MLB 09: The Show
MLB 09: The Show was first announced on 23 December 2008 for the PlayStation 3. It was released on 3 March 2009 and falls under the sports genre with an ESRB rating of E for everyone. MLB 09: The Show is both developed and published by SCEA, Sony Computer Entertainment. MLB 09: The Show is a baseball simulation video game that belongs to the longest-running officially licensed Major League Baseball game series on the PlayStation systems. It is the fourth edition of the MLB: The Show series that features a baseball simulation. MLB 09: The Show allows players to control one or all of the players on a Major League Baseball team or some select Minor League Baseball teams for a single game, season, or franchise depending on the gameplay mode selected. Not only that, players can also create a player from scratch and control his career. Some of the uniform and stadium changes that happened between the 2008 and 2009 seasons are also accurately portrayed in the game. One of the significant improvements to MLB 09: The Show includes many new additional life-like details in the game. There are also added mascots with their signature cheers, dances and antics to get the crowd pumped up. Even the details of the players signature moves are included such as their signature walk-up swing, batting stance, eye black, and shin guard. Besides that, MLB 09: The Show also lets you hit some pitches while you are slumping in a position with the new batting practice mode. Other realistic features added to the game includes specialized music, as well as players foot and body imprints on the infield turf as players run or slide on it.
Reviews
MLB 09: The Show is said to be quite of a straight rehash of its 2008 predecessor, with the same modes of play including exhibition, franchise, rivalry, online one-off games and leagues, as well as the superb Road to the Show. However, MLB 09: The Show is a step up further from its predecessor due to some of the extras such as the intense Legend difficulty setting, salary arbitration and the waiver wire in franchise play as well as the flex scheduling and live drafts in online leagues. Not only that, even the controls are similar to that of its predecessor, with a handful of additional amenities such as the ability to quickly shift fielders on the fly and a more interactive baserunning interface.
“In this new and unfortunate baseball era of questionable records and stats due to substances, players being deposed in court and in front of Congress as well as athletes being connected to more performance enhancing scandals, it’s good to know that there’s at least one constant that baseball fans can look to: Sony’s MLB The Show series. Over the past few years, the franchise has consistently provided solid gameplay while improving the presentation of the sport with loads of additional features. The result is a game that’s highly anticipated every spring, just as spring training is for baseball fans starved for the national pastime once the World Series ends. This year’s game is no exception, as MLB 09: The Show focuses more on refining elements than radically remaking the title itself, tightening the title into another contender for sports game awards.
The Show has, once again, shown how it’s one of the best and most consistent sports franchises out there, delivering solid baseball gameplay and an even deeper set of gameplay features. While there are some updates to fielding and some enhancements to Franchise, Road to the Show and Online, some of issues cropped up within the game and kept it from becoming truly phenomenal. However, as a intermediate step towards MLB 10: The Show, this is definitely a game that baseball fans should buy.” (GameSpot, 2009)
