Major League Baseball 2K9 Game Review - Playstation 3

OUR RATING:

4.9

FLAWED

TANGIBLES:

Gameplay:		5
Visuals:		4
Audio:		5
Value:		7
Quality:		3

Why you should buy it: You can’t not buy a baseball game if you’re an Xbox 360 owner.

Why you should rent it: You don’t want to directly give money to 2K Sports or you love the long ball.

UNIQUE RATING:

4.9

SUGGESTION:

Skip It

Major League Baseball 2K9

Written by: Chris Selogy | Tags: Major League Baseball 2K9, Playstation 3

March 12,2009 - Since Take Two grabbed the exclusive third-party license for MLB games a few years ago, the series has struggled greatly to make their baseball series good enough to stand alone on every non-Sony system. Hiring Ben Brinkman away from EA’s MVP Baseball series seemed like a good idea at the time, but his three year plan of bringing 2K Sports’ back to the top of the baseball genre has done nothing but disappoint fans to a clear drop in quality assurance with no clear vision of what the series should be. MLB 2K9 is the final part of that three year plan that seeks to refine the clunky analog controls 2K created last year and finally be the kind of baseball game that keeps you from jumping on Sony’s MLB freight train. Does MLB 2K9 finally step up to fulfill its potential or will Xbox 360 owners have to look elsewhere for their baseball fix once again?

Last year’s inclusion of all-new analog controls for every facet of the game has been greatly refined for MLB 2K9. The presentation is no longer overwhelming with feedback, information, and details that were just shoved in your face over and over again, so everything’s done with a simple look and style that makes it a much more attractive feature to have. Pitching is a lot more simple to grasp as you just let the circle with the first analog stick motion then do the second motion when it’s full to put the most effort behind it. The major issue is just that the catcher takes a long time to set-up to tell you what pitch and where it should go, slowing down this process much more than it needs to be. A simple dot on the batting zone would suffice without the added animations that it requires.

MLB 2K9’s batting is once again analog controlled with the same pull the bat back, then swing forward motion that’s been used since Tiger Woods started the craze several years ago. With MLB 2K9 being portrayed as a baseball sim, it feels like 2K mixed up the code for The Bigs with MLB 2K9 as homeruns are easy to obtain along with as many long balls as you can hit with just the simple one-handed controls. 20 run games were much more common than they have any right to be in a baseball sim and the lack of ground balls without the need to manually induce them yourselves will just baffle you as to how somehow touting this series a simulation continues to miss the mark year after year. Twenty games into the season in the franchise mode resulted in having Indians’ players being at or near the top of most every offensive statistical category, minus steals since not too many players stayed on base long enough to steal a base.

Fielding has also been tweaked for MLB 2K9. Last year’s game offered a swirling arrow filling up to represent the power of your throw that was very confusing at times, so it’s good news that the analog fielding works fairly well to just push the right stick in the direction of the base that you wish to throw to. Unfortunately, double plays are hard to pull off without the ability to preload your throws for quick action and the same can be said for ground balls that your infielders grab while on the run. The first baseman tends to be stupid enough to sometime be the position to be ready for the throw, but not have their foot on the bag and not give you any visual sign of this error until you see that there’s no out sign coming from the ump. Catchers have trouble tagging runners headed for home, so you’ll see the catcher and runner bump into each other but again, no out is called by the home plate ump.

The fielding issues don’t end there for MLB 2K9, as outfielders frequently will come down with leg cramps, causing them to limp towards the icon of where the ball will land, usually leading to hits where there should’ve been fly outs. Outfielders also have trouble with balls that hit the wall at times, leading to many triples and even the occasional in-the-park homeruns for the slower players. They even have trouble with line drives hit towards them, as you occasionally see the ball roll past them as they were running straight at the ball. It seems like 2K wanted to add some randomness to the fielding aspect, but left the sliders being way too high.

MLB 2K9 offers some decent features to its package. The series continues to elude the career mode craze that has taken over the hockey, basketball, football, soccer, and even MLB 2K9’s only competitor, MLB 09: The Show. Franchise offers some good classic franchise as you try to reach the World Series year after year while fulfilling the goals the owners and management has for the team. The Home Run Derby mode has been fleshed out with an additional mode, called Best of the Best, which pits you against the top 20 homerun hitters of 2008 in an arcade fighter style of facing each player one-on-one until you beat the top player. Online play features the usual suspects of leagues, exhibition matches, Card battles between teams made up of the cards you’ve collected in game, and even the Home Run Derby itself. The baseball cards feature from last year has been reworked so you now just complete one of two requirements to earn a player’s card, usually one for when you’re playing with that team and one for playing against that team.

The players in MLB 2K9 do look good and are generally good representations of some of the more recognizable players and has good pitching and batting animations to match the players. The animations leave a lot to be desired, as the previously mentioned fielding problems work into the visual aspect of the game when players run around on the field like clunky messes without much control on the player’s part to making plays that look as sound as they do during the actual games. The game has framerate issues at times with random half-second stutters throughout the game, which usually occur after a pitch, while the ball’s in the air and some other not so critical moments in the game but is still noticeable.

The announcers in MLB 2K9 seem to be a bit better than last year but lag behind MLB 09’s great announcing crew as they just aren’t punctual in their analysis and lack the ability to talk about relevant topics, such as being 19-1 with the Cleveland Indians and they were still talking about the mediocre season they had in 2008 and how we will see if they can turn things around. The soundtrack is not really a baseball soundtrack because it’s filled with songs you’d expect in Rock Band, a skateboarding game circa 2001, and a few remaining songs that fit the baseball vibe but you have the option to use custom soundtracks to remedy that situation and play whatever you want.

MLB 2K9 may be a sign that 2K Sports should stop building upon this unstable foundation and start anew, much like the transition EA went through when Triple Play Baseball was killed and MVP Baseball debuted. This is not the baseball sim it portrays itself to be and if this were reskinned with more development time, this could be a sufficient sequel to The Bigs, which was 2K’s successful arcade baseball game from 2007. Of course, there’s a real sequel coming in a few months, which is revealed on the MLB 2K9 disc itself. If you’re the unfortunate baseball fan without a PS3, PS2, or PSP, you’ll have to make do with whatever you’ve been playing until now to fill the void of good baseball games to play while those on the PS3 should not even go beyond the demo in consideration of getting this game.

From 1951 to 2000, one in every 158 homeruns were inside the park homeruns, which are even more rare these days. Roberto Clemente has had one of the most rare inside-the-park homeruns in MLB history as he hit a walk-off inside-the-park grand slam to help the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Chicago Cub 9-8 on July 25, 1956.