MLB 14 The Show

In 2008, Major League Baseball recognized umpires weren’t enforcing the 12-second time limit between pitches. All 30 teams were warned that this hard-and-fast rule would be in full effect for the upcoming season. The reason? Game times were running longer than normal, and fans and sports writers alike balked at the idea of spending more time at the ballpark. "Clubs and fans share the common objective of seeing a game that is played as sharply and crisply as possible,” commissioner Bud Selig said in a statement at the time. “We have reminded our staff and our umpires to enforce the rule...

And those are the SportsCenter highlights. MLB 14 again offers rock-solid pitching, hitting, and fielding mechanics – and multiple choices for each one. This is, yet again, a stellar baseball simulation that’s packed with enough quality game modes to occupy and entertain me for the entire season, but there are few exciting new features, and online is currently a very laggy experience.

“MLB 14: The Show is a step forward for the franchise, but it’s a smaller step than we’ve come to expect.”

MLB 14 The Show may not be a game changer, but it doesn’t need to be. It is a great game with enough new features and ideas that it manages to stay fresh despite its problems, and fans of baseball sims will be hard-pressed to find better.

The Major League Baseball season has been in full swing for over a month. Likewise, Sony’s highly touted MLB: The Show franchise has been in PS3 owner’s hands for several weeks now. Given MLB 14: The Show for the PS4 was slated for a May 2014 release I held out bypassing the PS3 version all together. Just like many, I saw all those dazzling PS4 gameplay demos and incredible looking screenshots in the weeks leading up to the games release. There was no question I was looking forward to this next generation version of The Show more so than any of the previous MLB games in recent memory. Yup, you...

Hitting in front of the next big thing (the PS4 version) benefited the The Show on PS3 and Vita. In getting the new version game ready, the PS3 and Vita versions have seen some worthwhile updates. Having an account system and franchise carry-over feels necessary at this point. The up tempo Quick Count and Player Lock both speed up the game and add tension with situational play, like your one at bat with runners in scoring position. If you keep the new default dynamic camera view (basically third-person fielding), it just adds to feeling like you’re stepping in your teams’ cleats.

Batter up.

MLB 14 The Show is this year’s entry in the long running and highly respected baseball series from Sony’s own San Diego studio. Being a sports game, it’s to be expected that it ends up feeling a little like an iterative experience as opposed to an innovative one – but that doesn’t mean that there’s nothing good going on here.

These are petty complaints, but the fetishization of minute details has been practically the only selling point for MLB 14 on PS4, and there simply aren’t enough fulfilled here to make it a compelling experience above what the PS3 already has established. With cloud-saved Franchise and Road to the Show files transferable to future editions, baseball fans who have already begun on the PS3 can wait ‘til next year.

The biggest let down of the game is its online system. The developers stated that it was built from the ground up to fix connection problems that the series has been criticised for. Unfortunately, lag is still a huge issue and makes the game almost unplayable online. This is obviously a huge issue for a game that is based solely around perfect timing. I admire the developers for being so ambitious in the Online Franchise mode however the online infrastructure means that it just doesn’t work to its full potential.