Title: R.B.I. Baseball 14
Platform: Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, iOS, Android (digital release only on all platforms)
Release Date: April 9th 2014 (PS3, Xbox 360, iOS) June 24th 2014 (Xbox One, PlayStation 4)
Developer: Behaviour Interactive
Publisher: MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM)
Release Price: $19.99
After the final 2K Sports baseball game was released in 2013, the PlayStation-exclusive MLB The Show series found itself as the last major MLB-licensed video game series. MLB Advanced Media (the company that runs Major League Baseball’s website and streaming services) launched a reboot of the R.B.I. Baseball series to make sure the Xbox wasn’t entirely shut out of MLB-licensed baseball video games.
Gameplay Video
Description
The last video game to be released under the R.B.I. Baseball name before this one was R.B.I. Baseball ’95 for the Sega 32X, though there were occasional rumors in the intervening years that the name may come back under one developer or another. Major League Baseball acquired the rights to the R.B.I. Baseball name from Six Degrees Games, who registered a trademark for the name in 2007 after it had expired in 1995. Major League Baseball Advanced Media hired Behaviour Interactive, a Montreal-based developer now famous for the multiplayer horror game Dead by Daylight, to develop the first title in the rebooted series in 2014. Jamie Leece, later Vice President of Gaming and VR for MLB Advanced Media, had joined MLBAM in 2012 after spending three years at Behaviour.
Gameplay is modeled after the original NES R.B.I. Baseball game: Hitters can only move around in the box and swing. Pitchers can throw a faster pitch by holding down or a slower pitch that sometimes drops to the ground by holding up, and left and right can move the pitch around in mid-air. Flyballs produce a pitched whistle in the air to indicate their height.
The only gameplay modes are Exhibition and Season. There are four different length settings available for Season mode: 52 games, 81 games, 162 games, and then a separate Postseason mode that jumps you straight into the playoffs. Games cannot be simulated or skipped. There is no stat tracking as the season progresses, so each player is displayed only with their real-life 2013 stat line at all times.
The graphical style is slightly cartoon-ish realism. Player likenesses are limited to only skin tones and choosing from one of a few body types to represent each player.
R.B.I. Baseball 14, along with all the later games in the series, has been delisted from sale on all official digital storefronts, as part of MLB’s 2021 partnership agreement with Sony and San Diego Studio. Once MLB earned publishing rights for MLB The Show on Xbox consoles, they delisted their competing baseball game series. For the digital-release-only R.B.I. Baseball 14 and 15, this means the only available legitimate copies of the game had to be purchased before the 2021 delisting.
Little Details
- Retro uniforms can be unlocked for each team by playing the Season mode with that team and completing some small achievement. For instance, to get the White Sox throwback uniform, you need to get 5 hits in the same game with a White Sox player in Season mode.
- Like many games in the 8-bit baseball era, the mercy rule is in effect: If either team is ahead by ten or more runs at the end of an inning, the game ends before nine innings are played.
Roster
Real MLB teams and rosters are included, but limited to only 16 total players in the style of the original R.B.I. Baseball: 9 starters, 4 bench players, 2 additional starting pitchers and 1 relief pitcher. The only available option for adjusting your lineup before starting a game is choosing your starting pitcher (in Exhibition mode only; in Season mode the starter is chosen for you). All thirty MLB teams are included along with an American League and National League All-Star team.