Submitted by Anders Batten on
Major League Baseball Advanced Media plan to release a reboot of the R.B.I. Baseball franchise on April 9, 2014. The game titled R.B.I. Baseball 14 will be $4.99 for iOS devices and $19.99 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. An Android version will be released at a later date, followed by PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions in May.
Polygon, who got an early look at the Xbox 360 version, describes the game as "bare-bones." This shouldn't come as a surprise since the developer has been promising a return to the roots of the franchise. The game offers no online play or team or player rankings, in hope fans will take the time to discover new baseball clubs and players instead of just playing their favorites. Jamie Leece, vice president of games at MLB Advanced Media says that they purposely left out things like player rankings and relief pitchers warm-ups to speed up the pace of the games.
"We've gone to great lengths to minimize the distractions that would slow the pace of a game [down]," Leece explained to Polygon. "So when we look at stats and we talk about, 'Are there menus where you can see all this deep stuff, and can I see stamina somewhere, and do I have to use a bullpen?' All these things, conceptually, are great. However, they all interfere with the pace of the game."
The game features a two-player exhibition mode and one-player season and post-season mode like most sports games on the market. According to Polygon players also suffer from fatigue and all pitchers can throw at least three types of pitches.
The bare bones approach may work for mobile platforms but it is unknown if it will catch on with hardcore console gamers.