Review: Major League Baseball 2K9

What a difference five years has made on the PC gaming world. In that time frame, many gaming developers (including Electronic Arts) have written off PC gaming as “dead” or “dying”, and have chose to focus their businesses more on the console market. In a move that has drawn a great deal of ire from many people (myself included), EA has all but shut down production of their Sports games for PC. (Only two titles remain in place for now: FIFA and FIFA Manager.) But, like finally moving out of your girlfriend’s apartment after she cheated on you, this wasn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back. EA cheated on me years ago when they stopped making their PC versions the best versions of their games. That distinction has now passed on to the console versions.

But instead of sitting around, moping about it, I’ve moved on to a new girlfriend: 2K Sports (previously Sega Sports). 2K has been the girl-next-door for several years now, only now moving in for the strike with EA out of the picture. While reviewers have generally been quick to prefer EA’s products to 2K’s, I’ve generally found myself enjoying 2K’s a great deal more (specifically the NFL and NBA games).

2005 was a turning point in the sports/video-game world as the NFL and MLB both signed exclusive deals with the two video game kingpins. And while this meant the regrettable end of both the NFL2K and MVP Baseball (with an MLB license, that is) franchises, and meant the continuing and furthering stagnancy of EA’s Madden franchise, 2K’s MLB franchise has free-reign for several years. It hasn’t been perfect, and this year’s edition, MLB2K9, is no different. But it is still the best baseball simulation since MVP Baseball 2005.

From a modded version of MVP Baseball 2005. Holding your pitch button and releasing in the yellow area makes your pitch more effective; releasing in the green makes it most effective.

Lately (and often), cover athletes have been chosen for the cover of sportsgames as a way to convey the year’s edition’s focus. This year’s cover athlete for MLB2K9 was first-time Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum, so by the logic I just presented you’d think the focus would be on improved pitching. The one thing I need to have in a baseball sim is a good pitching mechanism. MVP Baseball 2005 had the best one so far: each pitch corresponded to a particular button, and to throw it you pressed and held the button for power and released in the appropriate spot for control.

A screenshot from MLB2K9's pitching trainer. The catcher makes suggestions for you in MLB2K9.

MLB2K9 has thrown some polish on its pitching mechanism, which works a little like gestures do for Internet browsers. You perform a specific action on the right control stick, a circle reticle comes up for your timing, and depending on how well you do it your pitch may be more or less effective. For example, to throw a four-seam fastball, you hold the control stick down, the reticle comes up and begins filling yellow, and if your timing is right when you flick the stick up, it’ll flash red and you’ll maximize your pitch’s effectiveness. This is actually a very intuitive mechanic if not for one problem: the higher the pitch’s effectiveness, the more of a strain it is on the pitcher and they’ll fatigue more quickly.

Using MVP05 as an example again, stamina is a pitch-by-pitch concern only. Whether your pitch is more or less effective has no bearing on whether you tire more quickly or not. In reality, this is probably truer in real life than it is in MLB2K9. Whereas I am a more efficient pitcher in these games than most real-life pitchers are (i.e. I pitch 90-95% strikes), I would expect similar results and the reality is that they are similar in that I don’t give up many runs in either game.

Stamina-wise and strikeout-wise there is a large difference between the two game. In MVP05, I would be totally capable of pitching a complete game shutout with 70-80 pitches and 13-20+ strikeouts and even have my starter rested enough to pitch the next game (which is totally unrealistic). In the 30+ games of MLB2K9 I’ve played, while complete game shutouts aren’t too hard to achieve, I’ve yet to touch 15 strikeouts.

Maybe I was spoiled by the dominant pitching mechanism MVP05 provided, but I don’t see why there can’t be a balance. In either game, the batting AI rarely swings at anything that is outside of the strike-zone, and it’s up to the umpire AI to determine (randomly, of course) what’s a strike and what’s a ball. Ultimately, I don’t feel like I should be hamstrung into pitching less effective pitches or more pitches out of the strike-zone to get strikeouts. Stamina and effectiveness shouldn’t mutually exclusive unless the pitcher is getting tired, and that’s how it is in the big leagues.

My overall point on pitching is this: it may not be the most fun or glamorous part of playing baseball, but in a simulation, when you’re responsible for all aspects of how the game is going to be played, pitching plays as much a part as any. Indeed, pitching wins championships, and a good pitching mechanic makes a great baseball game.

Batting works in a similar way to pitching, but to a much smaller degree. The left control stick can be used to aim your swing (up for fly balls, down for grounders, left and right for their respective fields), and by holding down and flicking up on the right stick you ready your batter and swing. Overall, bunting included, batting has seen very little change over the years and through different games and this isn’t that innovative a change. (I’ve yet to learn how to check a swing, however, which would be a nice way of limiting my own strikeouts.)

Fielding is a bit quirky and really presents the only major problem with the game. Fly balls are not treated with much respect by the AI, even when you try to control the player, and they sometimes run towards where the ball will be landing at what is seemingly (to whom is the question) the perfect pace (although the animation fails to convey that). Sometimes the AI goofs it up, sometimes when you request that they try a dive they kinda roll at it. Even grounders aren’t perfect as I’ve had my fair share of slow-as-fuck underhand tosses float mysteriously too high. I’ve also experienced a fair amount of throws to first where the first baseman was just off the bag for some reason. They’re maddening issues that could’ve been discovered and resolved with a little more playtesting, but they aren’t altogether game breaking as they don’t happen enough.

The best compliment I have for the game is the presentation. Graphics, sounds, overlays and overall game presentation is top-notch. Player models and faces are sharp and spot-on. Textures are incredibly sharp (pro: seeing stitching on jersey numbers and letters; con: cap logos aren’t 3D and are a bit big), stadiums are well designed (and the daylight progression is beautiful, if only every half-inning), and the presentation of “network overlays” (e.g. pitch tracker, spray charts) is helpful in making it feel like a TV broadcast. Color commentary and play-by-play are notably very good, as 2K has managed to get fluidity in referring to players (you’ll notice there’s no pausing to read a player’s name) and conversations between Gary Thorne and Steve Philips about a team or a player are frequent in the first half of a game, although not very deep.

Outside of the game there isn’t much new to write home about. My biggest disappointments are in the glitchiness of 2K’s once-fabulous VIP Viewer, which is supposed to track your individual performance in many deep, almost nerdy statistics, but it hasn’t been working appropriately for me. Also, controlling the interface on start-up requires me using the keyboard or going to the controls setup and pretending to change something, as the controller settings don’t quite work 100% on startup. All your normal features are here otherwise, though I’d love to have the ability to shut the salary cap off. There is no online play or Living Rosters on the PC version, an omission which I don’t personally miss (having pirated the game), but both should be standard for PC games in this day and age.

All in all, MLB2K9 is a good baseball simulator and I’m glad it’s around. It is sad to say this, but it gives a modified, updated version of MVP Baseball 2005 a run for its money. That said, it is not without flaw or room for improvement. When I review sports games, I tend to shave off points for games which haven’t seen much change from previous years. MLB2K9 gets a free pass this year as it is the first 2K iteration on PC, and it’s a good start, but shy of the warning track. Three stars out of five.