Major League Baseball 2K8

March 13,2008 - Since Take Two nabbed the exclusive third-party MLB license, that particular part of the genre has had an interesting turn of events. The MVP series tried college baseball and has disappeared, Sony’s MLB series has improved greatly as an underdog, and 2K Sports’ MLB series has fallen on hard times. MLB 2K6 was just a broken mess of code while 2K7 was somewhat playable, but with MLB 2K8, 2K Sports is looking to right the sinking ship and finally give 360 owners a baseball game to be proud of. With a new facelift to pretty much all facets of the gameplay, does MLB 2K8 succeed or fail once again to give baseball fans a home on the 360?

The new big gameplay feature for MLB 2K8 is its Total Control pitching mechanic, which is a fancy word for taking the trick mechanic from skate and making it less intuitive. Each pitch is represented by an analog combo, so to pull off a fastball, for example, you have to pull the right stick down, then up. That may sound simple, but it’s not. First, you pull the right stick down while watching a circle meter fill up to its edge, then before it collapses towards the green circle in the middle, you need to pull the right stick up and let go once that circle is inside the green circle. It may actually be a bit simpler than understanding that last sentence, but you sure won’t think so when you first get on the pitcher’s mound. The in-game tutorial even fails to explain it very well, so you’ll need to put some time into the game before you have chance of total pitching control. Be prepared to make some bean salads and have a high rate of ejections in the meantime, however.

Also new to MLB 2K8 this year is the analog fielding mechanic, which happens to be the most successful attempt at analog stick-controlled field to date. When your fielder picks up the ball, you push the right stick in the direction of the base you want to throw to and a meter will pop up and fill. Letting go of the right stick at the right time results in a great throw, though doing that too early or too late can result in wild throws and errors. The base-running mechanic also fits into this new scheme as you use the left stick to highlight the runner at one of the four bases and push the left trigger to send them to the next base or right trigger to send them back a base. Unfortunately, you can also do the same thing with the face buttons, but seeing as the A button is your typical “get on with the stupid game” button, you may see your fair share of runners be tagged out because the game wasn’t ready to move on when you were.

MLB 2K7 took on analog batting with its first iteration of its Swing Stick, which was met with mixed reactions. This year, 2K has taken the Swing Stick to its second iteration and it works quite well. It’s as simple as it gets; pull the right stick back before the pitch is thrown and swing it forward at the right moment to hit the ball. To be frank, it’s not the mechanic that’s the problem here, it’s the game. For a simulation, MLB 2K8 features a ton of homeruns—but not because you’re a god. All you have to do is hold the left stick in the up position while swinging with the right stick and you should get quite a few homeruns with even the most decent teams. Sure, it could be fixed with constant tweaks of the sliders, but why should you even have to do that for a simulation game? Luckily, if you’re not a fan of any of these analog stick-based mechanics, you can turn them off in the settings.

The other big feature that MLB 2K8 boasts is the new cards you get for playing the game. Every team has about a dozen cards for its best players and each card has a requirement to be earned, such as getting three base hits in a game with Indians catcher Victor Martinez. Every player has these requirements, so you’ll get multiples of those cards, which you can sell for credits to buy new packs. Unfortunately, that’s the only means you have to buy new packs of cards, so you don’t get credits for playing well in games like every other game that has done the card thing before. Luckily, you may be able to get these wildcards, which only appear randomly, but after a dozen games, only once has the magical wildcard appeared. It’s a neat feature, but the way it’s been done is counter-intuitive to the way it’s really done. Did you only get money to buy baseball cards as a kid by selling multiples or did you actually get an allowance to fund purchases?

Everything else MLB 2K8 offers is pretty much the same as what it offered last year. You’ve got your franchise mode, tournament, homerun derby, exhibition, and the online mode with leagues, tournaments, and one-on-one play. Online play is rather underwhelming partly because of a bit of lag, but also because of the gameplay itself. One neat thing is that you can create teams from your cards and play against other players’ teams to see who can build the best team. It’s a shame the developers are too busy with fixing gameplay issues each year to really try out new modes, such as a career mode, that makes the other games a better choice.

Visually, MLB 2K8 is a disappointment all around. Not only does the game feel choppy at times in both frame rates and the animations, but the graphics are flat out unimpressive. Not many of the players look like they should and those that do are more of a decent resemblance. Details are not really the game’s strength, as the fielding view shows players to look bland while in MLB 08, they still look nice and detailed in a zoomed out view. If we were asked what’s the one most impressive part of MLB 2K8, graphically, it would have to be the wind-tunnel enhanced jerseys.

The audio of MLB 2K8 is where the game makes a bit of a comeback, as the commentators are some of the better ones out there, but they’re not really much of a highlight to the gameplay. The lifeless crowd manages to do a good job of cheering and jeering players as they walk up to the plate to bat. The soundtrack’s filled with the typical mix of classic and modern rock with a little hip-hop thrown in, but you can use the custom soundtrack feature to make up for that if you had the foresight to create playlists first, otherwise you’re out of luck mid-game.

It’s unfortunate for baseball fans without a PS3 that MLB 2K8 is their only choice. It’s not a bad game by any means, but it seems like the developers cannot get the gameplay down long enough to be able to tend to the rest of the game’s problems. As a simulation, the game’s a failure, but as a mix of simulation and arcade-like gameplay, it’s a fairly good time. Luckily, there is a demo on Xbox Live for 360 owners to try out first, but you may as well rent it and see if you can get enough of a grip on the Total Control pitching before you have to take it back. If you’re a PS3 owner, you have no excuse buying this while the superior MLB 08: The Show is staring you in the face.

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