Arcade sports games, once the cornerstone of any good console catalogue, have generally become unfashionable and outdated. Unless you count fantasy sports like Rocket League, the era of NFL Blitz and NBA Street is sadly long behind us. Super Mega Baseball, now in its fourth instalment and officially under the umbrella of EA Sports, is at least flying the flag for the underrepresented genre \u2013 and while this entry is generally quite similar to its predecessor, it\u2019s still an entertaining alternative to Sony\u2019s more straight-faced MLB The Show 23.<\/p>\n
The big addition this time is the addition of legendary players from MLB\u2019s storied history, like icon Babe Ruth and Hall of Famer David Ortiz. These stars pad out an entire new league of pre-created teams, but are also sprinkled into the online Pennant Race on rotation, keeping rosters fresh across the various in-game seasons. As with past instalments, this flagship multiplayer mode sees you working your way up the competitive ladder by taking on opponents from all over the world, and with crossplay enabled this time, it\u2019s fairly easy to find a rival.<\/p>\n
While the online suite is strong \u2013 including Online Leagues, casual Exhibition matches, and more \u2013 there\u2019s also a fairly robust Franchise feature to keep offline players occupied. This is, considering the arcade nature of the series, a lot deeper than you may expect, with Team Chemistry elements incorporated to add strategy and depth to the roster building experience. Unfortunately, we found the user interface across the board to be untidy at best and overwhelming at worst, and this didn\u2019t exactly encourage us to interact with some of the mode\u2019s deeper features.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, when you\u2019re out on the field, the game\u2019s pure fast-paced baseball. The ingenious Ego system from past releases returns, allowing you to tune the difficulty exactly to your tastes, irrespective of whether your strengths lie in pitching, hitting, or fielding. The engine has been given an upgrade, and this allows for some more dramatic weather lighting, while players are much more animated than ever before. There\u2019s a lot of personality to the presentation, as you overhear food vendors calling out the cost of their snacks from the stands while you wait for your next pitch.<\/p>\n
And all of the customisation, the staple of the series, returns in the background \u2013 allowing you to build your own team, right down to the minutiae like uniforms and logos. While there\u2019s no shortage of pre-created content, Super Mega Baseball 4 will reward those willing to invest the time to personalise it exactly how they want it. It\u2019s that, paired with its very entertaining arcade gameplay loop, that ensures this fourth instalment doesn\u2019t drop the ball \u2013 even if it never quite feels like the seismic upgrade we\u2019d expected when developer Metalhead Software was acquired.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n