The last time I had any experience with anything similar to baseball was when I played rounders at school during P.E. It was years ago, but I can still remember one play that stood out to me, one where I stood up to bat. There I was with two strikes against me, bases empty, and my team one run down. The ball was pitched, I hit it, and it flew. It flew like a bird soaring on the wind with the distance it going all but guaranteeing a home run. My team was cheering, I was smiling but then I heard the dreaded words, foul ball. On the next pitch, I was struck out.

In that moment I went from exhilaration, to disappointment, to a bit of anger at the call. I took it but I wasn’t happy. Why did I bring up this tale of woe? Because MLB 14 The Show is well crafted enough that it can conjure up these same emotions in me. If you’re looking for a review of the game from someone who follows baseball regularly this may not be for you, but if you want to know what this game is like to an outsider like me, then let me tell you.

First off there are a lot of stats within baseball, and though I now have a very basic understanding of them I’m still not sure what they all mean. It can be a bit overwhelming at first when you’re looking at stats like the earned run average (ERA) or walks and hits per inning pitched (WHIP), but these soon fade to the background as you get down to playing ball. Here you’re just concerned with beating the other team, and stats take the back seat.

There’s quite a few modes available but the one that stands out is Road To The Show, where you create a player and guide him from the rookie try outs all the way to Major League Baseball. You decide what your main position will be in the line up, from starting pitcher to right fielder, which is your dominant hand, your stances and your skills. I decided to take the position of starting pitcher, choosing the Splitter, Knucklecurve and Forkhand pitches for my throwing arsenal. This choice put me at the bottom of the batting order, but I didn’t mind.

As you play through the games in RTTS you’ll gain points to use to improve your player’s attributes from the power of each type of pitch, stamina, batting power against left or right handed pitchers and so on. There are a lot of attributes to improve so it’s best to decide early what kind of player you want to create. Given his position, my starting pitcher wouldn’t be a memorable batter, but I could push him to become skilled at getting strikes.

After the rookie tryouts are done you’ll be drafted by a team and then be part of that team’s Minor League affiliates to improve as a player. Do well and you’ll make your way through the ranks, but do poorly and rewards will be harder to come by. To get good you have to get used to the controls and master them.

At the beginning of the game you can decide on beginner or experienced options, with the latter being more in depth. When pitching at this difficulty you’ll first select which pitch you want to throw, after which a circular pulse appears in front of the batter, going from small to big. The smaller the circle is when you pitch, the more accurate the throw.

However, also taken into account when throwing are the attributes of that particular pitch, meaning the ball can curve or be slower than anticipated. It feels complicated at first, but as you keep playing judging where to aim and when to release the ball becomes almost second nature.

Then again, even if your pitch is perfect you have to rely on your AI team-mates, who can either make or break a play and turn a game on its head in an instant. At one point, the batter got a really good hit off my pitch and it looked like it would be caught, but my left fielder dropped the ball allowing the runners on second and third base to make it to home base, and extending their team’s lead by two. This in turn affected my pitching and soon after the coach relieved me of my duties for the match.

With batting, the controls are similar to pitching in that you have to aim at which height you’ll be swinging and the type of swing you’ll attempt. Of course you also have to guess where the ball will be going once pitched. Making runs is done with the analog stick and is simple enough. Push up to run forward, let go to stop and pull back to retreat.

Of course Road To The Show isn’t the only mode in the game, with Franchise modes also being available where you can control an entire team through a season. This system is well done where you control your whole team as it pitches and bats, switching to the best positioned fielders automatically when a ball is hit. It could be a baseman to get a batter out at first base, a fielder in a likely spot to catch the ball or, failing that, picking the ball up and selecting the base to throw to – mapped to the face buttons – and timing the power meter correctly.

Taking the game online, it runs pretty smoothly though you’ll sometimes have to wait a little while to find a match, especially in ranked matches as the matchmaking system tries to find someone as close to your skill and stats level to play against. You also have Dynasty Mode which is roughly equivalent to FIFA’s Ultimate Team, where you create a team and buy packs to build your team up from the talent available the leagues.

Graphically, the PS3 version looks really good, with the lighting particularly well done and some cool touches like seeing the crowd rise to try and catch balls that go towards the stands. The less powerful of the two consoles, the Vita version doesn’t look as good and in the player creation screen, graphics seemed a little blocky. The commentary, crowd noises, and all the audio effects of the ball hitting bat sound very good on both consoles.

MLB 14 The Show is a must buy for baseball fans, but even for those like me who aren’t really into the sport, it’s definitely still a fun experience. This is a well crafted game with the developers putting in so much work to translate what feels like an authentic baseball experience to consoles, while also making it easy enough to pick up and play even if you’re not versed in the rules. I got really drawn in to my pitcher’s career and his rise through the ranks, with hours passing me by while I played.

Baseball certainly isn’t a mainstream sport on this side of the world, but if you like sports games and fancy trying something a bit different, then MLB 14 The Show may be for you.

Score: 8/10

Versions tested: PS3/Vita