Bases Loaded, Tommy Lasorda Baseball, and RBI Baseball were my video game diamond experiences growing up. Unless you’ve been a PlayStation owner the past decade you’ve been missing video game Spring Training. RBI Baseball 20 Developed and published by MLB, the game is a tale of options and what works for you.
RBI Baseball 20
Developed by: MLB
Published by: MLB
Available for: PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Baseball is a game of control. From pitching, fielding, hitting, even general manager; a video game based on the rich history of the sport needs to give players as much control as it can. What you get is a product that feels like a bloop single, something that gets the job done.
RBI Baseball 20 succeeds in the fundamentals. Players get access to play as every major league team along with 165 MLB legends. Every player model is well rendered with unique touches such as tape styles on bats or Kershaw’s hat grime. Stadiums are well translated and represented in the game with crowds that give it a proper atmosphere.
There’s going to be a lot of comparisons to Playstation’s exclusive MLB The Show franchise. While it’s going to lose many of those tale of the tape categories, the one area where it actually blows the fastball by Sony’s game is in cameras. As The Show prides itself on a broadcast like presentation, its camera choices often get too repetitive and boring. RBI Baseball has more dynamics in its presentation angles. Nothing is more apparent than when you blast a long ball out of Fenway Park or Dodger Stadium. The handful of camera angles that pop up are fun to watch and help the pace of playing baseball.
It’s hard to ignore what RBI Baseball is lacking, features. You’ll get an exhibition mode, 10-season dynasty, home run derby, and online multiplayer (online not available on Switch version). RBI focuses on major leagues only thus leaving out grooming a custom player from the minors to the big leagues. 10-season mode combines full season play and a GM mode as you’ll be playing games while in charge of building up your roster and maintaining it. You won’t have as much control of your team’s organization as you would in The Show. Those looking for that head of baseball operations experience may not be satisfied, but those who like to play the game more than manage will be.
Between the game’s “classic or modern” controls you will need learning curves for either. Each sets a feel of completely different timing mastery needed. Modern pitching is easy enough to get the hang of. Select a pitch, aim, fill the meter; though players stamina in games makes it much harder to aim the deeper innings they go. Batting is a tale of opposites. Using classic control setup batting is button pressing at the right time to make contact. Modern controls for batting are significantly harder to master. Before the player swings at a pitch, you’ll hold down the button to fill a meter and let it go at the right moment. The more meter you fill the more power in a swing but less likely to make contact. It’s a weird way to do batting controls and one that after an hour made me give up and go back to classic batting.
For its $29.99 MSRP, RBI Baseball 20 is a solid small piece of the MLB we’re missing. If you have access to a PlayStation 4 and want a more expansive baseball experience then you should pay the extra money for MLB The Show 20. For the Xbox or Switch only audience that’s been missing virtual Baseball, RBI is a good filler for a real-life season that’s in jeopardy.
