In other words, it didn’t do enough to make it far in the GOTY conversation, but it did enough for me personally. I didn’t get that much out of Road to the Show’s new dialogue options, but the mode continued to hold my attention anyway. That’s true in most years, because baseball is my favorite sport, but it was even better to play along with a very fun-to-watch Yankees team. I say “reliable” because MLB The Show 17 was the sports game I spent the most time with in 2017.

(This is less true if you look toward nontraditional, sports-adjacent titles - think of Supergiant’s story-driven Pyre or Sidebar’s RPG Golf Story - but that’s not really our focus here.) With a lack of risk-taking in the traditional AAA simulation sports genre, and no true breakthrough indies, we were left with a slate of sports titles that mostly turned in a reliable but unexciting performance.

That bummed me out particularly because people naturally look to indie developers for fresh takes on sports. And some of the games that did make it to market, including V7’s Bush Hockey League (née Old Time Hockey) and Saber’s NBA Playgrounds, ended up disappointing us. Unfortunately, our most anticipated title - Metalhead’s Super Mega Baseball 2 - got delayed again, this time out of 2017. Samit: I think we both went into 2017 with excitement at the thought of playing more indie sports games.

Nfl live best games of 2017