In 2006 2K Games bought the exclusive, multi-console rights to the sport of baseball and has pumped out its baseball offering yearly, mostly to terrible reviews. Because of the exclusivity, Xbox 360 and Wii owners have no choice in their baseball games and have been forced to swallow whatever 2K has shoved down their throat.
The meal is always bitter.
They are close this year, closer than they have ever been to a “good” baseball game in some time. They have really made amazing strides in some areas of the game, only to travel to the darkest territories of Badville in others.
Full Disclosure:
I played 10 games of a franchise season to prepare for this article. With each game running 45-60 minutes; total time played was right around 10 hours. For most games, this is more than enough time to form a complete opinion. That being said, I have made broad strokes with my critiques rather than focusing on finite issues that may or may not be an issue over the course of an entire season. I also didn’t touch the My Player mode or any other gameplay modes apart from Franchise. My feeling was that they needed to focus on making the baseball portion of their baseball game right before they focused on adding features.
First, The Good Things:
The pitching and batting systems are nearly perfect. 2K said that this was their focus this year, and it shows. I have never played a day in any baseball league beyond “Little,” so I couldn’t tell you if it is an accurate representation of what it’s really like, but it feels authentic. To most folks, that will be more important. I put my faith in the analog based control scheme, where before I would immediately revert to the traditional, button-pressing method, and my faith was rewarded. Your first time on the mound will feel like you are playing Street Fighter rather than pitching, but that passes quickly. Once you get a feeling for the release points and snapping the hook on an off-speed pitch, it will feel like real pitching. Real, honest-to-goodness pitching.
On the batting side of things, we have an improved SwingStick. 2K removed the momentum element, meaning you don’t have to do it as a fluid motion, making the hitting feel more natural. If you just want to hit the ball, you need only press the right analog stick up. If you are fighting off a pitch, slap the stick left or right. If you want to hit the ball a country mile, it’s backwards and then forwards. After spending an hour or so with it, it felt like I was swinging a real bat.
It’s only two things, but you cannot argue that these are two of the three most important things in baseball. But two out of three means that there is still one thing it got wrong.
The Bad Things:
The fielding. The fielding just feels awful.
The bulk of the blame for the fielding rests at the feet of the camera system. After a ball is hit and the camera is forced to transition from pitcher/batter to the fielding perspective, the player has to reacclimate himself to their surroundings. Because of this, 2K decided that the fielder of choice would already be moving towards the ball on his own, without any player input. In theory, this allows the player to identify what’s going on and carry out the rest of the play. In practice, it simply means the computer is doing the fielding. The other side of that situation is when the computer doesn’t carry out the play for you and gives you a fielder that has no business making the play to begin with. This juxtaposition between almost-cruise-controlled fielding and the occasional “haha, got you!” player mismanagement makes fielding disorienting. And bad, we cannot forget bad.
The fielding animations don’t help either. In a nine inning game, half of the plays appear to be highlight reel quality, and it seems that every player on the field is capable of the superhuman. Several routine ground balls to shortstop or second base turn into elaborate acrobatics, complete with spins, jumps and horizontal throws. The outfield is dominated by no-look over-the-head catches, diving-basket catches, and one handed barely-within-reach-without-diving catches. In the 10 games I played, I had three homeruns robbed from me nonchalantly, like this was just another play. The fielding in 2K10 ruins any immersion and feel of the sport that the pitching/batting created. It’s that bad.
The other piece of the puzzle that needs immediate reconditioning is the color commentary. Commentary for sports games is already a daunting task — something I cannot even fathom — so I cut it a lot of slack. But the color commentary in 2K10 is just plain awful. I realize that Steve Phillips is easily distracted, but when he comments that he “hasn’t seen a pitching performance like this in quite sometime” twice, in the same game, for both pitchers, the immersion is broken. When John Kruk comments that the pitcher leaving the game had “a solid outing and everyone on his team should be pleased with him” after giving up five runs and the lead, the immersion books two tickets out of town. The final straw, however, was when I was told that they hoped the crowd was wearing mittens while watching a game that was taking place in a dome that immersion left the building. Don’t worry, it was wearing its mittens.
The commentary falls victim to vague phrases and constant repetition. Did you know Gordon Beckham came up in June of last year and made an immediate impact on this White Sox team? I did…because Steve reminded me every time he came to the plate. I would rather have a generic play-by-play announcer calling balls and strikes than have a couple of baseball personalities talk in generalities about a game that I don’t feel like they are even watching. I hold commentary to very low standards, so when it disappoints, it really has to try. Mission accomplished guys.
Every other complaint or compliment I have has nothing to do with playing actual baseball, so I won’t bore you with them. Suffice it to say, this series still has a lot of ground to cover before it can compete with The Show on even footing. However, they are moving in the right direction, and I have hopes for next year.
Telling you whether it’s worth buying is irrelevant. If you enjoy baseball, and don’t own a Playstation 3, then you already have. Enjoy the good, and as for the bad…well, there’s always next year.