Is Truist Park true to life?
I figured since I had a reliable photographer available (my mom) to get several angles of the Atlanta Braves’ home park, I should compare against screenshots in-game and see if anything interesting pops out.
The replay camera in The Show doesn’t always make it easy to get a good wide angle, but I’ve done the best I can to match up angles. Let’s start with something from the first base side (right click > open image in new tab if you want to see ’em full size). The real-life photo is from 2023:
- Obviously, a lack of branding will be the main difference. I’ve griped about this before. The right field Chick-Fil-A Cow is the biggest win for The Show here on that front. I find it interesting that the Delta ad at Truist is replaced with a generic “The Show” even though Yankee Stadium has a nearly identical Delta sign that is copied faithfully in-game.
- Oh, and Cola Cola when Oracle Park has an actual licensed Coca-Cola bottle in-game.
- Looks like the foliage in the batter’s eye area has grown since The Show‘s 3D model was made. They need to fluff out those trees a little more.
- The skyline is copied pretty well to my eye. No surprise the Omni Hotel logo is left out but the model and positioning looks accurate. It’s dull-looking without the reflective glass being rendered more faithfully, but it’s hard to fault them for a detail like that outside the park.
- Noteworthy that the on-field ads (Pennington and Harrah’s Cherokee Casinos) are simply left out instead of being replaced by some generic equivalent.
The two photos above match pretty well in angle but not in time of day. Comparing a May 7pm game start screenshot against a May, just-before-7pm photograph (this time from 2024) shows the lighting and shadows are pretty identical:
Let’s go back to another 2023 picture to get a better look at deep right field:
- It’s a little hard to see in the screenshot, but the attempt to write “aTLANTa” to look like “Xfinity” on the building past right field is funny.
- There are a lot of ads along right field with no attempt at a generic replacement, around the Chop House area.
- Maaaybe my lower angle is just missing it, but it looks like there’s a bit of skyline out behind the Comcast building that’s missing in The Show. A taller, further off building.
A little auction site price comparison
For your enjoyment, a price comparison of a budget Japanese PS2 baseball game:
U.S. Mercari listing for Magical Sports Koushien 2000: $100 + $4.99 delivery:
Yahoo! Japan Auction listing for Magical Sports Koushien 2000: $0.67 + $2 Buyee fee + ~$10 shipping:
The “It’s only 2800 yen!” sticker on the front of the $100 listing one is especially ironic.
For what it’s worth, you can also just get the game on eBay for about $15.
New Encyclopedia Pages
YouTube Viewing Guide
- MVP 07 NCAA Baseball (PS2) CPU vs. CPU Gameplay – Would be really fun to have real player names in this thing. Could have had a Josh Lindblom vs. Michael Taylor match-up with Stanford vs. Tennessee. Watch this one until the end!
- Ballistic Baseball (iOS) Gameplay – While I’ve temporarily got Apple Arcade, I checked out the only baseball game available for it. This game must have had a prior life outside the Apple Arcade, because it’s still full of currencies that don’t have an obvious use at least in this quick look.
- Pawapuro GB (Game Boy) Gameplay – It’s easy to forget how bad most Game Boy games are. This one looks very similar to the Super Famicom Pawapuro games, but plays worse than Famista but better than Baseball, for me.
- MLB 2002 (PS1) CPU vs. CPU Gameplay – Vin Scully alone has made these 989 Studios games last the test of time better than you might expect.