MLB The Show - My Love Letter - jaredsmith83's Blog

jaredsmith83's Blog

MLB The Show - My Love Letter

Posted on March 31, 2016 at 11:22 AM.

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Another season of baseball has fired up, at least in digital form, as the annual release of MLB The Show has come. As of Tuesday, baseball fans could step out onto the virtual grass of their favorite team's stadium with the boys of summer and compete for baseball dominance. For the 11th consecutive year, Sony has released another stellar entry into its MLB The Show series, improving on features from previous years, while introducing several new options to keep us occupied. As we knock the dirt out of our cleats, I'll take you on a little trip back into time and talk about why this has become my favorite gaming franchise of all time. Take note, that, this could get long winded if you're not much on reading long posts.

I jumped on MLB The Show 06 rather quickly. I had picked up the MVP Baseball game, which was the successor to the Triple Play series by EA Sports. That game really changed the way baseball felt on a console. However, there was something fresh with MLB The Show. The Show mode itself was what I had been dreaming off from a sports game for years. Especially with my love of baseball. I now had the ability to make myself a professional baseball player and live out that dream of being in the majors. I played it to the point that my PS2, which was on its last legs at that point, gave out and died on me. It was a sad day. I remember being somewhere around 2025 or so, signing this giant free agent contract with the Yankees. Hey, they offered. Why not, right? But that game, and that mode specifically, filled a missing void in my gaming experience. On top of that, the game looked great and had the little details that were missing in many sports experiences.

Once the PS2 died, I ended up missing out on the 2007 version. To this date, that's still the only game I missed in the entire series. I picked up a PS3 in time for the 2008 game and that one threw me back in my chair. The graphical enhancements and hardware capabilities made this game look, play and sound even better. But then, with the 2009 version, came a revolution. The game felt more alive than ever. As is the case with most first generation games on a new console, there are bugs and hiccups that make the game seem a bit lacking. Often times, porting games from the current gen to the next gen comes with unintended oddities. 2009 erased all that and beefed up the game. It had a new version of the Road to the Show, and just felt better and more polished. 2010 improved upon that! The thing I remember about 2010 was pre-ordering it so that I could get the classic stadiums, one of which being the old Sportsman's Park in St. Louis and the other being the hallowed Polo Grounds, one of the most iconic early stadiums.

I think by the time 2011 came out, people were still so enthralled by 2010 that they didn't give it the proper love that it deserved. It still managed to take the formula that was there, make adjustments and enhancements and continue with its progression. I think with it having Joe Mauer on the cover for a second season hurt it in terms of marketing. However, I bought it happily and played it for a year as I had previous entries. 2011 did disappoint me a little bit in the fact that they replaced Rex Hudler with Eric Karros and in the process, not recording the audio in a way that matched Vasgergian and Campbell, resulting in commentary sounding off. 2012 was the first year to not support PS2, but nothing overly memorable stood out in terms of upgrades and changes. 2013 brought in a playoff atmosphere for the playoff games in franchise and RTTS mode, as well as Steve Lyons replacing Dave Campbell in commentary.

Once the PS4 came along, big things were in store and I was beyond hyped. I was a two system person with the 360 and PS3 but decided on just the PS4 with the upcoming system generation. That decision was based solely on The Show. And it did not disappoint, either. The game looked like they did more than just port it over. So many new textures and capabilities came forth with the PS4. However, one big game changer for me came the following year. Year to year saves. Holy crap! This was great! Previously, I had to sim a lot to get more than a couple years into RTTS. Same with Franchise. Now, I'm able to pick up right where I left off the year before! This is great! I ultimately put more time into Franchise mode than ever before and began to immerse myself in it as I knew that, even if I did want to play more RTTS, that I wouldn't be losing any progress from the franchise mode. I ended up having a RTTS First Baseman play until 2036, setting the single season and career home run and rbi records along the way! That was very fun to do.

And here we are, with another season upon us. The first thing I noticed were that the sounds in the game sounded more crisp and natural. The crack of the bat sounded different for every hit. The fish eye hitting came is still a love/hate. I really do love how it makes the stadium stand out, that wide eye view puts a lot in your eye. But I'm having trouble picking up some of the pitch locations with how its centered. I've gone back to the The Show 15 camera for the time being, but I may do a batting practice to see how I can figure it out. Another issue I've had is a small bit of framerate hopping at times, but its really only happened in RTTS mode. My franchise games flowed well, especially once I got my cameras all lined out. That aside, those have been my only real knocks on the game. It feels so comfortable, so familiar and just...right. I transferred my 15 saves over and even got a couple new ones started to kill time until the OS roster edits come down. Then, I'll get serious. Until then, its like getting together with that buddy that you don't get to see all that regularly, but when you meet up, its like you never missed a beat. Things may not be exactly like they were, but they're still all the same at the same time. I plan on supporting this franchise until they decide to ride off into the sunset, which, I hope never happens. As far as I'm concerned, it will always be #1 in my book.