➤ MLB The Show 19: the review 🎮

Although the past has accustomed us to fierce competition between different titles dedicated to the same sport, the current era instead puts us increasingly in front of very few alternatives for fans of the various disciplines, probably due to a generic reduced propensity to run. risks in times of economic instability. With a view to this genre, the MLB The Show series represents the only certainty for those who love baseball, which is also present this year thanks to the appointment with the review of MLB The Show 19 a few days before the start of the season. While the fascination of American basketball has long been consolidated also in our country together with that of football (at least on the occasion of the Super Bowl), that of baseball is a spectacle that in Spain we still struggle to appreciate properly, even if we can still count several fans of this sport. In America, the situation is completely different: baseball games manage to fill up the public, relying on an atmosphere that has been reproduced in digital form by the San Diego Studio by Sony, which for obvious reasons once again brought MLB The Show 19 exclusively to PlayStation 4. After a week spent throwing and hitting balls, here's our verdict.

The methods

Refreshing a successful sports series to make it attractive to its fan base every year is no easy task. MLB The Show 19 is no exception, for which however in terms of modalities we can count on some news, even if in the case of the more substantial ones it is mainly small changes. Among the new entries, the so-called March to October, a sort of season mode in a reduced version, focused on the outcome of some key moments scattered through the very long series of games that make up the season (there are 162 in total). This is an addition dedicated above all to those who do not have much time to invest in the game but still want to get to the bottom of the championship, but also a good way to break from any more important commitments within the same game. The situations that are proposed to us are of various types: there is for example the match where we are called to overturn an unfavorable result, or the one in which we find ourselves in the shoes of the closer to bring home the victory. Success allows us to ensure that our team can achieve positive results in simulated matches, continuing to do so until the next key moment.

Equally interesting on paper but a little less successful in terms of presentation is the mode Moments, thanks to which we can relive moments of baseball history through the protagonists who wrote them, such as the historic victory of the Chicago Cubs in 2016 or the exploits of the legendary Babe Ruth. Compared to March to October, Moments, however, appears a little less guessed, especially due to a type of presentation that is not always adequate to the historical context, which is presented to us in the case of older games through a black and white filter applied to those that instead they are modern stadiums. Then there are the methods already known, starting with Road to the Show trying to approach the fictionalized careers seen in other sports games. In this case, the choice of the developers was to enrich the budding player with new distinctive features, giving the player a greater possibility of customization both in the style of play and in the character of his character. Also included have some mini-games outside the diamond, thanks to which the experience becomes a little more varied overall. The modality, on the other hand, is practically unchanged Franchise net of some changes in the contractual management of the team, while it continues to be present Diamond Dinasty, MLB The Show's Ultimate Team that proves quite generous in terms of rewards while also leveraging microtransactions.

PlayStation 4 Trophies

The diamond of MLB The Show 19 is accompanied on our consoles by a total of twenty-three Trophies. As usual Platinum, obtainable by unlocking all the others, there are seven Gold, seven Silver and eight Bronze types. To get them all you must mainly stand out with particular performances on the pitch, to the point of making patience a virtue by completing a game without skipping any of the proposed presentations.

The gameplay

The words spent at the beginning of the previous paragraph obviously also apply to what are the dynamics of MLB The Show 19 once on the pitch. Strengthened by what is now a considerable number of years of life, the effort of San Diego Studio can in fact count on an already optimal level of cleaning, on which year after year the development team still manages to intervene by improving something. Finding a revolution in gameplay is impossible again this year, but it is equally impossible not to realize the progress made in the management of players in the defensive phase, for historically subdued baseball games compared to offensive batting. The artificial intelligence of the defenders allows them to take positions in a more realistic way, with the comfort of new animations that make their movements more fluid, although from time to time it is still possible to identify some moments of uncertainty. The ability in defense of the single player now plays a fundamental role for the possibility of positioning himself correctly to receive balls from the most complicated trajectory, without prejudice to the possibility for the player to make up for any shortcomings of the controlled defender with his own playing experience. For the rest, those familiar with the series will find the dynamics already seen a year ago waiting for them, generally refined where they needed some small intervention. It is still possible to choose between different types of pitching and serving, in order to tailor the entire game experience of MLB The Show 19 to your preferences.

Graphics and sound

From a technical point of view MLB The Show 19 appears as one of the most impactful sports titles, leading in some cases those who find themselves in front of the screen to wonder if it is a video game or reality. The glance offered by some stadiums it is absolutely remarkable, as is the level of effort spent by the developers to properly represent the sacred places where the "ball game" takes place. The presence of the aforementioned new animations helps to make everything more realistic, along with the introduction of some shots that give a more televised edge to the game action. The only nit of the graphic sector is represented by the quality of the players' faces, a bit too fluctuating in its transition from champions with perfectly recognizable features to models that could have been made in a better way. The trio of commentators made up of Matt Vasgersian, Dan Plesac and Mark DeRosa has been confirmed again for this year, enriching itself with some lines of dialogue that do not, however, make the defects detected a year ago completely disappear. A welcome addition is that of Heidi Watney on the sidelines, especially when he comes to present the matches in the March to October mode.

Comment

Digital Delivery PlayStation Store Price 59,99 € Resources4Gaming.com

8.5

Readers (3)

8.9

Your vote

Never change a winning team. As expected even before this MLB The Show 19 review, the San Diego Studio baseball game continues to build bricks on what has long been a perfectly solid build. The new modalities contribute to give breath to those that have been present for some time, even if the general feeling is that for next year we must still try to dare something more to try to move waters that have remained still for too long. However, this is the best title in circulation dedicated to this sport, to which merit must still be given for knowing how to maintain a high level of quality while being (almost) the only one in circulation.