MLB The Show 16 Review

As we take in the Opening Week festivities, lets take a look at Sony’s newest edition of their Major League Baseball game MLB The Show 16. The Show went with reigning MLB MVP Josh Donaldson as their cover athlete for this years edition of the game, offering three versions of the game for purchase.

• MLB The Show 16 ($49.99) – Includes the game itself only.
• MLB The Show 16: MVP Edition ($59.99) – Includes 5,000 Stubs, 1 Sponsor Pack, 10 Standard Packs, 31 PS4 Avatars, and 1 Opening Day Pack. Content valued at $76 Dollars.
• MLB The Show 16: Digital Deluxe Edition ($99.99) – (Digital Download ONLY) Includes 11,000 Stubs, 1 Sponsor Pack, 20 Standard Packs, 31 PS4 Avatars, 3 Opening Day Packs. Content valued at $131 Dollars.

Personally, I went with the MVP Edition at $59.99 being that at just an extra $10 dollars I received a good amount of free content. I primary play Franchise Mode, but for players that play a lot of Road to the Show, and Diamond Dynasty the Digital Deluxe Edition would be a solid investment, worth the steep $99.99 retail price.

The basics such as Play Now (Including traditional play now, as well as “Daily Rosters” allowing you to play games scheduled for today’s date in Major League Baseball), Franchise Mode, Diamond Dynasty, and Road to the Show are back. The Show also features a new mode call “Conquest Mode”, as well as the “Battle Royale” addition to Diamond Dynasty.

Battle Royale is an online tournament that pits gamers against other players using their Diamond Dynasty roster.

Conquest Mode is a single player online mode, in which you take you Diamond Dynasty team to the field in an effort to win over regions of fan bases, defending those already acquired, and ultimately owning all of the fans across the nation.

Franchise mode got a lot of love this year, seeing improvements to trade logic, scouting, and free agency decision making. The Show developers added player morale into the game, giving players categories such as contract, role on the team, proximity to home, coaching quality, personal performance, etc. The more categories that are met with positive results by the player, the better effect the morale will have on the players attributes. Obviously in turn, the more categories that are not met with positive reception by the player, the worse effect the morale will have on the players attributes.

The morale system comes into play when building a team because you can’t throw money around and snag a bunch of superstar players, because you only have so many roles, and spots in the batting order that will satisfy their morale as being a star player.  If you fail to properly build your team, you will end up with expensive players taking hits to their attributes due to low morale. It’s a nicely complex addition to the mode that was lacking some necessary complexity to add to the depth of being a baseball GM.

The real to life 20/80 scouting system plays a big role in the revamped Road to the Show mode, as it serves as the scale in which your player is scouted by as you take your player through the newly added Bowman Scout Day. In the Bowman Scout Day, you take batting, and fielding practice while scouts increase or decrease your draft stock based on your performance. Another excellent addition to RTTS is the ability to play an entire series without returning to the main menu, eliminating load times in between games, and making the experience more user friendly.

The developers added the “Showtime” feature to the game, used in RTTS a player can slow down play at crucial moments to make plays by hitting buttons in slow mode. I am not a fan of it, it feels forced and unnecessary for the most part. I’m sure The Show development team will either revamp it for next year, or scrap it entirely.

Overall the game is excellent, the San Diego Studio developers hit this one out of the park by adding necessary depth to their existing game modes, as well as a few new modes to the game. The game is smooth, and beautiful as usual, and will entrance baseball gamers all summer long with ease.