Major League Baseball 2K9 (PS3)

2K Sports delivers MLB 2K8-lite.
3/10/2009 7:36 PM | 1 Comments | Page 1 of 3

This game was played on both the PS3 and Xbox 360. No notable difference in performance or graphics was noted.

Edgar Allan Poe was greatly underappreciated during his own lifetime. Yet despite the lack of a large following or far-reaching celebrity, the troubled writer kept on cranking out stories of the whacked-out and macabre until his premature and alcohol-fueled death in 1849. It wasn't until after his passing that his fame grew and he was finally appreciated for the genius that he was. Sure, I could simply end my review of 2K Sports' Major League Baseball 2K9 on that note, but as a serious gaming journalist, I'm not about taking shortcuts.

What does the misunderstood life of one of America's greatest writers have to do with a baseball videogame? Three words: "Total Control Pitching." Last year, MLB 2K8 introduced a revolutionary way to get the ball from the pitcher's mound to home plate. Borrowing from games like Fight Night and Skate, development tied everything -- from the placement of the ball to the speed and accuracy of the pitch -- to the analog sticks. Initially, I found the game's pitching controls to be beyond challenging. Yeah, it was cool when you were occasionally able to perfectly time and execute the three or four elements that had to happen for your curveball to end up where you wanted it to end up, but these flashes of coolness were grossly outnumbered by the amount of times that you didn't do everything quite right. If your timing or thumbsmanship were off just slightly, your pitch would end up getting drilled into the stands.

Despite my initial impressions, I stuck with MLB 2K8 and its steep learning curve, and eventually grew to appreciate the hell out of the pitching interface. The rest of the game was far from perfect -- especially when compared to Sony's MLB 08: The Show -- but the pitching was perhaps the deepest and most rewarding of any baseball game I'd played up to that point.

And -- finally -- that brings us to Poe. Instead of sticking by its guns and waiting for the world to grow to understand the genius of the pitching scheme, developers for this year's game did a complete 180 and dumbed the pitching down to a far more simplistic and less rewarding level. I realize that Poe died still troubled by his personal demons, while the folks at 2K will go on to make plenty more games, but I think you understand my point.

The way that MLB 2K9 plays out of the box is the polar opposite of the way MLB 2K8 played out of the box last year. It's still a stick-centric experience, but the demands the game puts on your stick skills have been lessened in just about every way. And that sucks a lot of the fun and challenge from it.

The pitching system that made MLB 2K8 so challenging -- and frustrating -- still forces you to follow prescribed "gestures" with the right stick to pull off certain pitches, but the timing requirements have been cut in half. Instead of having to time your gesture (an up, down or circular movement with the right stick) and then time your release, all you have to do is wait until an on-screen meter fills, and then perform the gesture. You can tweak the controller setup to revert to a style similar to last year's arrangement, but it still doesn't feel the same.