MLB 2K8 (Xbox 360)

2K Sports' latest pitch just misses the strike zone.
4/1/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 2 of 3

The game could have been more forgiving with the new pitching scheme, but it isn't. Screw up the timing or the motion of the stick and your well-intentioned curve becomes a hanging meatball that -- more often than not -- gets drilled into the stands. Yes, I know that in the big leagues, pitchers pay the price if they slip up, but it's far too frustrating to go from feeling like you're in control of an inning one second to digging yourself out of a hole the next.

The right stick also rears its head in the field. 2K8 tosses the perfectly laid-out diamond configuration of the face buttons in the trash -- at least in the default setting -- and lets you throw to whatever base you want by using the stick. Unlike the pitching, this becomes second nature almost immediately. You can still go old-school and map your fielders' throws to the face buttons, but once you get used to the stick, you won't.

While the pitching and fielding have gotten more right-stick intensive, at the plate, things have been simplified a bit. Instead of having the option of taking a contact swing or a power swing, now there's just one type of swing. Pull back on the stick to step and then push it forward to swing. You still can push the stick left or right to either pull the ball or go the other way with it, but getting rid of the option of adding power seems like a step in the wrong direction.

Presentation-wise, the game has never been able to take advantage of the power of the system and this year is no exception. 2K's hoops game, which plays at a much faster pace, delivers a far prettier picture. Players are immediately recognizable and arenas and fans seem a lot more lifelike. On the baseball field, though, the game doesn't seem to have gotten a lot of love from development in the graphics department. Frame rate can be choppy, things don't flow as much as they should, and there are far too many eerie and motionless moments between plays. Player likenesses are also questionable. The first time Manny Ramirez stepped up to the plate I thought that I'd somehow unlocked a secret player and that Jonathan Davis from Korn was now batting clean-up for me. The game supports hi-defs up to 1080p (1080i if you've got an older Xbox 360 or are using component cables), which does make things a little nicer-looking.

On the audio side of things, while it's cool to have Joe Morgan and Jon Miller in the booth, what they're saying is virtually the same as what they said last year.

As far as game modes, not much has changed since last time around: seasons, franchises, home run derbies, online tournaments, etc. The big carrot that development is dangling in front of you this year is the potential to collect about a million different baseball cards. Riffing on the VIP SkyBox concept that let you buy and unlock new uniforms, stadiums and the like is the ability to earn player cards. Not only will you be able to view the cards that you've earned, but you can also trade them online.

Xbox 360 owners don't have much choice when it comes to baseball. Last year MLB 2K7 delivered a serviceable game, but couldn't compare to what Sony's The Show offered PlayStation 3 owners. This year, 2K tried to give gamers a novel way to hit the field. The shift in focus to a more stick-centric way to play was a cool idea, but it's still a work in progress. Hopefully, next year -- with a full year's worth of tweaking and fine-tuning -- the innovative controller scheme will give Xbox 360 owners yet another "must have" game to play.