MLB The Show 16

The visuals and upgrade player models, beautiful broadcasting packages, improved game modes, and the epic homerun celebrations are just a few of the reason this game is truly awesome. There’s no better way to get amped up for the upcoming baseball season than with MLB The Show 16. This year’s version is worth every penny and will go down as the best baseball simulator ever created. It will hold you over until the Cubbies hoist the World Series trophy in October.

Another year, another outstanding sports title.

Simply put, MLB The Show 16 is the best baseball game available on any current-gen console. It looks, plays, and feels amazing, offering many ways to play the great American pastime. Franchise and Road to the Show modes have made incremental but impressive improvements, while Diamond Dynasty offers entirely new ways to play. Not every mode works, but it’s encouraging to see such a radical new mix of gameplay.

You need to know the sport to master it - hence no 10/10 this year - but PS3's greatest sports series is on the verge of once more dominating all contemporaries. [June 2016, p.94]

Sony San Diego continues to raise the bar with MLB 16: The Show, finding an almost perfect balance between innovation and tradition.

MLB: The Show 16 is one of the best baseball games I have ever played. Granted, I haven’t played many in my life, but this one really does have some great things going for it.

One of the best sports games you’ll ever play. I haven’t seen fit to hand out a 9+ score for one of these titles since 2011, and I really thought last year’s entry wasn’t anything special. They’re all great games, don’t get me wrong, but this is the first installment of The Show that absolutely feels like a full, complete, and rewarding package that hits just about every sweet spot. A few of the minor flaws franchise followers will recognize still linger, but the overall experience is nigh-on unparalleled. Like I said at the start: It’s all about feeling like you’re there, that you’re actually trying to master this very complex sport. And when everything seems to gel, seems to fit, seems to reflect reality…well, should we nitpick and complain? No, just rejoice!

While the gameplay is similar to years past, the new modes add a ton of previously unfound variety. The Road to the Show mode has finally been updated and is guaranteed to hook longtime players. On top of that, Diamond Dynasty no longer feels like an afterthought, and is instead one of the most joyous things about the game. After a slip and fall last year, Sony has managed to make sure MLB The Show 16 lands directly on its feet.

PS4’s biggest sports exclusive delivers a moonshot home run, thanks to perfectly balanced fundamentals, astonishingly lifelike presentation, and little details that few rivals – past or present – have come close to getting right.

While last year's release felt like the series was plateauing, this year, MLB The Show 16 returns better than ever. The gameplay remains consistently solid, and tweaks and additions to Road to the Show and Diamond Dynasty will surely keep people coming back for more.

While last year’s game may have been really one of the first outings for the series that felt like little more than a roster update, the series has truly returned to form once again this year with MLB The Show 16.

San Diego Studio continues to show love for baseball with MLB 16 The Show, taking its historic limelight and bringing to it a multitude of new options, features, and enhancements. Every annual release should be better than the last year, but MLB 16 The Show expands on all fronts with dividends and adds even more reasons to crack the bat.

As usual, MLB The Show remains the series to beat in the baseball simulation category (not that there’s much competition). Unlike last year, which served mostly as a spit-shine to a venerable series, MLB The Show 16 features meaningful upgrades, including a few new modes to change up the way baseball is played.

Another year and another good outing for SCE San Diego Studio. MLB The Show 16 has some great improvements for Road to the Show, but some problems still persist. Baseball lovers will definitely enjoy the game.

It is nice to see that the team over at Sony San Diego has been given enough rope to try new things. The resulting product has once again shown why the MLB: The Show series is still one of the best sport simulations in the industry.

The enhancements and upgrades are significant making this one of the deepest baseball games I have ever played. The hardcore MLB The Show faithful will be all in regardless, but if you have taken a few years off from the franchise, now is the time to jump back in.

Last year, The Show failed to deliver the right amount of additions to the series, but this year we've been overwhelmed by how many things San Diego Studio is bringing. Again, the best game for baseball fans.

MLB The Show 16 is a letter of love for all baseball fans and fore those who likes sports games. Outstanding visuals, great game modes and accurate controls, makes this game a great experience.

MLB The Show 16 is simply the best modern game of baseball. Despite being quite similar to 2015, it adds improvements and additions that makes it not look like a clone of the last edition.

The new bells n’ whistles don’t add much, but when something this good ain’t broke why fix it?

The Show looks good, plays great and is deep enough to overshadow moderately unbalanced visuals and a slight void of personality. If you’ve always loved the series, the fire will still burn despite the minor infractions.

Simply put, if you want a baseball video game, this is the game you must play - even if you have to get a Playstation 4 just to play it.

MLB 16 The Show improves in many ways it needed to, but don't expect it to feel like a totally new game.

The Show 16 remains a reference among classic sports simulations. More attractive, richer, more immersive, this game is offering many ways to play the league.

MLB The Show 16's additions and changes may not be breakthroughs, but they refine weaker areas of the game that had been routine or even chorelike.

Once you deduce how to use the multifarious forms of interactivity, The Show is wonderfully calming when the rhythm of pitching becomes zen-like. As the controller beats like a frantic heart when the bases are loaded, the physiological feeling of vibration sends you inside yourself. But the experience as a whole isn’t completely fulfilling. The immediate challenge that remains is something as old as the hills — tiresome storytellers (the announcers). In an era during which we feel we don’t have the time to sit still on the couch for even an hour, listening to them pontificate is a royal pain.

Yes, MLB: The Show 16 is more of the same in a lot of ways. However, new features like ShowTime and modes like Conquest give this entry enough new toys to feel like a meaningful improvement over last year’s entry. If you’re a fan of the series, this year’s version is worth checking out unless you’re suffering from the most severe of digital baseball boredom.

Whereas NBA 2K16 found a way to take a step back last year with additions that didn’t feel wholly meaningful, MLB The Show 16 is a shining example of exactly how to make a great game even better.

The series is moving away from being an authentic baseball simulation, but for longtime players of The Show, these pie-in-the-sky ideas are just what this baseball series needs.

MLB The Show 16 continues to find innovative ways to push the series forward by adding new features and improving on old ones. Some new problems have arisen, however, and old ones—most notably the horrendous stability of online play—continue to persist and hold the series back.

MLB The Show 16 is yet another excellent game in the series, but only enough has been done to sustain its status as such in coming off similarly received editions. Failing to properly address some long-running core deficiencies and a lack of innovation has prevented the franchise from reaching even greater heights...Instead, Sony San Diego has continued to build on its strengths with visuals and gameplay while further expanding the appeal of Diamond Dynasty. In doing so, The Show may lack some flash but it remains the most steady sports gaming franchise in existence today.

For better or worse, MLB The Show 16 focuses heavily on Diamond Dynasty this year. The on-field action is strong as ever, and the bullet time-like Showtime is interesting, but the bulk of the improvements are in Diamond Dynasty-centric additions like Captains and Battle Royale. If you're a curious newcomer who likes baseball, you will find an extremely strong baseball sim; but if you're a returning player, your mileage will probably vary depending on how willing you are to indulge in The Show's card-collecting mode.

While it’s hard to say it’s a grand slam, it’s definitely an incredibly well done baseball game.

If MLB The Show's new MO is just coasting on the good gameplay and providing minor tweaks to disparate modes, each with their own appeal (or lack thereof, depending), then there's no greater candidate for games-as-service that I can see. Because there's good money in it, however, I doubt we'll drop the yearly release format. It would at least be nice to cut the PS3 version, provided that the freed-up resources would make the yearly changes a little less incremental. Still, the baseball itself is as good as ever, and one of the better modes, Road to the Show, is far less clunky this time around.

MLB The Show 16 is yet another great game of baseball, but for the first time I felt like the franchise is starting to wane in its greatness.