MLB The Show 21: We give you some first initial tips to enter the exciting world of virtual baseball thanks to this franchise, now multiplatform.
This season more than ever, the franchise has been in the news since, after not having the exclusivity of the license, Sony San Diego has developed MLB The Show 21 also for Xbox One and Xbox Series, as well as for PS4 and PS5. Not only that, but this delivery is already present, in an unprecedented agreement - this being the decision of the league itself - in the Xbox Game Pass catalog, with which there will be many players and subscribers who will surely be encouraged to try this series for the first time. That said, and being a very unpopular sport in our country -not so in Latin America-, it is easy to get lost in some playable mechanics and among the content offered by the title, so from Meristation we want to give you a few small brushstrokes to start to enjoy, in both aspects, this fun simulator of the beautiful game in the USA.
Get her out of the stadium
MLB The Show 21 is a demanding game, on practically any level of difficulty. Making a good hit is complicated, it requires having players with good batting stats, and at the beginning, we recommend doing it with those who have a high Contact value, rather than Power. That said, a very common mistake by the novice player, the result of anxiety, is wanting to hit all the pitchers’ pitches, something that we must avoid but that requires patience …
First of all, we must have a good perspective when it comes to hitting. The default camera is too far from the batter, making it difficult to see the path of the ball. To do this, from Gameplay Settings, we will choose the Strike Zone camera, which has 3 degrees of proximity, and which offers a good view, although to the detriment of a certain spectacularity in the presentation. Once this is done, and to begin with, it is advisable to try to hit only those balls that are very close to the PCI, which we will talk about later. When we progress, we can dare with higher or lower balls, but always within the strike zone.
Well, the PCI is nothing but the Plate Indicator Coverage, or what is the same, the area of contact with the ball when we hit. According to the stats of the players, this will be larger or smaller, and as we said before, once we have mastered the simple balls, we will dare with more complicated throws, and for this, we must know the three types of pitch, or launch, most common: fastballs, breaking balls or change ups, especially the first two.
Fastballs do not have much mystery: they are usually fast pitches with not much precision but that require a lot of reflexes, and before which it is necessary to be attentive, because it is common for them to go outside the strike zone, well above it, or below. However, it is possible to hit good hits in the first case. As for breaking balls, these are throws whose direction changes at some point in the trajectory, and these do require special attention and patience. For example, curve balls start at the top and move down as they approach, sometimes even below the strike zone, but they are usually slow balls. Meanwhile, the slider is a type of pitching in which the pitcher starts from one side to throw the ball to the opposite. How to identify them before even seeing the trajectory of the ball? This takes a lot of practice, but it is possible to achieve it by observing the pitcher’s animations in detail: if he starts the pitch from very high, it is very likely that it is a curve ball; if it is from an intermediate zone –about shoulder height-, it will be a fastball, while if he does it heeled to the side, he will throw a slider at us.
Progress in Diamond Dynasty
Diamond Dynasty is the most popular game mode in the MLB The Show series, and it is the classic mode in which we collect cards to jump onto the field with them, in the style of Ultimate Team from FIFA or My Team from NBA 2K. The amount of content it offers makes it easy to feel overwhelmed at first and not knowing what to do in our early days, but we will give you some tips to start progressing properly.
