Major League Baseball 2K8

Mar 7, 2008

For whatever reason, 2K Sports simply cannot put it all together when it comes to its flagship baseball series. Every year it's something, from bonehead AI to game-killing bugs: something gets in the way and prevents the series from reaching its full potential. This year is no different. The game has made huge, innovative strides with its new pitching mechanic, but falls flat on its face due to technical issues that at times make it completely unplayable.

There are serious frame-rate issues that are immediately noticeable. Outfielders run in a herky-jerky slow-motion animation and then speed up to catch fly balls at the last second. The screen skips and hesitates as balls are thrown around the infield. It's painful to watch and doubly painful to play. It's so bad at times that players literally run across the outfield without actually moving their legs... they just sort of glide into position. This is all terribly frustrating because in conference calls with the media, 2K Sports assured the public that the game would run at a buttery-smooth 60 frames per second. It most certainly doesn't.

In addition, the graphics have seemingly taken a step backward and the sound is nearly identical to MLB 2K7. The play-by-play from Miller and Morgan is exactly the same, and while some of the crowd ambiance and various bat-on-ball sounds are new this year, the audio will give you a major case of deja vu. The player models look similar to last year, complete with crazy flapping jerseys on a slightly windy day; it looks like you're playing in a hurricane. Their faces remain woefully inadequate; even the grass textures look worse this year. It's just plain bizarre that the game would chug along at such a poor speed in addition to the less-than-stellar visuals. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

2K is supposedly working on a patch to fix the slowdown issues and the poor frame-rate, but hopefully any update released will also address the freezing problems that occur from time to time. There are instances where players stop in their tracks, unable to reach a fly ball or hit a patch of dirt that is apparently quicksand in disguise, as they stay rooted to the spot. The worst crime of all is when the game just flat-out locks up, forcing you to reboot the entire system. This isn't the old standby dirty disc error but a full-blown game lock up. It's simply inexcusable.

The technical issues carry over to online play despite its robust feature set. . Hitting is made particularly difficult because due to the poor performance you have to swing at almost every pitch; if you wait to see if it's a ball or a strike, you'll have no way of catching up to the pitch.

What makes this even more aggravating is that once you get past the egregious tech issues you're left with a pretty darn good game of baseball. The new pitching model, dubbed Total Pitch Control, is a great innovation. Sports game developers today are doing whatever they can to incorporate the right analog stick into their designs, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This works. Basically you move the right stick in various motions depending on the pitch. For example, to throw a fastball, you simply pull back on the stick, wait for the "effectiveness circle" to fill up, and then push the right stick forward to throw, releasing the stick at the proper time to achieve maximum speed and effectiveness. The result is based on moving the thumbstick in the proper fashion as well as the timing of the release, and it all comes together in a shockingly fluid way that feels like you are pitching much more so than just pressing a button would.

The system works not only due to the basic mechanics but also because of the results it produces. Now, if your timing is off you might throw a pitch just off the plate rather than exactly where you want it to go. For hardcore baseball gamers this is a big, big deal. Imagine actually being worried that you might throw a bases-loaded walk! With this system that's certainly possible because the difficulty of nailing down the timing is based on the pitcher's ratings. It's just brilliant.

The hitting model is pretty much the same but now "Swing Stick 2.0" has abandoned the defensive swing as well as the contact swing. This year, you pull back on the right stick to start your step and then push forward to swing through the ball, and the ratings determine if it's a power shot to right-center or a slow roller to the mound. It should also be noted that the hit variety in MLB 2K8 is outstanding. You'll see all sorts of hits and nothing feels canned or predetermined. From Texas Leaguers to frozen ropes down the line -- it's all here.

The new "in the field" throwing method, Precision Throw Control, also uses the right stick. You simply move the stick in the direction of the bag to which you wish to throw. You can throw safe lobs or push the envelope and throw a bullet by holding the stick down longer. This also feels natural and becomes second nature after just a couple of games. Of course, if you really hate using the right stick you can always go back to the old-school method of just pressing buttons, but that feels quaint after getting used to the right-stick method of hitting and pitching.

As great as some of the new features are this year, there remain some basic gameplay issues that need to be addressed. It's still too hard to score from second base on a single, and too many balls reach the wall that do not end up as a double. CPU pitchers are also still way too accurate and throw strikes with relative ease, and home runs leave the park at an alarming rate. Some of these problems can be fixed via the in-game slider settings, but with a baseball game that can be a bit tricky.

In other sports genres, basketball for example, it's easy to tweak things. If players are missing too many lay-ups, simply raise the slider and everything is fine. In baseball it takes more time and is more of a challenge to get things just right. If you increase base-running speed, to ensure more doubles, that might result in too many infield singles. Lower outfielder speed and you may get too many hits because they can't reach fly balls quickly enough. Boost base running aggression and the CPU might try to take too many extra bases, resulting in silly AI mistakes. So you're left to play trial and error in order to get the game to play like real baseball. It's possible, but we shouldn't have to spend so much time tweaking game settings when it should be ready to go out of the box.

Franchise mode this year is playable much more so than last year as most of the glaring AI roster bugs are nowhere to be found. It's not perfect by any stretch, as the CPU GMs tend to sign old players to crazy contracts without filling positions of need (the Yanks sign Lo Duca and keep Posada on the bench?) and they have no problem in trading for old players, too. Would any GM today seriously be interested in trading for Ken Griffey Jr. and his insane contract?

The interface inside franchise mode remains a real chore to work around as it does a terrible job of displaying information, forcing you to jump to multiple screens just to do basic tasks. Still, if you're willing to fight with the interface, this is a deep mode of play that at least works this year.

It basically comes down to this: when it works, MLB 2K8 is easy to recommend. It's a solid baseball game with a great pitching and hitting interface. But it doesn't always work. The poor frame-rate combined with the shoddy online play and the occasional system lock-ups drag the game down into mediocrity. And that's a terrible shame for Xbox 360 owners who really have no other choice but to wait for an update from 2K Sports. It can't get here soon enough.