PS3 owners go positively gaga every year over Sony’s highly praised MLB: The Show. PlayStation 2 and original Xbox maniacs adored EA Sports’ MVP Baseball 2005, a game that’s still applauded as one of the best baseball extravaganzas ever. Even way back in the dinosaur days of the early ’80s, when Microsoft’s Windows was but a gleam in Bill Gates’ eye, there was Major League Baseball for the Intellivision—justifiably the best-selling title ever for Mattel’s memorable old-school gaming system. We could prattle on if we weren’t under certain word-count restrictions, but the point is that most every console of note has had a really great baseball game to accompany it. All, that is, except the Xbox 360, where, due to a Major League Baseball licensing agreement that expires in 2012, America’s pastime has been under the command of 2K Sports since the very beginning. Sadly, the long-term results have been…middling. And never more so than last year’s iteration, the universally derided MLB 2K9.
But with the dawn of a new real-life season—or at least the dawn of a new and incredibly protracted real-life spring training season—comes another chance for redemption, both on the field and over here in virtual-land, too. And this year, the gang at 2K Sports took that chance and, to its credit, ran with it.
Okay, so MLB 2K10 isn’t a perfect 10 in
anyone’s books—but especially when compared to 2K9, it’s one humongous step forward. It isn’t appreciably broken in any one area, it introduces us to a couple of compelling new concepts and it certainly looks and behaves as if it really is as overhauled as its developer claims it is. But more than that, 2K10 does a fine job teaching us that baseball’s highest levels are a lot more difficult, a ton more pressure-packed and far more dependent on a gazillion tiny, subtle human factors than they appear to be when viewed from the stands or through the camera lens. And isn’t that what we want?
Maybe we’d rather have a million dollars. Fine. The game delivers that, too. That’s right: 2K Sports will drop a million bones on the first person before May 2 of this year who can throw a proven perfect game—in accordance with contest rules, of course. Somehow we don’t think it’ll be too easy to nail that perfect game, but the fact that the offer even exists is, at the very least, moderately cool.
Cooler still is the game’s newest and arguably most intriguing mode, a little something called “My Player.” Now, truth be told, a ton of sports games in the past few years have saddled us with modes that enable us to play the part of a single athlete, rather than taking on the role of manager/coach/overlord/uniplayer. And while some approaches to the concept have been acceptable or even good, many have been woefully repetitive or otherwise unsatisfying.
We don’t think those problems will exist here. Not for the most part, anyway.
My Player puts you in the jockstrap of a promising but unproven newbie seeking to make his mark in the Bigs. You’ll begin in the minors with decent skills, but every chance in the world to improve. To do so, you’ll engage in numerous practice drills and even more numerous games. The key to your experience with My Player is the position you select. You see, the game puts a premium on certain elements of baseball, making some of them quite a bit more challenging—and rewarding—than others.
Hitting, for example, is massively difficult out of the gate. It’s not that 2K Sports has developed an imposing hitting scheme. Indeed, it’s quite refined. The methodology, involving deft little flicks of both the right and left sticks to indicate the proposed direction and the power of your hit, is really quite likeable. Instead, it’s just damned near impossible to read the speed and the direction of the pitch and to time or lay off your swing accordingly. Moreover, once you’ve proven you’re a first pitch hitter or that you always back away from anything that’s not straight down the middle, the opposing pitchers adapt their approach toward you. They really do.
Thusly, in the early going—“early” meaning your first few days and perhaps weeks with the game—you can expect to strike out far more than you want and to produce way more than your fair share of harmless infield dribblers and dinky pop flies. That 2K10 doesn’t include a check swing feature—at least until its developer patches the game to include this essential element—only adds to the sense that, as a complete rook, you suck.
Of course, being a full-time hitter means you’ll also spend half your career elsewhere: first, second or third base, for example, where the view is good and the action is quite a bit more involving than it is, say, in one of the fielding positions. You see, My Player displays and enables you to partake only in game situations where you have direct involvement, which means outfielders may go several innings wherein no balls are hit their way and there’s no chance to even sample the defensive side of the game. Moreover, fielding, especially when compared to many of the other positions, is simply too easy. Expediently flagging down a fly or grabbing a grounder and tossing it to the appropriate base could and should have been much more difficult.
Pitching in My Player mode is perhaps the high point of the entire game. Firstly, 2K10’s pitching routine is, in a word, sweet, involving not only the Right and Left Sticks, but many of the face buttons, too. The latter are used for pitch selection, the Left Stick selects the spot you want the ball to cross the plate, and the Right is surgically manipulated to execute said pitch. Frustrating for the first couple of hours as you’re growing acclimatized, the pitching scheme nevertheless feels highly intuitive after some practice and very much rewarding when you get the hang of it.
Pitching also enables you to participate in every inning and feel much more a key cog part of the game than if you’ve chosen to be a fielder. In fact, for pure emotion and nervousness and that heightened, realistic sense of dread over what’ll happen if you let the inning get out of control, this is most definitely the place to be. We especially like the gamepad rumble, the shaky targeting reticule and the truncated execution time frame that coincides with fatigued and/or uneasy pitching situations. Strange though—My Player doesn’t seem to pull you from the game when things get ugly. Thusly, you’re forced to somehow get through each and every situation.
Pitching in My Player mode is perhaps the high point of the entire game. Firstly, 2K10’s pitching routine is, in a word, sweet, involving not only the Right and Left Sticks, but many of the face buttons, too. The latter are used for pitch selection, the Left Stick selects the spot you want the ball to cross the plate, and the Right is surgically manipulated to execute said pitch. Frustrating for the first couple of hours as you’re growing acclimatized, the pitching scheme nevertheless feels highly intuitive after some practice and very much rewarding when you get the hang of it.
Pitching also enables you to participate in every inning and feel much more a key cog part of the game than if you’ve chosen to be a fielder. In fact, for pure emotion and nervousness and that heightened, realistic sense of dread over what’ll happen if you let the inning get out of control, this is most definitely the place to be. We especially like the gamepad rumble, the shaky targeting reticule and the truncated execution time frame that coincides with fatigued and/or uneasy pitching situations. Strange though—My Player doesn’t seem to pull you from the game when things get ugly. Thusly, you’re forced to somehow get through each and every situation.
The goal behind My Player, of course, is to improve and move up the ranks. And to do that, you’ll need to acquire skill points. This is pretty standard stuff, but we like the way in which skill points are awarded. You’ll grab a few merely by taking part in the games and drills in your schedule. You’ll grab more by attaining the mini-goals scattered liberally through each any every inning—for example, when you’re specifically instructed to drive in a run or throw a first-pitch strike or to prevent an extra-base hit. And you can earn even more skill points by meeting long-term objectives.
Regardless of how you acquire them, you’ll then allot them to the areas of your game you want to enhance. And whereas some skills can be easily increased, others eat up points like Madonna eats up men. Just try adding even a single MPH to your fastball, for example, and you’ll see what we mean. But that’s as it should be.
The really good news is that, over an appropriate amount of time, your improved abilities really do reflect on your performance, but not so much that you morph immediately from a neophyte into a superstar. There’s a wee bit of the old chicken-and-egg thing at work here—wherein you need to improve, but feel you can’t improve unless you’ve already improved—though not nearly as much in some other My Player-style modes we’ve tried.
My Player isn’t the holy grail of video baseball. Batting in the beginning is downright sadistic. Moderate repetition is evident. Your mileage will vary depending on the position you play. And player progression in some instances (how, for example, can you bring your base-running up to major league snuff when you so rarely get on base and must depend on teammates to give you a chance to run?) are sluggish. But combine all the good stuff we mentioned earlier with a player creation routine that’s crazily detailed and mega-customizable, and we think you’ll be as addicted as we are.
Except for one thing: We like competing with a real human even better. At least we thought we did until we went online. Though we somehow managed to extricate ourselves from a few jams in the first three innings we undertook, we soon thereafter died a million baseball deaths at the hand of some ’roid-enhanced thug who clearly cheated. Just kidding about the cheating part, but there really is no substitute for the real thing, and 2K10 did not disappoint. We ultimately played a few games and never did experience any of the slowdowns that some have in past 2K Sports’ baseball efforts.
Regardless of how you acquire them, you’ll then allot them to the areas of your game you want to enhance. And whereas some skills can be easily increased, others eat up points like Madonna eats up men. Just try adding even a single MPH to your fastball, for example, and you’ll see what we mean. But that’s as it should be.
The really good news is that, over an appropriate amount of time, your improved abilities really do reflect on your performance, but not so much that you morph immediately from a neophyte into a superstar. There’s a wee bit of the old chicken-and-egg thing at work here—wherein you need to improve, but feel you can’t improve unless you’ve already improved—though not nearly as much in some other My Player-style modes we’ve tried.
My Player isn’t the holy grail of video baseball. Batting in the beginning is downright sadistic. Moderate repetition is evident. Your mileage will vary depending on the position you play. And player progression in some instances (how, for example, can you bring your base-running up to major league snuff when you so rarely get on base and must depend on teammates to give you a chance to run?) are sluggish. But combine all the good stuff we mentioned earlier with a player creation routine that’s crazily detailed and mega-customizable, and we think you’ll be as addicted as we are.
Except for one thing: We like competing with a real human even better. At least we thought we did until we went online. Though we somehow managed to extricate ourselves from a few jams in the first three innings we undertook, we soon thereafter died a million baseball deaths at the hand of some ’roid-enhanced thug who clearly cheated. Just kidding about the cheating part, but there really is no substitute for the real thing, and 2K10 did not disappoint. We ultimately played a few games and never did experience any of the slowdowns that some have in past 2K Sports’ baseball efforts.
Speaking of steroids, the design team must have decided they’re no longer an issue in virtual baseball, as none of the players on display were nearly as massive as some of the incredible bulks we see strolling the diamonds in real life. Otherwise, player composition is good, and even their little faces—and, yes, even their little stubble—look the part.
Animations, conversely, are erratic. We’ll go out on a limb here and say they’re better and less mistake-prone than prior editions, but the details are lacking. On more than one occasion, we’d see a fielder chase down an errant fly by alternately jogging and sprinting. Or some guy sitting on first base performing a bizarre little tap dance.
Animations, conversely, are erratic. We’ll go out on a limb here and say they’re better and less mistake-prone than prior editions, but the details are lacking. On more than one occasion, we’d see a fielder chase down an errant fly by alternately jogging and sprinting. Or some guy sitting on first base performing a bizarre little tap dance.
Overall, MLB 2K10 is a pretty but not flashy game. All that chrome and gloss and that special-effects bonanza you’d find in a well-honed, well-financed EA Sports game? You won’t really find it here. You will, however, find solid lighting throughout and stadiums seemingly built with due care and attention. Replays are solid, looking very much like those you’d find on the boob tube, and even the crowd gets into the action as they jump for foul balls and bounce about hither and thither. Too bad, then, that the odd crowd shot portrays them in all their stretched, 2D glory. A bit rough around the edges? You betcha.
Of course, the My Player addition we discussed earlier doesn’t come at the expense of standard video baseball modes. You can, as usual, engage in one-off contests and home run derbies, or go whole hog with Franchise and Online League modes. The game also offers “MLB Today,” a nifty idea wherein you can monitor real-life major league results—even in Cactus and Grapefruit league seasons—play with and against teams sporting current, to-the-day rosters, and generally feel like you’re up there with the big boys.
One of our fave raves concerns the game’s commentary. It’s a troika of voices that includes Gary Thorne, Steve Phillips and the highly quotable John Kruk, and the results are tres magnifique. Sure, there are a few missteps and moderate repetition, but we were downright blown away with many of the situation-specific comments. Good lord, is Kruk right there in the room with us? Seriously—it can be that good.
We’re not so sure about the game’s artificial intelligence. One of the most maligned aspects of last year’s installment, the AI has been upgraded, but not wholesale fixed. Strange fielding decisions are not completely uncommon, nor are players who stand there for a second or two, apparently contemplating that brunette in the tenth row, before getting rid of the ball. Does faulty AI ruin the game? Not at all, but we do wish 2K Sports had dedicated a few more dollars toward a fully realized beta-testing cycle. Surely such nagging inconsistencies would have been caught.
That said, the most important part of baseball—the relationship between pitcher and batter—is better than ever. It’s not so much one or two alterations that have made the difference. It’s a combination of a bunch of factors—the control scheme, the subtle “human” factors the designer has built into the game, the sense that most situations are true showdowns that could easily swing one way or another—that make 2K10 feel as “real” as it does.
Over on the PS3, MLB 10: The Show has just launched, and it likely still claims the crown in the video baseball showdown. But it clearly hasn’t experienced the same sudden improvement as the 2K line, which, now, can be considered a true competitor. That it manages to take a slightly different, slightly more innovative approach to the game’s key aspects is a bonus for those who appreciate originality. You still can’t get The Show for your X360, but now it doesn’t hurt nearly as much.
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