MLB 14: The Show is
another great baseball outing almost by default, as it returns all of the
rewarding modes along with the strong fundamental hitting, pitching, and
fielding mechanics that made this series famous. But as a returning fan, I had
a hard time getting excited about this year’s new features outside of the
obligatory roster updates. It’s got couple of winning ideas, like player-made
scenarios and cross-play support with the Vita, but with the laggy online play
and load times as long as a Red Sox-Yankees game, it feels like Sony reached
the limits of what the PS3 can handle a year or two ago.
Just as in last year’s MLB 13: The Show, the
players look and animate beautifully – including myriad little details like
end-over-end bat flips after a swing-and-miss or a second baseman’s backhanded
flip to the shortstop to initiate a double play. All of it controls well,
though, and you’ve once again got plenty of input options for each aspect of
game. In particular, I find that the Pulse Pitching introduced last year
strikes the best balance of realism and fun. But again, this is all stuff I saw
and liked last year, so it doesn’t really feel new and shiny.
On the field, Road to the Show has long been
The Show’s signature mode. In assigning your created player a single position
and playing five-minute games involving only his at-bats
and defensive plays, it’s once again a
bite-sized, consistently rewarding mode. Its compelling RPG-like experience
system rewards your good play with the chance to spend Training Points on your
avatar – in my case, hot 2B prospect Ryan McCaffrey – to improve his skills and
inch him closer to his major-league debut and, eventually, career. A new
pre-draft showcase, seemingly lifted straight from NBA 2K12 and later, gives
you the option to get drafted after playing in an amateur showcase. I was taken
with the 30th and final pick in the second round by the Cardinals, but the game
made me wait for every single one of the 29 other names to be called in the
round before it would let me proceed. I saw no way to button through this.
Fortunately, you can also bypass this entirely and simply brute-force your
player onto any team you wish.
Road to the Show is MLB’s biggest and sharpest
hook, but MLB 14 casts a few extra lines in the water this year as well.
Community Challenges let you craft and upload scenarios both realistic and
improbable for others to play, like the two-out,
bottom-of-the-ninth-in-Game-7-of-the-World-Series situation I made. It adds a
clever crowdsourced twist on a mode we’ve seen in other sports games, such as
NBA Live 14.
Meanwhile, Franchise mode has finally gone
online, though my experiences have not been good. I suffered frustrating levels
of lag and choppiness in head-to-head matchups, while load times in general –
but particularly when jumping into online modes – were long with the
recommended 10GB hard-drive install and downright eternal on the standard,
mandatory 5GB installation.
Adding Cross-Play (but sadly not Cross-Buy)
support for the Vita version of MLB 14 is an incredibly welcome feature,
particularly when modes such as Franchise can be enjoyed for dozens if not
hundreds of hours. And my other new favorite new timesaver is Quick Counts,
which drastically reduces the amount of time it takes to get through a
nine-inning game by starting every batter on both teams with a deep count (i.e.
1-2, 2-1, 3-0, or 0-2), much like the IGN softball team’s beer-league rules. I
only wish it could be toggled on or off during a game. Sadly, it must be
activated before you take the field.
Here’s the good news regarding
the PS4 version of MLB 14: The Show: it maintains complete feature parity with
the PS3 edition. Absolutely nothing is lost. But that’s the semi-bad news:
nothing – outside of a few new animations sprinkled in – is gained, either. The
key difference is in the raw visuals, which should make you happy. Where the
PS3 game recommends you play at 720p, The Show soars in 1080p on PS4. This is a
gorgeous port, no doubt. Players look fantastic – easily on-par with the
hoopsters of NBA 2K14 on PS4 – and the ballparks have been given a much-needed
refresh.
But it’s not all peanuts and
Cracker Jacks; the loading times are abysmal on the new console, and a
stuttering framerate during many non-gameplay shots drag down the otherwise
stunning broadcast-like presentation. Meanwhile, the game’s other minor
annoyances – all detailed in the rest of this review – remain. If you’ve got a
PS4, there’s no debating it: the next-gen version is the no-brainer version to
buy – but only if you’ve been holding out and don’t already have it on PS3.
THE VERDICT
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.
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