It’s March, so that means it’s the time of year to get excited for baseball season. Getting excited for actual baseball and the baseball video games, though, are two different things. Not since MVP Baseball 2005 for the old school Xbox have I been excited for a baseball video game. Now, this game still doesn’t compare to MVP 05’ but it’s getting closer and by far the best of the 2k baseball series in my opinion.
The Good: As expected the graphics are great but slightly worse than last year’s game, however, I feel that the animations are much smoother than in previous years. My biggest gripe with the game before was how frustratingly difficult the pitching and hitting is in the game. This year the pitching is light years ahead of where it was before and makes the game much more fun. The in-game commentators do a great job and keep the material relatively fresh. I haven’t gotten too in-depth into franchise mode but so far I like it, mostly because of the new MLB Today feature. Right now I am in love with the My Player mode, which allows me to create a player and bring him up through the minor leagues and get called up to the majors. Many sports games have modes like this but for some reason I like the one in this game much more than any of the others.
The Bad: As stated earlier, I love the changes in the pitching mechanics but I don’t feel the same way about the hitting. The concepts of the controls make sense, but it doesn’t feel very natural and as a result, I completely suck at it. As much as I like the My Player mode, I can’t help but feel a bit cheated because the graphics aren’t as good in the mode compared to the graphics in a normal game. In franchise mode I always like the fact that they have 3 levels of the minor leagues but I wish they had more accurate rosters. They do a pretty good job with the AAA team but that’s about it, I would like to see more top prospects in there (for the love of god Dustin Ackley isn’t in the game). I understand that it would be impossible to have every team’s AA and A rosters exactly correct, but they should at least have every organizations’ top 15 or so prospects and then fill in the rest with fictional players.
Overall I was pleased with the overall effort, like I said it’s no MVP Baseball 2005 but at least it isn't MLB 2K9. I’m hoping that after the season starts that the lower level rosters get ironed out with a roster update, but I’m not holding my breath. With the hitting I’ll have to just suck less at it and then maybe I can stop complaining about it. The pitching is really fun, especially when you master the 12-6 curve and watching the movement on the pitch.
Mashbuttons.com give Major League Baseball 2K10 an 8 out of 10.
