Just two days from the start of the championship, our 17 chapter of the San Diego Studios game arrives punctually on Sony consoles and after last year’s debut on the Xbox, this year it also arrives on the Nintendo Switch.
Obviously we are talking about the most realistic and faithful baseball title in the world, MLB The Show 22, officially available on all stores starting from April 5th.
It is useless to go around it: once again this year the students of the San Diego studios scored a roaring home run!
We see why now.
Start point
As soon as the game starts, we will find the player depicted on the cover as well as one of the strongest and most current of recent times to welcome us: Shohei Othani. Through an introductory video (with an almost confidential tone) Othani will show us the career, the fields and the teams in which he played by welcoming the player inside “The show”.
Last year’s veterans will receive a small gift to thank them for their loyalty from last year: on base
At the end of the video there will be a pleasant surprise for last year’s veteran players: based on the placements obtained in the last season, prizes will be received, a very interesting way to encourage the player to stay on the title; the newbies instead will have a screen where they will have to choose their favorite team (it will not be possible to avoid this step) and will then play a test game, thus going to customize for the first time the game experience between batting and throwing style: the main game mechanics.
Here, starting from this last point I want to immediately talk about one of the new game modes or “custom practice”. Although this is the classic training mode, the customization possibilities offered to the player are very interesting allowing the latter to concentrate on the actions he prefers and thus becoming familiar with the game controls, commands for which good eye-finger coordination becomes particularly important.
Road to the Show
This is the mode carriera single player in which, starting from the creation by thread and by sign of our character, we will begin our journey in the sector. It all starts with a phone call from the agent who, after a series of questions, will ask us to express role and team preferences, thus making us debut in a minor league, the perfect starting point for our career.
It will be at this point that we will find ourselves in the locker room with our teammates. This will be the control center of our career in which we will be able to find all the suitable tools: from the scoreboard with ranking, the statistics of each single team and each single player; all this will allow us to keep track of the progress of the championship, perhaps even using the blackboard to study team tactics or make line-up changes.
There is also no shortage of tools to decide the rotation of the players, so as to see the progress of all the individual players during the various games of the league. Matches and achievements will allow us to continue earning prizes with which to improve the customization of our avatar.
As in a nice RPG of all respect we will be able to “equip” our character with different objects, each with different statistics or skills that can orient us more towards one role than towards another. In this way we will be encouraged to customize our player and to orient him on one side rather than another.
The statistics, for example, are the stamina, the power to hit the ball from the right or left side, the throw and so on; the personalization also touches very “down to earth” elements such as the sponsors; the latter will reward us every time we manage to satisfy their requests.
Our career will not be all roses: there will certainly be occasions in which clips of television broadcasts, telephone calls or simple jokes will criticize (or praise) us; based on the performances obtained in the match then there will be all the relationships in the locker room to manage. Understanding what role you want to play and having to compare this with the intentions and characteristics of other players could end up creating discontent, decreasing the quality of our relationships with other players in favor of selfish behavior.
Diamond Dynasty
As we are now used to seeing in almost all current sports games, even MLB does not exempt itself from having its own “ultimate team”. Diamond Dynasty mode is exactly this kind of thing: an online mode where, by purchasing sticker packs, you can customize your team in search of the best possible formation and then go on to compete against other players’ teams. The players that we will be able to field in the team range from the most current to the legends in the history of baseball (NDR: I am very happy to know that my idol, as well as the best player in the history of sport Babe Ruth “The kid” is present and easily obtainable thanks to ad hoc challenges).
Thanks to a series of daily and weekly challenges, both online and single player, we will have the possibility to open various packages to find the players that interest us most.
MLB The Show has a large number of modes on its side, therefore offering a wide variety in terms of sife to face: events, ranked seasons, a battle royale mode or the 2v2 or 3v3 cooperative to play with friends are some of the examples present at the inside the title. All of these modes, in one way or another, have amazed in quality and structure, making them surprisingly fun to play.
Here too we will have the opportunity to customize the look of the team choosing uniforms and clothing.
On the multiplayer front, thanks to the presence of crossplay, we had no problems finding a team of opponents to face and only a few times did we notice problems due to latency. In short, we were happily surprised to see how much the mode has been further enriched and really gives a lot of game possibilities, which gives MLB The Show a great longevity.
Franchise
The Franchise mode it is the most complete you could wish for in all respects and is one of the most interesting elements of the game. This mode allows the player to control any aspect, be it managerial or practical, of a single player or an entire team.
Through this modality the possibilities of customization become even more interesting among formations, tactics, deployments, purchasing campaigns, talent scouting and so on and so forth.
The new this year is the presence of a system that tracks the performance of virtual athletes present within the game and, based on these, modify the market evaluations, sponsors and interests.
In this way, the sense of realism is increased, giving the game a development parallel to that of the real world without the need for patches and all the rest.
What a terrific stadium thanks to Next-gen
A function introduced in version 21 of the game (the Stadium Creator) has allowed the creativity of many players to vent: many stadiums have been built, both in terms of reproductions of existing structures and the creation of new stadiums. This year the feature is still present in the game but with even more detailed features.
The tools used for the construction and management of the stadium, for example, are even more intuitive (in addition to being many) and allow the customization of the stadium in every detail.
All this, on Next Gen, is brought with a very first level graphic quality: the game runs at a fixed 60 FPS, with 4K resolution, without stumbling of any kind. PS5 users will also be happy to know that the adaptive dualsense triggers and 3D tempest audio are well leveraged by the game’s features for a first-rate experience.
Much more!
The aces hidden under the sleeve in this chapter of MLB The Show are many and, as we explore the menus and items present, we can discover how deep is the degree of customization that the software house has decided to allow.
These difficulty levels, despite being numerically lower than those of the previous edition of the game, have an interesting novelty called dynamicwhich is an adaptive difficulty system that makes the challenge progressively tougher based on the improvement of our skills.
Among other contents we find the presence of a mode called “Moments”, to allow us to find the legendary cards of the players (such as that of Babe Ruth mentioned above), making us relive moments from the past of baseball directly in the player’s place and much more. .
Unfortunately, the title is only in English, a language that will certainly not allow everyone to enjoy the title and does not help a popularization process that in itself would be desirable.
Conclusions
MLB The Show 22 is all the essence of baseball. Never before has such an immersive and detailed video game been seen on the market, able to tell in the round all that the world of baseball can offer: from contractual engagements to the path to becoming a manager, with clubs in reserve, first hitters and a gradual path that unfolds in front of the player as the hours pass. The simulations of the MLB championship are flawless and the presence of co-op modes makes the overall experience even more enjoyable. Basically a high quality product that we would like to recommend to enthusiasts.
