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Day One: Initial Impressions
Day Two: Initial Online Impressions
Day Three: Mid-Review Update

Like vanilla and chocolate, Franchise and Road to the Show are different enough to be complementary. Sure, the focus is on two entirely different ways to play, but sampled together, they make for a pretty deep and authentic experience.

Except this year, the developers threw some nuts and caramel into Road to the Show’s chocolate, while Franchise mode remains the steadfast vanilla. Hungry? Let me elaborate.

Franchise Mode

Besides new backgrounds, Franchise mode seems largely untouched. It is still the great mode that it has been for the past couple of years, complete with advanced roster options like arbitration, waivers and a Rule 5 draft. The new weather adds some unpredictability to daily games, yet for the most part, this mode should seem familiar to Show veterans.

Still, familiarity is not a bad thing, and the mode is probably one of the deepest in sports gaming. However, with that familiarity comes some nagging issues that seem to have plagued the mode for the past couple years as well.

It had been reported that the developers had tweaked the trade logic this year to make trades seem more logical. Simming through a season, I did not find anything too earth-shattering or unrealistic, which is a good sign. However, many users are reporting strange one-for-one swaps that don’t seem to make much sense. I’ll have an update about this in my final review after simulating a few more seasons.

But the biggest repeated issue is a free agency bug that hits a few years into a franchise, and this was definitely a problem last year, too. Having too many big-name players riding the virtual pine is a problem for a number of reasons, but it really destroys any sense of context or realism one tries to build while playing this mode. A patch is in the works, but it may take a while to get to our hard drives.

Once this issue is (hopefully) resolved, I fully expect to spend most of my time in the Franchise mode. Nevertheless, I do wish there were more additions because playing through multiple seasons can become a grind. Some kind of deeper and more immediate objective system, perhaps like the GM mode in the NHL series, could breathe a bit of new life into this mode.

Road to the Show

On the other side of the spectrum is Road to the Show, which has received significant attention. The mode begins by adjusting a slider system when creating your player. You define three areas of focus by sliding an indicator toward one extreme or the other. For instance, one spectrum for hitters is Power vs. Contact. You could leave the slider in the middle, or shift it towards a preferred side. This affects your objectives, training and attributes. It’s a nice way to further define your player beyond just your looks and walk-up music.

Once in the mode, the rating system for an at-bat has changed. No longer are you given arbitrary goals like take the first strike or get ahead in the count. Now, your entire at-bat is looked at and given a score. This score is dependent on the result of the at-bat, your efficiency and the current situation. It is a much more fluid and natural system than before, and it will better reward you for playing proper baseball, even if the outcome is not always ideal.

Incorporated into this mode are even more training exercises that not only help your player advance but also help you play the game better. These are available from the main menu, absent of any career goals. However, these exercises are more fun when every pitch has some bearing on your player’s development.

Finally, I mentioned load times in yesterday’s impressions article -- and overstated them a bit -- but they are still too long to make this mode something you can jump in and out of with ease.

Final Thoughts

These two modes truly serve as the waffle cone of The Show, and they are complemented by a large cherry on top: great gameplay. Again, Franchise mode is rather vanilla and could use some kind of innovation, but what is here is good in concept. The bugs need to be fixed, but the options and details are as rich as any that can be found in a console baseball game. Road to the Show has seen some positive changes, making that experience much more dynamic and true to the sport.

I plan on putting more time into these modes prior to the final review, but for now I’m getting my fill playing Road to the Show -- and anticipating the eventual complete OS minors and MLB roster.

Now, who wants ice cream?