Major League Baseball 2K9 Review (Xbox 360)

When it comes to sports games, the gaming world anxiously awaits the new release of their favorite sporting past time each year. In football, Madden has dominated the field of the pigskin-turf war. In Basketball, 2K and Live go head-to-head each year, neither truly staking the claim as the lead scorer on the court (although we prefer the 2K for basketball over Live’s run-and-gun delivery). In Baseball, however, there is no war. No battle to become the best baseball game developer.

Why?

Because 2K Sports pulled a Microsoft on the All American past time. Their third-party exclusive claim to baseball games has resulted in a litany of dull under-developed products for the home console.

Major League Baseball 2K9 will be a fun game for your casual baseball gamer, but anyone looking for a well rounded baseball game will have serious problems with this title. The game suffers from huge technical issues that will have you frustrated from beginning to end.

First, let me start off by saying the graphics are very good. Each character model will look just like your favorite baseball player, more or less. Some of them look like they’re possessed from time to time, but it’s still passable So, in that regard you may be fooled into believing that this is the baseball game you’ve yearned for over the past decade.

Not the case. But, we’ll deal with that shortly.

The controls are pretty simple to get used to. Both hitting and pitching are covered with the use of the right thumbstick. Fastballs are delivered by holding down to charge up your power, gauged by a ball-shaped power meter that fills to yellow at maximum capacity. Then you flick the right stick up to launch your fastball at the batter. Other pitches are delivered with different arced movements of the right thumbstick. One cool feature is that the catcher will signal for where he wants the ball to go, and you can opt to shake off the catcher’s choice and suggest a different area. However, here you will encounter your first major technical issue. Say you decide to always throw a fastball, and never change the area your pitcher is throwing to – meaning you want to throw the ball each time dead center over the plate. The catcher AI is not smart enough to shift his glove and make the catch all the time. This is infuriating to say the least because you would expect that any catcher worth a nickel could catch a ball sent straight over the plate.

The batting side is pretty easy to learn. You ready your batter, and then swing when the ball is at the right distance. Controls allow you to attempt to hit the ball in a certain direction if you make contact, which is pretty cool. Homeruns are also wicked easy to hit, which may be considered a positive for your casual gamer. However, any fan of baseball will find it utterly ridiculous that baseball games feel like football games when it comes to the final score. This is in large part due to Major League Baseball 2K9’s defensive design. You’ll have a blast playing offense, because simply put the defense sucks.

The AI for your fielders is outrageously bad. If you hit a pop-up between your left and center fielders, the two will run to the middle, stop and let the ball drop right between them. Once you’re in control of your outfielders you can throw the ball to the desired basemen if you are quick with your controls. There is a power meter for in-field throws that comes up. Unfortunately, it’s easy to overshoot the power meter and throw a wild ball in field giving the runners more time to advance to the next base. We also encountered a technical glitch regarding the outfield wall. One time the ball hit the outfield wall, then just disappeared creating a homerun. The second time the ball hit the outfield wall and got stuck in the geometry of the wall, so that our outfielder wasn’t able to get to it. The runner was able to score as a result of this technical error.

There is also something wrong with the first baseman. For some reason, he is never standing on the plate. When you’re trying to get the quick out on a groundball, he’ll be out drinking lemonade. This problem is not reserved just for the first baseman. It’s also relatively easy to steal bases, and get undeserved doubles because the second and third basemen tend to take naps from time to time. I got pretty adept at running for home if a would-be single was hit and I had a man on second. Despite the ball making it to the catcher in time, he was not standing on home plate so I just slid in for the score.

The inter-game music is unbelievably bad. They’ve chosen to mix some metal and rock songs with Spanish reggaeton. The combination made my stomach queasy. Also the in game play-by-play was redundant to say the least. It’s kind of hard to take a game seriously when the announcers are preaching “gloom and doom” and you’re winning.

You’ve got several gameplay features to choose from as you did in 2K8 with a few additions. You can play single games, post-season games, franchise play and more. There are also tons of multiplayer match types to choose from. If you’re on Xbox Live your roster will update with the rosters of the actual Major League teams, which is a neat addition. Trades can be fun. You

On the positive side, the online gameplay is better than 2K8. So, you can have hours of fun playing against virtual opponents. But, you’ll still encounter the crazy technical screw-ups that occur in the game. Also, you’ll have to adjust your timing when you’re at bat, because minor lag issues will force you to swing a second sooner than you’d expect.

Unfortunately, Major League Baseball 2K9 comes up short at every corner. There is a definite fun factor to the game, especially if you’re a kid who just likes to press buttons, but technical snafus make gaming tedious for serious gamers. It looks like the world will have to wait another year to see if 2K Sports can get their act together and invest extensive man-hours in revamping the defensive features in 2K10.