave the PC version three-and-a-half stars out of five, saying, "While the AI is good on the field, it's terrible in the front office." Awards The game was given an award for the best sports video game of 2005 from X-Play. It was named by GameSpot as the Best Console Game of February 2005 in Review. The PC version was a finalist for the "Best Sports Game" award at the 12th Annual PC Gamer Awards, which went to Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06. The game held the 98th spot on IGNs reader's choice top 100 games. In May 2013 the game ranked fourth on a "Best sports video games" list by ESPN. Sales By July 2006, the game had sold 1 million units and earned $29 million in the U.S. NextGen ranked it as the 55th highest-selling game launched for the PlayStation 2, Xbox or GameCube between October 2000 and July 2006 in that country. Combined sales of the MVP Baseball games released in the 2000s reached 3.5 million units. ==Legacy==

After EA lost the license to make MLB video games, EA ended support for the game. Despite this, the game's modding community continues support and releases annually updated rosters and alternative leagues (e.g. MVP Caribe, MVP Mods, etc.). The modding community has remained active even as of the 20th anniversary of the game's release. In addition to the PC modders, eBay users have sold PS2 memory cards containing updated rosters using the game's create-a-player feature which can be loaded into the PS2 version of the game. ==See also==