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Spring is in the air and baseball season is in full swing. You sit down at your PC wanting to scratch that itch of some virtual baseball. Before now you weren’t left with too many options on the PC platform with the main option for a modern baseball experience being on PS4. That’s where Super Mega Baseball 2 comes to the plate. This second offering from Metalhead Software Inc. in their baseball series sets the stage for some exciting baseball action, both online and offline. Does it have enough depth and playability to keep you coming back this season after season? Let us set our lineup and find out.

Gameplay

Gameplay discussion is always a little weird when you’re talking about a game imitating sports. At the end of the day the gameplay should reflect the real life sports gameplay and provide an exciting and accurate representation of the sport you’re imitating. This would be keeping in line with major rules the sports have and making sure they play out properly. I can say that Super Mega Baseball 2 checks all the boxes in regards to following all major baseball rules. You have 3 outs per half inning; three balls, two strikes and you can play all nine innings if you want to. It lays a foundation for a very solid baseball experience, even incorporating the infield fly rule that some more casual games leave out.

One of the first things I and some friends noticed that were watching me play was the speed at which the game plays at. It’s a very speed up version of baseball. There is almost no downtime if you want to skip through the mid inning presentations. There is nothing added to the presentation just for the sake of it. Each element has its own purpose and there is no additional UI that doesn’t need to be there. That being said there is some missing UI that I feel is extremely important. Unless you get out pen and paper at the time of writing there is no way to view your opponent’s line up. This is critical missing information because you want to be able to see their lineup and plan pitching sequences and pitchers based on what they have upcoming, especially late into a game where mistakes matter more.

It is also missing any visual representation that a runner is stealing a base. There is an audible sound that you can hear but a picture in picture of the base runner stealing would help the player with visual clues to what’s going on. This would also let me keep track of where runners are on the base path as currently you have to memorize where they are and the UI for the white diamond makes it difficult to see the base runner icon in many instances.

Now if I had to pinpoint the strangest omissions in terms of gameplay is the lack of ability to pick of base runners. You have no way to keep them honest or to try and stop them from stealing. Your only option is to throw them out after throwing a pitch to home plate. There is also the issue of the game automatically switching fielders on you and not being able to manually switch fielders. While I find this frustrating at time, I’ve learned to adapt to it. I would say it’s number two on my list of things to add or change. I’ve heard through other players that this may be due to a small development team and may get added later along with the DH rule. If that does end up happening then that will squash my major gameplay complaints.

Difficulty

The difficulty in the game is controlled by the Ego setting. It can range anywhere from 0-99 and you can set it manually for offline games. This difficulty setting affects how much the AI assists you while fielding and affects other aspects of the game including batting and how long you have to get the pitch location to its correct spot for maximum effectiveness.

Overall it’s a effective system and allows for a wide range of skill levels to enjoy the game and that’s important for player retention. I personally have been playing around 55 Ego rating and have found a nice balance between fun and frustration. I did crank the game up to 99 as an experiment but felt that at that level the game added to much artificial difficulty with pitch speed being increased yet it still shows up as 94 mph. At that point you’re pretty much changing the physics of the game in order to make the game more difficult for the player. Others I’ve spoken to have said that 70 seem to be a good number for difficulty before the above mentioned artificial difficulty takes effect.

For the online ranked mode the Ego is determined for you based on your selection the first time you play online and placement matches to my understanding. Online I was playing around 55 as well but had it go down to 54 after losing the first game in the second “season”. I would say with a healthy player base the Ego system online would work just fine and allow you to find players of similar skill level.

Overall I don’t really have any complaints about the difficulty system and think that it’s very well designed to incorporate the ability of all players and if you want that super difficult experience you are more than able to get it.

Customization

Normally customize options for a game such as this are not on the highlight list let alone mentioned more then they exist to some degree. However for this game the customization is second only to the gameplay. Part of the fun of this game is creating and customizing your custom team. You can change almost everything about them, from their hair, name, skin color, gender, eye color, batting style and of course their different attributes. This is where you can let your imagination run wild, creating any type of player you want, recreate players from the past or current MLB teams. If you want or create your friends and have them plat the field for you, you most certainly do that as well.

I am quite impressed with the amount of customization that can be done for logos and players. That being said there was day 1 DLC for additional customization options that I feel should of been in the base game. I don’t mind the idea that they have DLC for additional team customization, it’s more that there is no reason why it could not be included in the base game from the start. I hope that the DLC continues to be cosmetic and perhaps more stadiums. You can create the team of your dreams with a bit of effort.

Edit any ability!

You can have the computer randomize a team for you to play with when creating a season mode allowing for a seemingly limitless number of teams, all with the ability edit to be whatever you wish, or using them as a template to create your own team. You can also copy a pre-existing team and go to town customizing it. This is the easiest way to get started on editing your own team into the game. This game has a ton of customizing in it and it really is a ton of fun spend the time to create the team you want.

Game modes

So you want to play some offline baseball with your custom team in a 200 game season ? This game has you covered. Want to play online in 1v1 ranked mode with pre-created teams by the developers to prove you’re the best against consoles and PC ? This game also has you covered.

If you want to find a game online against a random opponent not on your friends list with your custom team ? Then you are out of luck unfortunately. With ranked mode you are limited to the “stock teams” that the developers created to be balanced correctly so I understand the lack of online for custom teams but I feel something should be done to accommodate it. This game has some phenomenal game modes and the ability to play online against others is a huge improvement over the first one and adds a ton of longevity to the game on top of the already fantastic team customization. I really hope they spend the effort to improve the online play and allow for the ability to play an unranked mode against others online with your custom team because I really feel like that is where the longevity of the game will come from, using your custom teams against other players. In the mean time you can always find some friends to play with using your custom team.

Conclusion

If you’re on PC there isn’t really another option for a modern baseball title and if you’re on PS4 you have The Show. That being said Super Mega Baseball 2 really does fill the void of older more fun takes on the game like the Backyard Sports series yet with way more customization and added mechanics. Not to mention it has online capabilities to play with or against friends. To be honest I’ve spent quite a bit of time in this game both playing and just customizing my team and I’ve really enjoyed it. I was hoping the kuckleball got added this time around and the missing ability to pick runners off is something I hope gets added in the future with patches. I’m not quite happy about day 1 DLC for added customization options but I do like that it’s only customization and not something that effects the game. If you are interested in a fun, to the point baseball game on PC that has cross play and a ton of team customization options then I highly suggest you pick this up.

Season Champions

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