Putting out a solid sports game every year isn’t the easiest thing to do. Companies either don’t improve enough from the successful title or they try to do too much and turn a game that was once great into a disappointment. Sony’s MLB series was struggling to break through the baseball market with 2K Sports’ and EA’s titles getting all the spotlight. It wasn’t until they decided to take a couple of years off to create The Show that they became the baseball franchise for three years running. With MLB 10 The Show, Sony hopes to yet again provide the best baseball experience to gamers by introducing some new features while improving presentation, Road to The Show, and the all-important online play.

This year Sony is giving gamers what they have wanted for a long time, Home Run Derby. The Home Run Derby has been absent for many years from The Show and now returns to give gamers the full All-Star experience. The Derby will follow the current MLB format and rules. It will be included in the franchise mode and can be selected from the main menu. This might seem like a small addition but any sports gamer will tell you it is a must-have in any baseball game. Another significant addition to this year’s title is Catcher Mode. This new mode gives gamers the opportunity to call pitches and be the ultimate field general. In previous titles users had the option to call the game as the manager but never had the ability to call a particular pitch and location. More importantly this will finally give the player the option to be a catcher in Road to the Show mode. Not only will you have to work on your catchers pitch calling ability but you will also have to be able to block balls in the dirt or catch wild pitches.

As a baseball fan you can’t ask for more, I respect catchers who can call a good game! Catchers like Bengie Molina, who has helped bring back-to-back Cy Young awards to the San Francisco Giants or Yadier Molina who helped shape the solid St. Louis rotation. I have yet to see how the catcher position plays out in Road to the Show but if it’s anything like the other positions I’m sure it’s going to be a great addition to the mode.

Movie Maker is a smaller addition to this year’s title as it gives users the ability to edit and splice together up to ten replays. Last year gamers could take any play throughout the game and save the replay to the PS3’s hard drive, which could be viewed from the XMB. Movie Maker takes this a little further by adding the option to create a longer video with multiple replays. There is also an option to pause the replay and change camera angles, so much like in real life you can watch the same home run or diving catch from different angles.

30 Player Season Mode rounds out the new features for this year’s The Show. Roster control is an integral part of a Franchise Mode and now they are giving gamers the ability to control one or all 30 teams. From the start of the franchise or season the user will choose how many teams they want to control. One of the biggest reasons why gamers might want to do this is so they can emulate the real life season by going through the rosters and changing lineups, rotations, injuries or trades. In order to do this Sony had to add the ability to create 30 different player profiles which allows you to have 30 different option sets. Within the season or franchise menu you now have the option to choose what injury a player has and how long they will be out for. You can also take the player off the disabled list at any point. I’ve been waiting for a baseball game that can offer gamers the ability to upload a roster that mirrors real life from hitting streaks to slumps to injuries and trades. Although this seems like Sony is making you do all the work instead of them providing us with updates, at least there is a way to emulate the real life season in the game.

While there aren’t a ton of new features, MLB 10 The Show looks to improve on many aspects of last year’s title thus far. One of the worst parts of MLB 09 The Show was the messy online play. Almost every game had latency issues and in a baseball game, nothing could be more frustrating than lag. This year Sony once again promises that a lot of work has been put into improving online multiplayer, “the game will detect and respond better to adverse network conditions and bandwidth has been reduced to help the speed and flow of online gameplay.” While there’s no way to tell how well the game will perform online yet, luckily every year online play seems to improve upon the previous title so hopefully we’ll see some shoe-shined online sessions this year.

The series’ most popular game mode, Road To The Show, is also seeing some improvements. Game Watch is a new option that allows gamers to control how much of the game they want to see. You can choose between All Pitchers, All Fielding, Result Play and Off. Unlike last year players will now start their career in AA and will have to earn a spot during Spring Training. Much like in NHL 10 where gamers had to play for their draft position, you’ll have to perform well to get a spot on the AA team. To grade your performance two new systems have been implemented. A mistake tracking system will keep track of how the user plays the game and will be penalized for making mistakes like throwing to the wrong base, not covering the bag, etc. The next feature is called the Green Light system. This system rewards good base stealing and will penalize you when you shouldn’t be stealing. In ‘09 players could steal at any point to gain experience points even if it was the wrong time to go for a steal. Now if you continue to steal when the coach hasn’t given a green light, your playing time will diminish. Players will then have to improve their base running skills during practice in order to build the coaches confidence and once again earn a green light when you’re on base. Another addition to Road to the Show are the new fielding and pitch training modes. Fielding training modes will consist of two types of training: the user’s throwing with the new throw meter and also decision making. Pitch training will have two options; Knockout and Simulated Game. Both of the pitching modes focus on control and accuracy with goals provided for each session.

Presentation is something that MLB The Show has always excelled in and ‘09 was no different. This year’s title looks to improve on the stellar presentation by introducing Real-Time Presentations. This new presentation style gives the gamer a more realistic, “televised,” look during a game. Instead of the game simply going to a cutscene after a play, the camera will never leave the field and will allow you to watch players get back into position, move around in the dugouts or bullpen, all in real time. You’ll also see close ups on players that just made a great defensive play or follow them to the bullpen if they just hit a homerun or see a player storming back to the dugout after a strike out. Along with the new presentation style, Sony has captured more than 1,250 new animations including more than 400 personalized pitcher and batter animations. Stadium realism is also a key to The Show’s success and this year you will see much more activity. Transitional lighting is much more accurate this year, casting the proper shadows throughout the game. Adding to the authenticity of the stadiums are HR/splash counters, fireworks, steam, noisemakers, towels, thunder sticks, working clocks, crowds reaching over the rails, interactions between the crowd and the vendors, and finally the addition of K signs throughout the stadium. If you’re missing the team specific chants you’ll once again get the ability to record your own chants and include them in the game. In ‘09 fans got the chance to use a headset and record chants for certain players or teams. You could say anything you wanted and it would be converted to the crowd audio. This year you can assign custom audio for several team specific areas ranging from team wins, home runs, strike outs, away team errors (Nelson’s “ha ha” comes to mind), and even inning-specific music.

Though not a whole lot is going to change in terms of gameplay, the new presentation and the few new features should get MLB 09 fans something to be excited about come March. The small improvements throughout the game looks to provide a new experience for fans of the series but the biggest question is how well online multiplayer will work once the game hits store shelves. The online season modes in MLB 10 The Show can be one of the best modes in any sports game but if the latency issues continue I can’t see anyone spending time there. MLB 10 The Show is set to release on March 2^nd exclusively on the PS3, PS2 and PSP. As always keep checking back with us for more information on the upcoming title as we get closer to the release date!

       

Tags: MLB 10 The Show, Preview, ps2, PS3, PSP, sony

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 26th, 2010 at 9:46 am and is filed under Featured, PSP, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.