The Show - A Great Game For A "Boring" Sport? - Turbojugend's Blog

Turbojugend's Blog

The Show - A Great Game For A "Boring" Sport?

Posted on May 9, 2014 at 08:06 PM.

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Now before you get excited, I do not consider baseball to be boring (although I know a few sports fans who do). What I am referring to are the implementations made by SCEA to speed up this year's version of The Show, including the shortening of cutscenes and the somewhat-debated Quick Counts option. I'm assuming these conventions are catered mainly toward people who lack either the time or the patience to work their way through an entire MLB game.

As I've been following this series, I've also been keeping up with various social media articles -- forums, blogs, podcasts, etc. Through it all there seems to be two recurring themes: (a) The Show is a fantastic game that does justice to the sport it represents, and (b) there are various -- sometimes numerous -- facets of the game that some people would rather not be bothered with. These include base-running, fielding, even playing offense or defense altogether. All of which makes me wonder whether there are people out there who enjoy certain aspects of The Show despite not truly enjoying baseball as a sport.

If that is the case, it's understandable. There's no denying that baseball has lost some of its luster over the years, overshadowed by controversy as well as the emergence of other popular sports. It could even be argued that baseball -- with its turn-based set of events -- actually makes a better video game than a spectator event these days. Smartly, The Show is tailored toward customization and letting people experience the game exactly how they want. Don't want to field the ball? Don't bother. Having said that, would a person who lacks the patience to run the bases in RttS actually be able to sit through an entire nine innings of a real game?

And then there is Quick Counts, an option that deliberately removes entire portions of the game for the sake of expediency. For the record, I think QC is a great idea, if a bit flawed (where are the early counts?). It compresses the game into more manageable portions, though not by a lot. It makes the time-consuming concept of playing through an entire 162 game schedule seem like a reachable objective. I plan on using QC quite a bit, but not because I'm bored to tears and want to blow through nine innings as quickly as possible. A full game of The Show takes considerably longer than a game of Madden or FIFA, and the fact is I have real-life obligations that sometimes require me to spend less time in front of the TV (I'm sure plenty of older gamers fall into this category). If this is the case, I'm using Quick Counts even if it saves ten minutes. But if I have the time to kill I do want the full MLB experience -- pitching, cutscenes and all.

In closing, it's great that The Show is such a multi-faceted and versatile game. It's capable of delivering an amazing experience no matter what your pace or gameplay preferences. It's great that people in a hurry can get through a game in a reasonable amount of time. By the same token, the PS4 version is absolutely beautiful, and the newer additions that bring so much ambience to the game might deserve a bit more face time.