MLB 2006 delivers exactly what fans of franchise mode want with only a few minor complaints.
The first thing I noticed when beginning my franchise was the amount of things you have to do as the GM of a team. You have the ability to have the game control whatever aspect of the franchise you want such as drafting, scouting, dealing with advertizers, setting prices, hiring and firing vendors, and much more or you can elect to do them all yourself. If you're a sicko like me then you jump at the chance to set all of the options to "manual." You must deal with tv networks for contracts, sift through advertizers for things from as small as a billboard in the stadium to the major sponsor of your team. You have total control over your stadium as well from how many vendors you have, what kind you have, to training rooms, transportation, you name it you do it. The game is intense in this aspect. I can go on and on about the franchise mode but I only get so much text to type here.
The game also offers a Career mode where you assume control over a player and you playout their career. I have not tried this yet but it sounds great and I can't wait to try it. You start out in the minors and have to work your way to the bigs.
The multiplayer aspect of this game is great. Playing your friends when they come over in a baseball game has never been as fun as this game. The guess pitch feature makes this one of the best games ever in the sports genre. The gameplay is easy enough that any of your friends who don't own it can pick it up by the 5th inning and hard enough so that you don't blow them out every game.
The only downside to MLB 2006 are few. There seems to be quite a few passed balls and wild pitches in this game more-so than you would ever see in a real MLB game. I've had players get caught trying to steal second base and get caught in a run-down only to have the secondbaseman not return the throw to first when my player makes a run back to the bag. My guy will try for second when the pitcher tosses it to second. He runs to first only to have the secondbaseman throw back to first. Then I run back towards second as the firstbasemen throws to second. When I run back to first the man on second does not throw to first. Happens 100% of the time so far. Very annoying.
The sounds are incredible. I left the game on pause while I was in the kitchen talking to someone working on my sink and it sounded like a real game was on tv.
Visualy it could have been slightly better but not much room for improvement here. Great job.
A big negative in this game is the lack of effort & thought put into the game post your first season. The broadcasters have comments about players that are specific to the prior years stats and performance which make your first season seem great. However, after that first season is over you should not hear those comments again because they are two seasons old now and make no sense. Get's real annoying.
This is a game that you could spend months and months playing in franchise mode and still get max enjoyment out of it from seeing all of your work pay off especially if you're using a smaller market team that will take some time to develop into a winner!