He was the first teenager to make an All-Star Team in nearly 30 years and the first ever to do it as a position player. His team made the postseason, and he was the National Leagueâs rookie of the year.
Bryce Harper had a pleasant introduction to The Show this year. Sony hopes youâll have one next year, too.
Harper, today the first officially announced candidate for an MLB 13 The Show cover to be voted on by fans, might be the current baseball player who most embodies the fantasy offered by the PlayStation 3âs award-winning simulation: 18-year-old canât-miss phenom beats up the minor leagues, goes to spring training his second year, makes the parent club soon after.
It happens every spring.
âWhen youâre younger, you always dream of being in a video game, or being on the cover,â Harper said by telephone last week, during a photoshoot framing him for the prospective cover. âWinning a World Series would be the top-notch goal, but off the field, this is something very cool.â
But his candidacy is an allegory for MLB 13 The Show for other reasons, too. This year, MLB 13 The Show will introduce a âBeginner Modeâ that, if it lives up to its description, will help newcomers and set-in-their-ways-veterans handle baseballâs complicated ritual of patience and explosive action.
It wonât be a downgraded difficulty setting, said Ramone Russell, Sony San Diegoâs community manager for MLB The Show. Itâs going to be a tutorial meant to prepare you for live play at standard difficulty. Beginner Mode will be a series of exercises in both hitting and pitching. As a hitter, for example, youâll see what fastballs look like, then fastballs relative to a changeup and a breaking ball, and gradually be introduced to all of them, thrown to all parts of the strike zone (and outside.) On the other side of the plate, pitching will teach a player the fundamentals of location and mixing deliveries.
This is intriguing to me, because Iâve always felt MLB The Show, despite its demanding realism, was secretly one of sports gamingâs most accommodating franchises, thanks to a very deep, customizable control scheme that has gone back years. If you know how to look for it, you can fully automate acts youâre bad at, such as fielding or baserunning, and drive up the difficulty in pitching, or hitting, to challenge what youâre good at or enjoy most, and minimize the phases of the game where youâre the weakest.
MLB The Showâs âbeginner modeâ isnât a difficulty setting; itâs meant to be a tutorial for newcomer and veterans alike.
Thing is, most folks donât approach a sports video game that way. Either they donât know the options, or pride causes them to select the gameâs second- or third-highest difficulty setting (veteran and all-star, respectively). Fully implemented, The Showâs controls are intimidating. I couldnât sit here and tell you how to steal second base in the game, for example. Neither could Harper, who has stolen home in real life (the first teenager to do so since 1964, for that matter.).
âItâs really hard; in video games you canât really steal bags,â he said. âThe catcher is always pretty on the money.â
âBeginner modeâ however, will focus largely on pitching and hitting; simplified baserunning controls in the gameâs Road to the Show career mode should help out those who have sound baserunning fundamentals in mind but have difficulty keying them up in the heat of the moment.
Fielding is also going to get a different treatment in the modeâs often disorienting first-person view. In whole-team play, a new accuracy mechanism will be implemented to take the background dice-roll out of fielding outcomes. Thereâll be a âsweet spotâ in the fielding meter commensurate to his ratingsâloading up and hitting a throw in the âsweet spotâ will open up more spectacular animations depending on the difficulty of the play and the playerâs attributes. Other games have handled this in similar fashion, notably MLB 2K, the Xbox 360 exclusive that wonât be appearing next year once 2K Sportsâ deal with the league expires. The PlayStation 3 is the only console that will feature a new baseball simulation next year.
Harper, for his part, says when he plays video game baseball heâs usually fooling around, having a good time with friends. The game is a simulation of his job, after all. Harperâs approach to hitting in the game is not at all similar to how he handles the task in real life. And, lnown for a cannon arm in right field, he hasnât gunned out anyone from that position in the video game. But, âI have from center field,â he quickly adds.
Whatâs toughest for him, both in game and in reality, is facing the inhuman speed of the gameâs hardest throwers: Aroldis Chapman of the Cincinnati Reds came to mind. So did Stephen Strasburg, though heâs Harperâs teammate on the Nationals. (The comment did make me ask Harper if heâd ever faced Strasburg at full speed for any reason, even in practice. âOh, no, never,â he said. Paying both playersâ contracts, no sane management would want Harper facing Strasburg at full strength, nor vice versa.)
Russell said hitting timing will be adjusted slightly in MLB 13 The Show to give batters a more satisfying payoff on solid contact. âYouâre going to see more offense like you do in real life,â he said, addressing criticisms that The Showâs rigorous contact physics last year made the game a station-to-station game of base hits for most novices. âIf you square up on a fastball, itâs going to be hit harder than it was before,â Russell added. âPeople are going to be very surprised.â
Other upgrades Russell described involved a complex formula in the gameâs franchise mode, whereby team payrollâi.e., managementâs willingness to spendâwill expand or contract relative to the teamâs success, and not just because a team made the playoffs or won a World Series. Teams like the Padres will never spend like teams like the Yankees, and vice versa. But especially in Road to the Show, if you end up in a small market or a perennial loser, and take them to a breakout season, you have a reasonable hope of seeing management spend for a supporting cast to get your club further into October, without stranding you there until you become an unrestricted free agent. (I have no idea how this accounts for the Miami Marlinsâ behavior.)
Player development in Franchise will now be influenced by scouts which have their own ratingsâspotting hitting and pitching talent and appraising both. It introduces a human element to the development process. âThese guys could end up being wrong,â Russell said.
A new postseason mode, and presentational support for it, plus a new booth team comprising returning announcers Matt Vasgersian and Eric Karros with newcomer Steve Lyons, round out the new upgrades Sony San Diego is discussing so far. But probably the most striking presentational changes will be seen in Road to the Show. Russell said the mode is going to be more oriented to a first-person experience this year, removing booth commentary when your player is on the field, augmenting ambient noise, and discarding immersion-breaking camera angles.
âWeâre trying to refocus things back to on you and your player,â Russell said, âhearing the onfield chatter, the base coaches telling you to get back, the crowd boing you or chanting your name, being a first-person baseball experience.â
MLB 13 The Show will release in March. Other candidates for its cover will join Harper in announcements to come.
