Want a Simple Mobile Baseball Game? Then Look No Further - MLB Tap Sports Baseball 2022 Review

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I love baseball. Baseball season makes me unreasonably happy. I watch almost every game that my hometown Philadelphia Phillies play. In fact, I have the game on right now in the background as I am writing this review. The Fightin’ Phils are beating up on their hated division rivals, the Atlanta Braves, 7-2 at the moment.

Life is good.

What I also love is a good baseball video game, and there have been many I’ve adored over the years. Hardball! for the Commodore 64 is probably the one that I’ve played the most over the years, and one teenage summer I actually challenged myself to play a game per day (approximately ninety games) in an attempt to throw a no-hitter and/or perfect game…BUT…that is a tale for another time.

The tale I will tell you today is about MLB Tap Sports Baseball 2022 which is the latest version of the long-running mobile baseball series from Glu Mobile. In this iteration, players can now build and manage a dream team of real-life players who participated in the 2021 MLB season then, hopefully, climb to the top of the standings.

In MLB Tap Sports Baseball 2022, you only control the hitting, which kind of annoys me as a baseball purist, truth be told. The pitching and fielding are all decided by the AI based on the strengths and weaknesses of the players in real life. When you initially start a season, the game gives you the freedom to choose your favorite team from amongst the thirty teams in Major League Baseball, and you can also choose which ballpark that you'll be buying peanuts and Crackerjack at for the season.

MLB Tap Sports Baseball offers a host of game modes including Slugfest, Home Run Battles, Walk-Off Hero, Event Royale, Pick’em, Season Mode, Pitching Labs, Club Rally, and several more. On top of that, the developers at Glu upload new content each week and present Live Op events based on what’s happening during the current MLB season. Players can also team up with other baseball fanatics from around the globe to play in Club Events.

You will have a low-rated team to start off with. The OVR (overall rating) of your hitter will hover in the forties or fifties (out of a possible one hundred). Existing players (from your initial season or from previous versions of MLB Tap Sports Baseball) in-game progress does not accrue or carry-forward, so you’ll need to grind things out from the beginning as if you were a low “A” ball minor leaguer. As you win games, you’ll unlock in-game achievements and collect the more highly rated MLB Player Cards of current superstars and even a few classic Hall of Famers. This is key because, if you haven’t guessed it yet, the overall strength of your team is what’s needed if you want to get to the top of the standings.

To accomplish this rise to the top, here are some things you definitely should pay attention to in MLB Tap Sports Baseball 2022:

· Don’t miss out on the Challenges which typically reward you handsomely with in-game currency and are (mostly) easy to complete.

· Resource management and draft picks. Be prudent when spending the in-game currencies and don’t spend your currency on draft picks – wait to get Franchise Coins which will guarantee better players.

· Level up your hitters and focus on upgrading your team as a whole. This kind of speaks for itself and is a no-brainer – make your players better when you can. Period.

· Create your own Legendary Player. One cannot live on draft picks alone in MLB Tap Sports Baseball 2022, so create a Homerun King (with the Player Type selection) since your team will lack big swingers at the outset and this game requires the big swingers to win.

· Start off with playing against the AI. Do this just to get your cleats dirty and to get a general feel for the game and to get your timing down when swinging the bat as timing your swing requires a good amount of practice and concentration. Once you get this down then move on to the more competitive modes.

· Make trades when you can. Players can be traded in exchange for Experience Points (XPs) which in-turn will help you to level up your best players.

· Autoplay games against weaker opponents. This just saves time and accelerates the in-season progression, but only do this when you are sure you have a true understanding of the game. If you’re a baseball noob, I would suggest not skipping a single inning.

· Use the Ice Packs and Energy Drinks only in playoff games or in “live” games against tougher opponents. These “power-ups” should be used judiciously since they are not easy to come by.

MLB Tap Sports Baseball 2022 is a simple, solidly fun baseball game that’s drug down a bit by its simplicity and the standard mobile game trappings, though those elements up the “addictive” quotient by introducing fresh Club events and new weekly content. Collecting the cards of your favorite MLB stars adds a bit of spice as well, and reminds me of the bygone days of my youth when I collected stacks upon stacks of baseball cards. The only real negative here is that your progress cannot be carried forward from past seasons to a current season…but that’s the beauty of MLB Tap Sports Baseball 2022: You need to start at the bottom and grind your way to the top – just like every minor leaguer out there eating dust in some Podunk town but has grand dreams of one day making it big in The Show.

SCORE: 3 STARS OUT OF 5

PLAY IF YOU LIKE:

• Baseball 9. Give MLB Tap Sports Baseball 2022 a go if you dig playus soft’s more animated and arcade-y take on The Great American Pastime.

• HardBall. MLB Tap Sports Baseball 2022 may not be retro classics like the six titles found in Acclaim’s great baseball series, but it certainly plays a strong nine innings.

Have you played MLB Tap Sports Baseball 2022? Let us know what you think of it in the comments! Even if you haven't played it, leave a comment sharing your favorite baseball games!

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