Sports game have always been one of those genres to review simply because theres always going to be a direct comparison to past versions. This holds up with some games, mainly anything with a sequel, but sports game that continue to be released year in and year out will always have to hold up to its predecessors. If you dont give your fans something new, you can lose the interest of your previous fan base as well as scare off newcomers to your game. 2K Sports has done a good job over the last couple of years giving a relatively fresh experience, and this year is no different, but not without some flaws that keep it from being a near perfect experience.
Presentation
The 2K series of MLB has always been one of my favorites from a presentation standpoint. Visual Concepts and Take Two do a great job of giving you a very realistic feel graphically of what baseball is like. The stadiums are absolutely superb, and are almost dead on accurate. If youre looking to do a quick afternoon game at Wrigley Field, youll find that even the rooftops across the street on Waveland Avenue are littered with fans, just like youd see during a summer matinee on television. Heck, even the red roofed house that has a particular beer advertisement is there, although its been changed due to sponsorship reasons, which is understandable.
In my opinion, there is no better baseball announce team than Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, who do ESPNs Sunday Night Baseball every weekend. The announcing has been improved upon this year from this tandem (the same cant be said for Jeanie Zulasko and Steve Physioc.more on that later) as fresh lines of conversation have been added, including more fan mail bits if youre in a pause menu or you are just taking a lot of time determining what type of pitch to throw to the current batter you are facing. Miller and Morgan will certainly make you feel like youre watching a game on television, even though you are actually playing it.
One thing that has always impressed me with 2K Sports is their menu system, which is usually very easy to navigate. MLB 2K8 does not use the typical menu system that youll find in College Hoops or All Pro Football. This is not a bad thing, however, as the menu bar doesnt take up the entire screen. However, its a scroll bar at the very top of the screen itself, and it will bring up drop down menus if you select one. Its very easy to scan through these, no matter if youre just looking at options or going through a franchise mode. Sometimes, these little things get overlooked as we get too locked into major points, and this is something that MLB 2K8 scores high on.
Coming back to the graphics, most everything is very clean. The player models are rendered extremely well, and even more player specific batting stances and pitching wind-ups have been added. One of the first things I do with a sports game is head into the Create-a-player to see how easy it is to make one as well as to see just how deep the categories are. 2K Sports stuck with what worked in the past, making sure to give a full list of all the names, both first and last, that are spoken by Miller and Morgan. Of course, if you want them to actually say Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and even a few newcomers (Cubs OF Kosuke Fukudome is actually named Kazuhito Fortunato) will have to be manually renamed. What is the reason for this? These players were, at the time of when the rosters are declared current, they were not official members of the MLB Players Association, which in turn does not give 2K Sports the right to use their names. A bit frustrating, but its nothing new in the world of sports games, especially baseball.
Unfortunately, there are a couple of very glaring negatives that come to mind throughout my time playing the game. First and foremost, the load screens are extremely glitchy. Youll certainly experience this when you are changing sides in an inning or at the end of the game when going through highlights. The game will seemingly pause or even lock up for a few seconds depending on what point of the game you are at. Its very annoying to have to deal with this, and Id like to think that we were past this point in the age of DVD based software. Im okay with load screens, but I dont think its too much to ask to have these screens not lock up our systems.
Another negative that comes to mind again stems from load screens, although this is from an announcing standpoint. Whenever you start a game, you are blessed with the voices of Jeannie Zulasko and Steve Physioc, who do the pre-game announcing to set up your upcoming game as well as the end of the 7th inning and end of game highlights. The issue is that they are either late in starting because of problems with loading, not synced up with highlights, or the highlight they are announcing is flat out wrong. A very simple example to give is Physiocs incredible love for an inside-the-park home run. Every time I have hit a home run in a game prior to the eighth inning, with one or two exceptions, the highlight will come up showing the home run, but Physioc will ALWAYS say that it was an inside-the-park home run. For the record, I have yet to hit one.
Gameplay
Lets face it, and I know Ive said this before: Gameplay is what makes or breaks any game, but this holds especially true when it comes to sports game. If the game doesnt have a good flow, its not going to be worth playing. If its too difficult to be a pick up and play style game, you are going to keep those fresh faces you want buying your game from getting it. 2K8 has certainly answered most of these concerns with the new style of gameplay that gives old veterans of the series something new to learn while keep it relatively easy for the casual gamer to pick up and play.
First, let me just say that Im glad that there is a system for base running that I actually understand how to use and execute it properly. Past baseball games have suffered from stupid little mistakes that cause base runners to take off because of a wrongly pressed button or because of stupid AI. The system is now simplified to the point where you press the left analog stick in the direction of the base runner that you want to control instead of having to try and send all of your runners in a situation where at least one will get thrown out and run you out of an inning. After selecting your runner, he will be highlighted on the outside of the screen to let you know that you are in control of him. At that point, you can choose to either send him a single base or hit a single button and send him all the way home if you feel he can make it. Be careful, though, because the impatient players who wildly mash the A button after a play may accidentally send a runner home and get him caught in a pickle. All in all, base running is fantastic.
The entire pitching interface has changed. No longer do you simply hold down a button for its effectiveness and then release it for accuracy. 2K Sports has implemented an analog style pitching system that is surprisingly good. For instance, if you are throwing a fastball, you will pull back on the right analog stick and hold it until the circular meter over home plate fills up, thus making the pitch more effective. At that point, you would then thrust the right stick straight forward and hold it until the circle diminishes into a smaller circle. Depending how close you are to hitting that circle perfect, plus how well you do the analog motion, will determine how accurate your pitch is. It gets harder when you throw breaking balls. For example, if you want to throw a slider with a right handed pitcher, you will start your pitching motion pointing to the left on the right analog, then make a half circle motion going down. Again, how well you do the motion will determine the effectiveness. In the case of a breaking ball, it will determine how much the pitch breaks. Oh, and a very notable point to bring up with pitching is that there is no longer the ability to create a pitcher with a ridiculous breaking pitch. In last years game you could make some pitches start at the batters head and it would drop low and away outside of the strike zone. Those days are gone, as pitching is now a little more realistic. You can still create a pitcher using more than a dozen pitches, but dont expect those crazy motions anymore.
If those changes werent enough for you, hitting has also been improved upon, which was desperately needed after last years home run festival you could have with just about any half decent hitter with power. Now, instead of just having to time the swing correctly when using the right analog to swing, you must time your step as well. This has the biggest learning curve in the game, as it takes some time to learn when to pull back on the analog stick to time your step, let alone couple that with the swing itself. Just like last year, directional batting is back. Taking an outside pitch to the opposite field is still a good challenge, and its even harder to do now that you have to time the step. The game will tell you if you are stepping too early or too late, which will have an effect of the power of the swing. If you step too early, you will probably end up out in front of a pitch or swing very weakly. If youre too late with your step, youre going to miss the ball.
All of these changes are very good, for the most part. However, the learning curve for the pitching and hitting may be a little too steep for some players. One thing that I didnt mention earlier was what happens if you completely miss your pitching motion. If you fail to complete a motion that is similar to any of your pitchers repertoire, he will then throw a high 80s meatball, which will be tipped off to the hitter. Chances are good, especially if youre playing the CPU, that this ball will leave the yard. Early on, you may find yourself throwing a lot of these as you get used to the system. Its a slight flaw, because sometimes youll do a motion fairly well, but the system hiccups and thinks you mess up, thus giving you a fat pitch served up for the hitter.
Another negative that seems to have been ignored from last year is some unnecessary motions of fielders who are making throws. Sometimes youll be standing still, just trying to get a throw in and the player will do one of those power hops like hes going to launch the ball into the next zip code. Sure, theyre realistic motions, but only if youre actually trying to gun someone out at a base. On top of that, I found that there are far too many outfield collisions between teammates. I understand that, occasionally, there will be a ball that splits outfielders and can cause issues, but when a player in right field only has to take a couple of steps and the center fielder comes over and slams into him, theres a problem with the A.I. Speaking of the A.I., Ive found that the gap between the default difficulty and the next level up is a vast difference. Pro is sometimes way too easy, sure, but the Veteran difficulty even had me scratching my head as to how to even get a hit. Think Johan Santana is hard to get a hit off of on Pro? Hes far harder on Veteran or even Legendary, although see if you can even muster a run against him for a challenge to yourself early on.
Features, Options, and Achievements
Everyone expects a sports game nowadays to have a very in-depth franchise or season mode, and 2K8 does not disappoint here. The franchise mode has been jazzed up with some improvements, including a much needed set of sliders that will determine how quickly players in the minors progress. For the last couple of years, its been difficult to get past a certain point in franchise mode simply because your minor leaguers arent very good. Now, you can determine how fast or slow they progress. Of course, it will depend on the players individual potential that determines what happens to him. Also, there are sliders that will allow you to change how quickly a veteran player breaks down and forces him to retire. When you add these changes on with all of the features that have been brought back, including setting ticket prices, making trades with a much improved CPU trade offering system, and receiving e-mails from the owner, you end up with a very solid experience with franchise.
Achievements, as a whole, are fairly well dispersed. Youll get various achievements for accomplishing feats such as hitting five home runs in a game or pitching a no-hitter/perfect game. Some are fairly easy, such as simply taking a walk or changing a pitch that a catcher has called for. A few others will force you to go online and play against opponent, which I actually did not have a great experience with. The online mode seems to be a bit laggy, and its pretty impressive that some players have already notched 100 games under their belts. Even with my high speed connection, I found pitching to be difficult and hitting to be relatively impossible. Now, before people blame it on me or the other player, you can individually select a player to play against via their Ping, which can limit these problems. I will give some credit where its due, however. Online now allows players to participate in not only tournaments online, but leagues as well. It was much needed for a long time, and if I can only get a decent connection with a player online, Ill give it a shot.
Final Thoughts
All in all, MLB 2K8 gives a pretty solid performance. However, as previously mentioned, there are the issues ranging from minor to moderate that cause the experience to go downhill just enough to keep it from being a top-tier sports game. The changes that were made were beneficial for all of the fans of the MLB 2K series, but simple things need to be resolved. Hopefully, next time around, we see some fine-tuning with announcing. However, the big thing, of course, is the glichy load screens. Some of those just cause too many problems, and we cant be having those issues at this day in age in gaming.
Final Score: 7.9/10
Presentation
The 2K series of MLB has always been one of my favorites from a presentation standpoint. Visual Concepts and Take Two do a great job of giving you a very realistic feel graphically of what baseball is like. The stadiums are absolutely superb, and are almost dead on accurate. If youre looking to do a quick afternoon game at Wrigley Field, youll find that even the rooftops across the street on Waveland Avenue are littered with fans, just like youd see during a summer matinee on television. Heck, even the red roofed house that has a particular beer advertisement is there, although its been changed due to sponsorship reasons, which is understandable.
In my opinion, there is no better baseball announce team than Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, who do ESPNs Sunday Night Baseball every weekend. The announcing has been improved upon this year from this tandem (the same cant be said for Jeanie Zulasko and Steve Physioc.more on that later) as fresh lines of conversation have been added, including more fan mail bits if youre in a pause menu or you are just taking a lot of time determining what type of pitch to throw to the current batter you are facing. Miller and Morgan will certainly make you feel like youre watching a game on television, even though you are actually playing it.
One thing that has always impressed me with 2K Sports is their menu system, which is usually very easy to navigate. MLB 2K8 does not use the typical menu system that youll find in College Hoops or All Pro Football. This is not a bad thing, however, as the menu bar doesnt take up the entire screen. However, its a scroll bar at the very top of the screen itself, and it will bring up drop down menus if you select one. Its very easy to scan through these, no matter if youre just looking at options or going through a franchise mode. Sometimes, these little things get overlooked as we get too locked into major points, and this is something that MLB 2K8 scores high on.
Coming back to the graphics, most everything is very clean. The player models are rendered extremely well, and even more player specific batting stances and pitching wind-ups have been added. One of the first things I do with a sports game is head into the Create-a-player to see how easy it is to make one as well as to see just how deep the categories are. 2K Sports stuck with what worked in the past, making sure to give a full list of all the names, both first and last, that are spoken by Miller and Morgan. Of course, if you want them to actually say Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, and even a few newcomers (Cubs OF Kosuke Fukudome is actually named Kazuhito Fortunato) will have to be manually renamed. What is the reason for this? These players were, at the time of when the rosters are declared current, they were not official members of the MLB Players Association, which in turn does not give 2K Sports the right to use their names. A bit frustrating, but its nothing new in the world of sports games, especially baseball.
Unfortunately, there are a couple of very glaring negatives that come to mind throughout my time playing the game. First and foremost, the load screens are extremely glitchy. Youll certainly experience this when you are changing sides in an inning or at the end of the game when going through highlights. The game will seemingly pause or even lock up for a few seconds depending on what point of the game you are at. Its very annoying to have to deal with this, and Id like to think that we were past this point in the age of DVD based software. Im okay with load screens, but I dont think its too much to ask to have these screens not lock up our systems.
Another negative that comes to mind again stems from load screens, although this is from an announcing standpoint. Whenever you start a game, you are blessed with the voices of Jeannie Zulasko and Steve Physioc, who do the pre-game announcing to set up your upcoming game as well as the end of the 7th inning and end of game highlights. The issue is that they are either late in starting because of problems with loading, not synced up with highlights, or the highlight they are announcing is flat out wrong. A very simple example to give is Physiocs incredible love for an inside-the-park home run. Every time I have hit a home run in a game prior to the eighth inning, with one or two exceptions, the highlight will come up showing the home run, but Physioc will ALWAYS say that it was an inside-the-park home run. For the record, I have yet to hit one.
Gameplay
Lets face it, and I know Ive said this before: Gameplay is what makes or breaks any game, but this holds especially true when it comes to sports game. If the game doesnt have a good flow, its not going to be worth playing. If its too difficult to be a pick up and play style game, you are going to keep those fresh faces you want buying your game from getting it. 2K8 has certainly answered most of these concerns with the new style of gameplay that gives old veterans of the series something new to learn while keep it relatively easy for the casual gamer to pick up and play.
First, let me just say that Im glad that there is a system for base running that I actually understand how to use and execute it properly. Past baseball games have suffered from stupid little mistakes that cause base runners to take off because of a wrongly pressed button or because of stupid AI. The system is now simplified to the point where you press the left analog stick in the direction of the base runner that you want to control instead of having to try and send all of your runners in a situation where at least one will get thrown out and run you out of an inning. After selecting your runner, he will be highlighted on the outside of the screen to let you know that you are in control of him. At that point, you can choose to either send him a single base or hit a single button and send him all the way home if you feel he can make it. Be careful, though, because the impatient players who wildly mash the A button after a play may accidentally send a runner home and get him caught in a pickle. All in all, base running is fantastic.
The entire pitching interface has changed. No longer do you simply hold down a button for its effectiveness and then release it for accuracy. 2K Sports has implemented an analog style pitching system that is surprisingly good. For instance, if you are throwing a fastball, you will pull back on the right analog stick and hold it until the circular meter over home plate fills up, thus making the pitch more effective. At that point, you would then thrust the right stick straight forward and hold it until the circle diminishes into a smaller circle. Depending how close you are to hitting that circle perfect, plus how well you do the analog motion, will determine how accurate your pitch is. It gets harder when you throw breaking balls. For example, if you want to throw a slider with a right handed pitcher, you will start your pitching motion pointing to the left on the right analog, then make a half circle motion going down. Again, how well you do the motion will determine the effectiveness. In the case of a breaking ball, it will determine how much the pitch breaks. Oh, and a very notable point to bring up with pitching is that there is no longer the ability to create a pitcher with a ridiculous breaking pitch. In last years game you could make some pitches start at the batters head and it would drop low and away outside of the strike zone. Those days are gone, as pitching is now a little more realistic. You can still create a pitcher using more than a dozen pitches, but dont expect those crazy motions anymore.
If those changes werent enough for you, hitting has also been improved upon, which was desperately needed after last years home run festival you could have with just about any half decent hitter with power. Now, instead of just having to time the swing correctly when using the right analog to swing, you must time your step as well. This has the biggest learning curve in the game, as it takes some time to learn when to pull back on the analog stick to time your step, let alone couple that with the swing itself. Just like last year, directional batting is back. Taking an outside pitch to the opposite field is still a good challenge, and its even harder to do now that you have to time the step. The game will tell you if you are stepping too early or too late, which will have an effect of the power of the swing. If you step too early, you will probably end up out in front of a pitch or swing very weakly. If youre too late with your step, youre going to miss the ball.
All of these changes are very good, for the most part. However, the learning curve for the pitching and hitting may be a little too steep for some players. One thing that I didnt mention earlier was what happens if you completely miss your pitching motion. If you fail to complete a motion that is similar to any of your pitchers repertoire, he will then throw a high 80s meatball, which will be tipped off to the hitter. Chances are good, especially if youre playing the CPU, that this ball will leave the yard. Early on, you may find yourself throwing a lot of these as you get used to the system. Its a slight flaw, because sometimes youll do a motion fairly well, but the system hiccups and thinks you mess up, thus giving you a fat pitch served up for the hitter.
Another negative that seems to have been ignored from last year is some unnecessary motions of fielders who are making throws. Sometimes youll be standing still, just trying to get a throw in and the player will do one of those power hops like hes going to launch the ball into the next zip code. Sure, theyre realistic motions, but only if youre actually trying to gun someone out at a base. On top of that, I found that there are far too many outfield collisions between teammates. I understand that, occasionally, there will be a ball that splits outfielders and can cause issues, but when a player in right field only has to take a couple of steps and the center fielder comes over and slams into him, theres a problem with the A.I. Speaking of the A.I., Ive found that the gap between the default difficulty and the next level up is a vast difference. Pro is sometimes way too easy, sure, but the Veteran difficulty even had me scratching my head as to how to even get a hit. Think Johan Santana is hard to get a hit off of on Pro? Hes far harder on Veteran or even Legendary, although see if you can even muster a run against him for a challenge to yourself early on.
Features, Options, and Achievements
Everyone expects a sports game nowadays to have a very in-depth franchise or season mode, and 2K8 does not disappoint here. The franchise mode has been jazzed up with some improvements, including a much needed set of sliders that will determine how quickly players in the minors progress. For the last couple of years, its been difficult to get past a certain point in franchise mode simply because your minor leaguers arent very good. Now, you can determine how fast or slow they progress. Of course, it will depend on the players individual potential that determines what happens to him. Also, there are sliders that will allow you to change how quickly a veteran player breaks down and forces him to retire. When you add these changes on with all of the features that have been brought back, including setting ticket prices, making trades with a much improved CPU trade offering system, and receiving e-mails from the owner, you end up with a very solid experience with franchise.
Achievements, as a whole, are fairly well dispersed. Youll get various achievements for accomplishing feats such as hitting five home runs in a game or pitching a no-hitter/perfect game. Some are fairly easy, such as simply taking a walk or changing a pitch that a catcher has called for. A few others will force you to go online and play against opponent, which I actually did not have a great experience with. The online mode seems to be a bit laggy, and its pretty impressive that some players have already notched 100 games under their belts. Even with my high speed connection, I found pitching to be difficult and hitting to be relatively impossible. Now, before people blame it on me or the other player, you can individually select a player to play against via their Ping, which can limit these problems. I will give some credit where its due, however. Online now allows players to participate in not only tournaments online, but leagues as well. It was much needed for a long time, and if I can only get a decent connection with a player online, Ill give it a shot.
Final Thoughts
All in all, MLB 2K8 gives a pretty solid performance. However, as previously mentioned, there are the issues ranging from minor to moderate that cause the experience to go downhill just enough to keep it from being a top-tier sports game. The changes that were made were beneficial for all of the fans of the MLB 2K series, but simple things need to be resolved. Hopefully, next time around, we see some fine-tuning with announcing. However, the big thing, of course, is the glichy load screens. Some of those just cause too many problems, and we cant be having those issues at this day in age in gaming.
Final Score: 7.9/10
