MLB 09: The Show
A professor in Britain is trying to make video games smell.
Bob Stone, the professor in question, is working with his country’s military apparatuses to create ever more realistic wartime simulators, and he says that various battlefield scents will one day be a critical part of them. In 20-30 years, Stone believes, the technology could move to video game platforms.
My vote for the first "smelly" video game? Sony’s Major League Baseball franchise The Show. The ’09 version of the game is already so fantastically realistic that, really, the only thing missing is the odor of freshly cut grass in the outfield and freshly roasted peanuts in the stands.
Well, that, and the need for a gamer with some real athletic skill, of course.
A Sport of Intricacy and Inches
Forget about the seventh game of the World Series. MLB 09: The Show lives up to its billing as "the most realistic baseball game ever," as trumpeted on Sony’s website. Granted, it doesn’t allow players to date supermodels or enhance their home run abilities with, um, vitamin B, but the game’s on-field details are so rich and textured as to feel almost eerie.
You can jump into the game in any number of ways: Pick your favorite team and play through a full 162-game season (and the playoffs, should you be so lucky). Play an exhibition game with a team made up of yesteryear greats (Honus Wagner, anyone?). Or create your own player from scratch and push him through the bush leagues and into the Bigs.
Rivals can be sitting in your living room or half-way around the world. (Note: Online play supplies the thrill of real competition, but it can also introduce trash talking or worse. So heads-up on that score.) And play can be as involved as you can stand it. Batters have the option of "guessing" pitch type and location. Pitchers can master 17 different pitch styles. Base runners can choose to slide feet-first, with a hook-left flourish or a head-first rumble.
But for all its potential depth and complexity, MLB 09 doesn’t necessarily intimidate minor leaguers like me. The game will take over pesky complications like fielding and base running if you ask it to, and it only took me a couple of innings to learn the bare basics of pitching and hitting and throwing. I was still pretty lousy after a 90-minute game—but significantly better than I am in real life.
Which brings us back to that realism thing Sony’s worked so hard to inject into this game. Base paths get scuffed. Players’ uniforms, bleached and pretty in the first inning, can be covered in dirt and grass stains by the ninth. The sky, blue and bright in late afternoon, transforms almost imperceptibly as the game trundles on. Shadows lengthen. Day turns to gray twilight. The stadium lights flicker on.
Players fidget. Managers squabble with umpires. Even the fans in the stands act like fans in the stands. I half expected to be showered with soda after missing a fat pitch. You can even create special fan "chants." For game-savvy baseball fans, this game is practically a dream come true.
Spring Training All Year-Round
MLB 09: The Show is rated E, and for good reason. Though I didn’t tackle an entire season while writing this review, the most egregious problem I saw was a player "adjusting" himself at the plate—as real major leaguers are wont to do. So it seems that the game is a slam dunk, er, home run, for families.
But before I leave that glowing praise completely unqualified—and at the risk of raining out the fun of a late-fall doubleheader—there’s one more thought I want to put into words: Baseball, in real life, is a grueling sport that requires patience, dedication and tons of practice for those who hope to excel. MLB 09 precisely duplicates that aspect of the sport as well. Virtual players, particularly those you create yourself, get better with every pitch and every at bat. They struggle. They learn. They improve. And that means you’ve got to put in a whole bunch of nights and weekends to get all the way to the top. I’ve read of gamers "practicing" with their sluggers for hours at a time, knowing that the more energy they expend in batting cages, the better they’ll be in games.
"There is simply nothing as thrilling as finally signing that big league contract and stepping onto that field with a stadium full of people chanting your name, and being able to recall every single step along the path that led you there," wrote Jake Gaskill for G4. "I managed to hit a home run on my first pitch during my first major league at bat, and I literally almost burst into tears, because I couldn’t believe how far I had come, and because all of that hard work and dedication had finally paid off."
The payoff for such perseverance in real life can be a major league contract. In this game it’s … more late hours in front of a glowing screen. And Gaskill isn’t talking about real life, I’m afraid.
So play your hardest. Have fun. Run. Hit. Throw. Slide. Breathe in the sights (and smells!) all around you in the realistic world of MLB 09. But don’t take your eyes off the real ball while you’re at it.