Pre-Order MLB 15: The Show ONLINE for PlayStation 4 and receive a free team or player controller skin!
With this year’s NFL season in the books, it’s time to dust off your gloves and bats and get ready for baseball season! This year’s Major League Baseball opening day isn’t until April 6th, but you can get your excitement ramped up early with MLB: The Show ‘15 launching a week earlier on March 31st
Release Date: March 31st, 2015
Rating: E for Everyone
Console Availability: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita
Please note: The Pre-Order bonus is only valid for the PlayStation 4, and not the PS3 or PS Vita versions.
As a lifelong sports gamer, I feel as though baseball is the one major sport that is the hardest to develop a good game from. There are so many coordinating mechanics that you have to get just right, or else the whole thing falls apart. Year after year, the MLB: The Show series has improved, and has rapidly become the best game in town, outlasting its competition.
The Show tends to be the most fundamentally sound baseball game out there, combining a great presentation with well precisioned batting and field mechanics. Too often I’ve played baseball games in the past where pitching physics was so off that it was a challenge in itself just to get the ball to home plate, or batters would be swinging awkward 200 pound bats. The Show takes care of those little details to leave you with an easy and fun to play baseball experience.
This year, you’re going to see some changes to the presentation. For the first time, you’ll be able to partner in-game with licensed baseball equipment manufacturers to your franchise teams. You’ll also be able to add sponsors to your broadcast rights in General Manager Mode, and you’ll also have to balance the owners’ expectations with yours
Batting has always been my favourite part of baseball gaming, and this year, batting takes a very strategic approach. The L-Stick has new batting functionality built in, allowing you to direct and sway the type of hit you want, whether it be a pop fly, or a ground ball. If you want to pull your hit because it’s more desirable to advance your base runners, this is a possibility too.
Graphically, you’re going to see a lot of good improvements too. If you didn’t get the opportunity to watch Sony San Diego Studios’ reveal show, you probably haven’t seen some of the improvements they made to the parks and the players. Here’s a good example of Pittsburgh Pirates star Andrew McCutchen standing in the foreground of PNC Park. They say a picture’s worth a thousand words. Compare last year to these year, and the difference is almost night and day:
I’d recommend keeping dialed into Sony San Diego’s Twitch channel over the coming days, as they’re going to be revealing more and more up to release.
2015 marks the 10th edition of The Show, and to commemorate, there’s a bonus lined up for those of you who get your pre-orders in. Pre-Order MLB 15: The Show online for PlayStation 4 (again, please note that the bonus is not available for PlayStation 3 or Vita) and get a free MLB Team or Player skin courtesy of Skinit. Your pre-order must be completed online through BestBuy.ca and it must be for PlayStation 4 only. What you’ll then receive upon release is a code good for the skin of your choice through Skinit while supplies last.
Baseball may traditionally be called America’s Pastime, but we have our fair share of Canadians in the game, including recent Blue Jays signee Russell Martin, whom Sony announced would be the cover athlete for MLB 15: The Show in Canada. You can get your hands on Martin, and the rest of the 2015 Blue Jays roster a week before opening day when MLB 15: The Show releases on March 31st. Pre-Order now to receive your team or player skin.
