With Troy's baseball team having a ridiculously good start to the season and Spring Training now underway for Major League Baseball, it is official that baseball season is in full swing.
I just wish the weather would hurry up and get the memo.
In the meantime, you know what that means? "MLB The Show: 25" is getting closer and closer to a snoozefest release.
It's so sad, though, to see baseball fall into the same pit that every other sport has when it comes to video games: only one company can make a game, and they re-release the same slop year after year with no repercussions.
San Diego Studio has a monopoly over baseball sims with "MLB: The Show," which allows them to push out the same mediocre game every single year and have their players cough up money with each installment.
So, what's new in "MLB: The Show 25?" Well, from everything they've been advertising, not much at all. There are new fielding mechanics, such as first-person fielding (that nobody asked for and has never worked in previous games) and quick time events (that have already been in the game for years).
They've also introduced 'ambush hitting,' which, from my understanding, will let batters guess the location of a pitch and resize the PCI based on how accurate their guess was. It's supposed to even things out for the batter and make pitchers strategize and mix up locations even more.
I think this is a good addition because it is nearly impossible to hit in that game against certain pitchers (I'm looking at you, Bob Gibson), and players can punish pitchers for repeatedly throwing the same overpowered pitches .
They also jumped on the college bandwagon after seeing "College Football 25" and its success, adding eight college teams to the game as a part of "Road to the Show." There’s a few things to note here.
Players have been custom-making college teams in the creator for years. Why has it taken this long for this implementation, especially if it's just reskins of the same models? Also, only eight teams? Again, it's mainly just going to be adding reskins to the same models you've been using for a decade. Why not just make the rest?
Finally, RTTS is way too long as it is. Your journey through the minor leagues will take easily 20 hours of game time. By the time you make it to the MLB, you're already sick of how boring the game is.
Maybe they do it how 2k did five years ago and your college career is shortened to like five or six games before you get drafted. In the past, you were able to attend college offscreen to gain experience points but lose a year or two of your career lifespan. I'm curious to see how they implement college and apparently high school into the game.
The last game I wanted to buy was "MLB: The Show 23," and I really enjoyed it. Seeing the lack of improvements with each new game is making me weary for the future of the franchise.
All the players ask for is for the hitting engine to be tweaked, perfect swings to never be hit for outs, graphics to be overhauled in any capacity and the use of some different voice lines for commentary. It's the classic case of a game studio not listening to their fans.
We're just going to have to see if another studio steps up to the plate.
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