I was really hoping this wasn’t going to be a typical sports game review – like, really hoping.
I’m not one for sports games. They just don’t tickle my fancy [No one is allowed to have fancies tickled – Ed]. I think the most joy I’ve ever gotten out of a sports game was scoring a try in Rugby ‘06 against my mate who was just too good at it. I screamed “woooooooooooooooooo” for the whole 15 seconds it took my character to run from my end of the field to beneath his poles. I was very, very hyped up on sugar. My brother was attempting to do a wheelie in a wheelchair, he fell over and knocked his head on a vacuum cleaner. It was a wild night for a bunch of 14 year olds.
I can’t see myself having any sort of ‘wild night’ experiences with MLB: The Show ‘23. There’s nothing wild about it.
I get that to enjoy a sport and, in the same vein, the game that it represents, you need to understand the sport itself and the rules. I know how baseball works, I played a bit of it as a young’en. I thought to myself, “Hey, you know what, this could be a cool game, smashing some home runs, whipping a couple of fastballs past the batters. I could get into this.”. And so I tried. I booted up the game and the intro video is actually quite cool; it explains how Baseball “invented” Jazz. Yes, Jazz the music genre. Ok, well, actually, an alcoholic baseball pitcher invented the word Jazz, but still, without him, we would probably call the genre Wabble or something less jazzy. Once the intro is done, though, the game loses all that jazzy pizazz.
One thing sports games have that I really love the idea of is the zero-to-hero story modes. It gives the game an almost RPG-like feel while still sticking true to its core of being a sports game. I immediately went into story mode, man, I was about to become the best baller the world has ever known. Thrown straight into a seriously in-depth character creation I made the perfect character. I was able to design my own glove, the bat I would use, and how long the sleeves should be on my jersey! Am I a sweatpant kind of guy, or do I tuck my 3-quarters into my socks like a real pro? Once done, I got to pick the team that I would hopefully play for – The Boston Red Sox… sick. I then had to pick a play style and it gave me three options – pitcher, fielder or pitcher-fielder. It also provided some famous names of players who were either a pitcher, a fielder or a pitcher-fielder, so I picked the most recognisable name rather than a play style I thought I wanted.
Alright, I’m in: Kyle Glass, I picked this name because the game has built-in audio for names, and I had to hear them call me out in the commentary; of course I did, ready to klap some homies into the stands. Game one, let’s go!
The game started with a bit of a pitching tutorial; it explained hot and cold zones using blue and red as identifiers. Cold zones being the batters’ weak spots and hot zones being their strength, then explained the different pitches I could throw and how to aim the ball. Easy. I looked for the blue zone indicator where I thought it would be, but couldn’t really see it, then I saw a blue bar around each of my pitch types and assumed that it meant the batter was better or worse against my pitch types! Ah, this makes sense! I was wrong. Only later did I realise, that I had to literally have my face 5 cm from the TV screen to see the actual red and blue zones on the aiming box. (I also picked up that these zones get darker the better or worse the character is, if you’re bang average, it hardly shows up, it makes no sense to run a tutorial on something that doesn’t show up). Anyway, after gunning a good few balls past three batters, I managed to strike them all out without the opposing team getting a single run; nice. Now it’s my turn to bat. Oh-ho-ho, was I wrong again.
Ten. Whole. Innings.
Ten whole innings of me just picking a pitch type, aiming the ball a little and hoping the batter strikes out. It took 45 minutes. 45 minutes and all I did was press ‘x’, ‘square’ or ‘triangle’, move the left analog stick a bit and press ‘x’ again. I couldn’t believe it. I put the controller down and had a break. Funnily enough, the power dropped shortly after and, to my excitement #sarcasm, when I started the game up again, I hadn’t actually completed that first match, so I had to do it all over again. I simulated it. Perhaps that was the pitching tutorial, I thought to myself, and the next match would be the batting one. Wrong again. It was pitch after pitch after pitch. I couldn’t do it anymore. I quit the story mode and decided to just find an exhibition-type mode where I could swing a bat.
Found it! Now, we’re talking. Admittedly I just pressed ‘x’ through all the setup stages as I just wanted to hit the ball now. Game on, let’s swing! While I finally got the satisfaction of being a batter and not just a pitcher this time, it too got boring quite quickly. There is a bit of skill involved in timing the swing of your bat, but again, you just have to pick between a button on your controller and hit the ball. After smashing out some perfect hits. There was not much more enjoyment I could get out of the game. I haven’t dared to play much more than that. I would rather play Mighty Doom. [Why does this read like an insult? I want answers, meeting in my office now! – Ed]
Besides the tedious gameplay, I wasn’t able to find much else that could get me excited. The characters on the field felt a little stiff to me and as someone who hasn’t played a baseball game before, I still wasn’t 100% sure what was going on after all the tutorials. The commentary is fun, and my wife actually thought I was watching baseball before walking into the room to find me playing it, but other than that, I was just bored.
You may be reading this thinking, “Why give the sports game to a guy who doesn’t like sports games?”, well I guess it gives a different opinion on the game. Sure, if I was really into baseball, I might’ve got more out of the game. It has a score of 89% on Google, after all, but I can bet you that every one of those guys loves baseball. There’s no other reason to get MLB: The Show ‘23.