Major League Baseball 2K8

Rating Everyone Genre sports Publisher 2K Games

Download the original attachment Most gamers know that EA Sports gained exclusivity to football with their Madden series, but not many know the other half of that agreement gave baseball exclusively to 2K Games. With that in mind, MLB 2K8 represents the only game in town for the Xbox 360 if you’re looking to hit the old ballpark. It’s certainly far from perfect, but 2K seems to be headed in the right direction with some nice new features and MLB 2K8 definitely represents more than a simple roster update and coat of paint that we’ve seen before in some other series.

Most sports titles can be broken down into two main categories: simulation and arcade. MLB 2K8 definitely falls into the simulation category, but it’s not such an insurmountable learning curve that casual gamers can’t enjoy it. The franchise mode is one of the deepest I’ve seen in any game and should be enough to get hardcore baseball nuts excited. Not only do you take control of a major league team, but you also can manage your team’s farm system all the way from AAA down to A ball. Of course this means you can promote and demote players within your system, but if you really want to take it deep you can play out your minor league games. Dozens of actual minor league teams including their authentic uniforms and stadiums are included in the game and while it takes a special kind of gamer to want to get into that level of detail, it’s pretty impressive that the option is there. Beyond the farm system, you have the usual control over your major league roster including trading and a limited ability to control ticket prices and therefore your potential revenue.

Whether you’re into building a multi-year franchise or you just like to pick up a game here and there, the gameplay offers a thoroughly realistic baseball experience. The increased use of the right analog stick has revolutionized most sports titles now, and MLB 2K8 is no exception. The highlight for me was Total Control Pitching. It’s no longer just simple button taps to choose pitch, speed, and accuracy. Each pitcher has a collection of pitches they’re able to throw and they are rated on their skill with each pitch. The skill and the pitcher’s stamina determine the targets you have to hit when performing a pitch with the right stick.

The easiest example is throwing a simple fastball. Each pitch is a combination of two motions with the stick. To start a fastball you pull straight back. As you hold back, a ring fills and the goal is to begin the second motion when the rings fills to an outer portion called the effectiveness ring. The higher your pitcher’s rating for that particular pitch, the larger the effectiveness ring is. For the second half of the fastball, push the stick forward. The ring empties back toward a bulls-eye and that bulls-eye determines the accuracy of the pitch. Again, the size of the bulls-eye depends on your rating for that pitch. Hit the effectiveness ring, hit the accuracy bulls-eye, and trace the pitch motion with the stick as it’s supposed to be and you can throw pinpoint pitches. Miss on any portion and the pitch will miss its target. Small mistakes lead to small misses while big mistakes can lead to throwing meatballs that are tipped to the batter and usually end up going deep.

A great feature of this system is that trickier pitches are also more complicated to throw. For example, to throw a curveball you pull the stick back-left and then have to trace all the way around counter-clockwise to top left within the timing of the pitch. To me this makes things very realistic as breaking pitches in real life are generally harder to control and not nearly as easy as locating a relatively simple fastball. The system sounds a little complicated, and it is at first. Once you get the hang of it, there’s almost no reason to go back to classic pitch controls.

Batting, fielding, and baserunning can also be controlled with the right stick. To throw to a base you press the right stick in the direction of that base. A meter fills and the goal is to release the stick in the middle, yellow zone. Release too early and the throw goes low, too late and the ball goes high. Also, if you don’t press the stick exactly in the right direction, the throw will be off to the left or the right. This can be great if you want to purposely target a throw to the left of home plate to have a better shot at getting the runner or it can also go wrong if you throw high and right to first and pull the first baseman off the bag missing the out. Similar to pitching, the size of the “good throw” zone and the speed of the meter filling depend on each player’s rating.

With such great strides in gameplay it’s unfortunate that a general sense of glitchiness takes over way too often. There are many reports of frame rate dropping especially where there is a lot of panning, such as a throw from Third Base to First Base. With so much reliance on timing with the right stick, this jitter can really mess you up if it happens mid-play. Outside of game action, replays, music, and voiceovers will often jump and even stop for a couple of second. In addition, the graphics aren’t great for a next gen title. The stadiums are beautifully done as we’ve come to expect, but many character faces look weird.

Many of the “details” end up being downfalls. For instance, sweat drops on a pitcher’s face in the late innings will actually appear as missing pixels. The designers also tried to implement outside elements, such as jerseys flapping with the wind. Unfortunately, it looks like they never got past version one of the animation. Nothing else on the uniform or player will be affected, but the jersey flaps excessively. The overall effect just makes it look like everyone is wearing jerseys two sizes too big. It’s too bad because these are the kind of details that can really make a game shine.

There’s no denying that 2K is headed in the right direction with this franchise. The advancements in pitching and throwing have made this the first baseball game I’ve played where I have more fun pitching and playing defense than I do batting. The mechanics are there for the most part, but the presentation keeps this version from being flawless. A lot of the in-game animation and graphics need work and hopefully will be improved for 2K9. In the meantime, the core of the gameplay makes for a phenomenal baseball experience. If you take the time to get over the learning curve of the new right stick controls, you will be rewarded with some of the most realistic video game baseball I’ve seen.