When I was younger, there was no shortage of sports games. These games, often games centered around the 4 major sports leagues (the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL), engendered competition among developers to make the best games they could. One such game was MLB The Show. After 2005, EA stopped making their MVP Baseball series with the MLB license, instead focusing on college baseball. And for a few years, the MLB 2K series was the dominating force among pro baseball games in terms of sales, although some would say not the best one in terms of quality. That title belonged to MLB The Show. Any attempts MLB 2K made to catch up were to its detriment, as The Show always stayed a few steps ahead. Problem was, I had an Xbox 360 and The Show was always on PlayStation. I had MLB 2K12 and that game was good, but not great. But when my brother came home with a copy of MLB The Show 14 on the PS4, I was finally introduced to the best simulation baseball game on the market. And now with the recent announcement of the series on Xbox platforms, more people can feel what I have felt for the past handful of years! Every past installment built on itself, changing what didn’t work and leaving what did work alone. I think my favorite installment from this past generation was MLB The Show 19 because that expanded upon the archetype system already found in past games, in the Road To The Show mode. I’ll say, with little doubt that Road To The Show is the best career mode in contemporary sports games. It is hands-off traditionally, and MLB The Show 21 is no exception. There are, however, little interstitial cutscenes with MLB Network personalities (such as one of my favorite players of all time, Ken Griffey Jr.) commenting on your slumps and your progress. New this year is the ability to create a 2 way player in the mold of Shohei Ohtani, the Angels standout pitcher/designated hitter/outfielder (or as ESPN’s Bomani Jones likes to refer to him, “the best kid on the little league team”). I chose not to go along with this, because I want to play every day, and pitching in the game is not my favorite thing in the world, not that it’s bad, but I would rather be hitting! Speaking of my ballplayer, it’s me!

Fun fact, this is actually a redesign of what my player used to look like. Now, courtesy of my sister, it looks a bit more like me. I am currently in the Mariners organization, at the big league level, fresh off a 50 home run, 130 RBI season in which we missed the playoffs, but the organization finally made some roster moves, actually adding players in free agency (that’s how you can tell it’s a video game) and it’s looking like we might make a run for the playoffs, I will keep you guys updated on my progress in a future post!

New to this year are ballplayer loadouts, and a perk system! The closest thing I can equate to this is creating a class in any Call of Duty game’s multiplayer mode. You start by selecting your main archetype (which determines your player’s dominant statistical categories) and then you supplement that with perks that boost your stats further. Here is my loadout as an example:

As you can see, I have The Hawk archetype on Diamond which greatly boosts my contact, power, and fielding attributes, and diamond perks to supplement and boost stats further!

Further supplementing that is equipment which also further boosts your stats. I didn’t get the call up to the majors for 2 seasons because of the overall rating requirement. One man stood in my way, JP Crawford, who had a higher overall rating. JP Crawford has been for years the only option for Seattle at Shortstop, even with 19 year old standout Noelvi Marte currently in the minor leagues, playing for Single A Modesto in real life but starting at Triple A Tacoma in The Show. As a result of this, and the fact I was absolutely lighting Triple A ON FIRE AND THEY STILL WOULDN’T CALL ME UP, JP Crawford is now on my list! What’s the list? Athletes who I hate because they aggravated me in a video game. The list includes such luminaries as Toronto Raptors guard Kyle Lowry, Miami Heat big man Bam Adebayo and Blue Jays pitcher Thomas Pannone (weird choice, but as a pitcher with less velocity he would all of a sudden turn into Greg Maddux when we faced off for no reason and I hated facing him). I eventually took his spot and there really is no sweeter feeling than to see someone undeserving of a roster spot get knocked down a peg! And I did fine in my first segment of a season. It was marked by the usual rookie slump, adjusting to major league pitching, and striking out a lot. The second season I really got it together, posting an average of over .300! In my third season, average is down in the early part of the year, but hopefully that goes up a little bit more! Again, an update is in order, later.

Diamond Dynasty, the game’s requisite card collecting and team building mode returns, with the ability to customize your team’s logos, jerseys and fill up the lineup with players new and old alike, including your custom ballplayer. I’m not much of a player of this mode, because I don’t like playing online very much, but the improvements, while incremental, are solid enough to keep the experience as fresh as possible. Ballplayer integration, especially with archetype progression, is an example of both a positive and negative change. Both because it encourages grinding, which keeps one playing, but it can become tedious, especially when you’re after one particular stat, like extra base hits. Nevertheless, since the gameplay is fun, it’s not a glaring issue!

New this year to next generation consoles only is the Stadium Creator! Creating stadiums in baseball games was a feature that was prevalent in the MVP Baseball games and then when those stopped being made, that feature kind of fell off the face of the Earth, and I say that with little exaggeration! But with the announcement of a stadium creator for next gen consoles, it marks a rousing return! Just look at this pre-built park I made!

There’s room for enough customization so you can make your dream stadium in as much or as little detail as you’d like. As someone who isn’t very in tune with making the most aesthetically pleasing stadium, the Easy mode is a godsend. I can go into Pro Mode if I want to mess around but for something quick like this, I was in and out in about 10 minutes, after adjusting the grass texture, dirt type and wall type and height, as well as the distance of the walls and foul poles!

You could use Pro Mode to go really crazy, and some people have, but for me, I created a crazy stadium when the game first came out but I haven’t since. I would need a truly zany and off the wall idea and execute that, which I haven’t so far. It’s a nice option to have, and I’m excited to see where it goes in the future!

Other than Road to the Show and Stadium Creator, nothing else earth-shattering was added. The game plays really well, as usual. San Diego Studio is a really player-friendly developer, always leaving in legacy control options when they add new ones in. That’s a big plus for me, as someone who doesn’t hit with the analog sticks or the plate coverage indicator thing and then hit using the buttons, and instead uses buttons to hit like a normal human being! And even though it hasn’t changed in years, it still controls as well as ever! The new haptic feedback of the Dualsense Controller allows for the player to feel when they get a Perfect contact on a fastball or offspeed as the ball goes 400 feet, and it is so, so satisfying! The fielding impact of the ball hitting the glove is also felt with the controller, which is yet another point to the atmospheric aspect of the overall game! The commentary by Matt Vasgersian, Dan Plesac, Mark Derosa and Heidi Watney is solid, but it’s rather stale, with recycled lines from the past games and very little in the way of new ones. Vasgersian brings his signature enthusiasm to the commentary though and provides a refreshing voice compared to the staid, respectful commentators of baseball past. I would say he’s one of the better video game commentators right now! The soundtrack has always been one of the stronger points of emphasis in MLB The Show weirdly enough. After a bit of a misstep in MLB The Show 20, 21 returns the series’ soundtrack to form with a mix of catchy rock, synthpop and hip hop tracks from the likes of the Foo Fighters, AC/DC, The Strokes, and Future Islands, just to name a few. Whomever is the music supervisor should be given a raise, because the soundtracks for these games are almost always top notch! Graphically it doesn’t look too different from the PS4 versions of previous games, with lighting differences being among the key aesthetic changes, and that is something I expect will change as San Diego Studio becomes more familiar with the next gen hardware, but it doesn’t matter so much for this year. MLB The Show 21 continues the series’ legacy of being the best sports game on the market, by not changing what isn’t broken, and offering subtle, yet important changes to the gameplay, and core game modes. So far it is the best sports game I have played this year!