MLB The Show 24 – Based ball

Growing up in South America, the only sport we are extremely passionate about – one could argue that maybe it’s too much passion – is soccer, aka football, aka fútbol. Baseball, while big in some parts of South and Latin America, doesn’t hold a candle to soccer’s influence. Baseball was never an important part of my life, and the totality of my knowledge of the sport was limited to Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, and the concept of “three strikes, you’re out.”

Fast forward to the first day of booting the game on my PS5 and you have me trying to land my Power Swing in the last inning so I can eventually score a run or even snatch a couple of RBI with the help of my fast-running teammates, completely hooked to the TV. Now that’s what I call an accomplishment.

Yes, your fanbase will always purchase the next installment in your yearly sports video game franchise, but to have a newcomer come in and learn the game and the sport and dedicate countless hours to it? That’s not an easy feat, so take this review as the chronicle of someone experiencing both the franchise and the sport – at least in a more dedicated way – for the first time. Here is our review of MLB The Show 24.

Be part of baseball’s history

While not new to the series, I enjoyed playing both the second season of the Negro Leagues (the first season was featured in MLB The Show 23) as well as following the steps of Derek Jeter, the famous New York Yankees shortstop. I found it engaging due to my desire to learn a bit about the history of the sport and it wasn’t as complicated as just doing a quick match against the game’s AI.

I appreciated the production of the documentary-style videos interspersed throughout which allowed me to get to know historical figures of the sport such as Josh Gibson, Hank Aaron, and Toni Stone. Getting to know the legends of the game allowed me to better relate to what otherwise would be a completely unknown sport to me. Allowing the player to feel this connection is what I think MLB The Show 24 does very well, and I can’t wait to see what new stories we will be able to discover in the future.

However, I did feel a bit of disconnection from each episode’s in-game objectives. For example, one of the clips from Josh Gibson’s storyline talked about how he replaced an injured catcher, all the while hyping Gibson’s role as a catcher. But then your objectives are all hitting-based: tallying one XBH (Extra-base hit) and one RBI (Run batted in). They even show Josh Gibson entering the field in full catcher gear only to remove it and have you hit some balls in the very next second. I had my hopes up all for nothing, I wanted to play as a catcher, man!

What I did end up enjoying the most out of the storylines – by a small margin, though – was the Derek Jeter showcase. He might not be the most popular guy among baseball fanatics, from what I understand, but I found myself entertained by how you could experience the most important moments of his career.

You get to recreate his first hit in the majors, his first home run, and other iconic parts of his long career with the Yankees. The feeling I had when the camera slowed down after I hit a home run on my first try in episode seven was as fulfilling as things can be. You even get to do some pitching for optional rewards as well, which was…weird since Derek Jeter was never a pitcher. I guess they wanted to bring some sort of variety to the storyline.

Moreover, the design of the episode selection screens reminded me a bit of the classic Mario overworlds with branching paths and secrets to uncover such as rare Packs to open. Overall, it’s a great mode that will feel perfectly crafted for those of us who want to learn about the sport, its history, and its icons.

All the way to the majors!

My favorite activity in any sports game is feeling the thrill of investing long hours into creating the ultimate underdog team and turning it into a worldwide sensation. That’s probably why I connected with the Road to the Show mode. After my custom-made power hitter first-base two-way player was created, I was ready for baseball stardom, only to completely botch my MLB Combine performance.

Besides my lack of hitting attributes, getting to experience the ups and downs of overcoming my rookie status was fun most of the time. I do find pitching entertaining, but was better at it than batting, which helped me compensate for my poor batting performance. That is where I began experimenting with all settings like PCI, Hitting Interfaces, and even camera views to achieve an optimized baseball experience. MLB The Show 24 provides tons of customization options to aid baseball novices like me.

With a bit of manual configuration, I managed to improve my player’s rating and performance – mostly my hitting performance, to be honest – quite a bit. Eventually, though, the constant back and forth between a game and the clubhouse was quite repetitive. I was hoping to see more of the mode’s narrative moments, like calls with my agent or even meetings with my manager, just to break up some of the routine. These small narrative bits aren’t extensive, deep, or even particularly interesting. They mainly serve to move you from one stage of your career to the next.

My agent was a walking exposition dump, at first to explain the mode and then as a source of encouragement for my budding star. The team’s manager talked with me a couple of times regarding my “two-way” approach to the game to asked me if I wanted to change that. Then he called me back later to inform me that I was being transferred or, uh, traded, as they say in American sports. These scenes provide context for your ascension. You do encounter the occasional dialogue option, but they don’t affect the outcome and have no bearing on the story. You’re choosing if you want to sound nice or pedantic.

That leads me to my biggest turnoff in an otherwise fun mode: the animations. Don’t get me wrong, everything during the games looks great. I can rave for days about the hair animations. Even the crowd looks realistic, which as a FIFA fan is like discovering fire in a freezing landscape. However, seeing my character botching the simplest task like grabbing a smartphone while staying in his hotel room, thanks to his underwhelming animation and his inability to move his lips while talking to his manager whenever I was summoned to his office was as disconcerting as seeing the skin stretch over Neo’s lips when his mouth seals shut in The Matrix. All of this was extremely distracting and removed me entirely from the immersion and genuine tension I felt during each inning.

Won’t somebody please think of the user?

Now that we have touched on the stuff that didn’t click for me, let’s continue by talking about the menus. I felt like I was losing my mind trying to navigate them. Maybe it is my lack of understanding of traditional MLB The Show modes, but I would have loved for the game to explain the basics of each mode more openly instead of wanting me to take the first step. 

The color choices also didn’t help. The white of the screen in combination with the pink and greys quickly became an eyesore and left a bad first impression. I know San Diego Studio probably wanted to bring more dynamism with this design in total contrast to the overall blandness and boring nature of video game menus, but maybe take a note from EA FC or even the 2K sports games.

And talking about first impressions, why do I feel like the logos, text, and even the occasional video’s quality was a complete afterthought? The transitions felt like I was watching a very poorly upscaled 360p video. Moreover, the featured portion on the top of the main menu felt more like a PowerPoint presentation than anything else. Why wouldn’t you add a video, some animations, or something else other than a static image to breathe some life into it?

Now, I understand thanks to my experience in sports games that these types of things are secondary to the overall experience of the game, making sure that the actual gameplay happening during games alongside the graphics and the sound design is nothing short of eye and ear candy. But I know I’m not the only one who sees the lack of time investment in something as crucial as a menu system and a user interface that forgot who was it supposed to interface: the user.

The Franchise

Franchise mode was a personal letdown. I know this is a very popular mode for the fanbase. Creating your team, managing it, doing some scouting, and dreaming of winning the World Series surely sounds like a plan. However, little did I know that there isn’t even a tutorial or step-by-step guide on how each mechanic works and how to correctly manage my team.

Its saving grace is that you can automate almost every single aspect of it so you can focus on playing the games. To rookies like me, a game like this should tack some training wheels on a mode as complex as this. Instead, I was essentially told to make a team and got a swift pat on the butt, and was shoved out onto the field. Needless to say, I failed spectacularly, never to touch the mode again.

Open packs, live for the thrill

Diamond Dynasty mode took me by surprise. Especially as an anti-Ultimate Team in FIFA, a mode Diamond Dynasty shares a lot in common. I know opening mysterious RNG packs can generate an almost intoxicating thrill and low-level addiction for some, much to the chagrin of some unfortunate parents whose credit card bills will be through the roof. But I showed restraint, despite, perhaps for the ever time ever, being enraptured by the opening of an RNG pack in a sports game. Opening packs is a big part of Diamond Dynasty since you’ll use the cards to build a team with a random assortment of the greatest MLB players of all time, from current stars to Hall of Fame inductees. This is top-notch fantasy sports right here.

Not only did I find myself opening these Packs to reveal legends and rare unlockables, equipment, and perks, but trying these out while attempting to create the ultimate team with both current and past legends of the sport was oddly rewarding for me. I always hated the idea of creating a team from scratch thanks to what ostensibly amounts to the roll of the dice, but the way the game explained each step for me and how it presented its interface allowed me to create and experience a team like no other. Diamond Dynasty is one of the rare moments the MLB The Show 24 took the time to explain its nuances and because of that, I was hooked.

Conquest was a particularly fun mode that was triggering my inner Napoleonic complex. You’re set in a 2D map to spread your fandom across the entirety of the United States, opposing home teams be damned. You will move your fanbase like you would play a game of checkers or chess, spreading your influence and battling opposing teams in the hope of becoming the most popular team in the country. While you can choose to play or simulate some games, the real strategy is knowing how to move across the map, how to redistribute your fanbase to cover new grounds, and even finding the occasional hidden rewards, which in turn will strengthen your team further. It’s like Risk but with baseball.

Getting to complete Moments in Team Affinity was an achievement for me. After all, MLB The Show 24’s Moments are hitting-exclusive, which ended up helping me practice my zero level of hitting skill and allowed me to get to a passable level and even collect great rewards. Not only that, but I learned about the historical feats of legendary batters. All in all, it was a fair and fun mode that I can’t recommend enough.

Maybe I like baseball after all

As an introduction to not just a video game franchise but to an entire sport, MLB The Show 24 opened by mind to a world of fandom I know nothing about but can now say I find myself rather enjoying. That in and of itself is an enormous accomplishment.

It’s been a while since I had played any sports game at all, let alone one about a sport I barely acknowledged at any point in my life until now. And yet, every night I find it next to impossible to put down MLB The Show 24 despite having to work the next day. I am hooked — something I never thought I’d say about baseball in any form. I can see myself booting up MLB The Show 24 from time to time to work on my hitting, to work on my curveball, and maybe make some trades to assemble an unstoppable baseball juggernaut. It’s a home run, which I have learned is an American figure of speech. It means that the game is good.