Major League Baseball 2K6
Greatly improved over the last version, yet still has a ways to go.
Tags: Major League Baseball 2K6 Categories: Reviews, Xbox Reviews
Posted by David Hinkle on May 10th, 2006
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Major League Baseball 2K6 (title page) | 1 - 2 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Sports | Yes | ||
The battle of the exclusive sports licenses has left many a gamer out in the cold, wondering if they should give up their favorite franchise to jump ship to the other side or give up purchasing games based on their favorite sport altogether. In the case of America’s pasttime, you want to jump ship because event hough the game is buggy and has some presentational flaws, it’s an all-around wonderful game to play.
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MLB2K6, a game that has received many changes from its version offered last year, plays much like every other 2K Games sports title you’re familiar with. You have your own virtual lobby and a wide array of minigames and collectibles within, as well as the wide variety of single-player gametypes present in previous 2K Games’ sports titles. Seaon and Franchise modes offer a lot to the gamer, and a fairly smooth online game mode presents a viable long-term plan for your multiplayer gaming needs.
You can do all the things you’d imagine in the game’s Season and Franchise modes, allowing you to trade players and sign free agents, send down players on cold streaks and bring up players from your minor league squads should you need the help. Playing through each of the game’s in your season is a good treat as the gameplay, which is the most important aspect of the title, has been greatly improved over last year’s offering.
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Namely, the largest change comes from the fine-tuning the pitching game has received. Whereas last year asked you to jump through a lot of hoops before releasing a pitch, having you choose the pitch’s placement on the X axis and Y axis, then power and precision, before you could even release the ball, MLB2K6 instead takes heavy inspiration from EA’s MVP Baseball franchise. When initially placing the desired location of the pitch, the player will then select the pitch and by holding in the same button, give the pitch power by holding for as long as they want while a reticle circling the selected location grows larger and larger, and upon letting go, has a chance to hit the button again when the circular reticle quickly closes for accuracy. It’s a method that works wonderfully for the game as it’s easy to grasp from the first pitch and allows the player to perfectly utilize their pitcher based on stamina and pitches available.
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At the home plate, the game has received a fairly cool change that translates to a more refined and realistic experience. In utilizing the right analog stick, you’re now charged with not only timing your swing for maximum connection with the ball, but also your batter’s step. In pulling down on the right analog stick, you’ll cause your batter to bring up his back foot and start the cycle, and while holding that down, once the ball comes into the range you want to push up on the stick to swing. It’s a fairly smooth process that takes a few games to get used to, but once perfected, will make pitcher’s pay for tossing the changeup too early.
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The major problem with the game is the glitches, the most predominate being the dreaded game freeze and online batting glitch. The game freeze happens almost always after you’ve gotten three strikeouts in a row and also during double plays, although it’s far less frequent in the case of the double plays. This, you can imagine, is beyond bearable as it causes you to manually curb your pitcher’s performance, causing a stilted ERA, due to a fault with the game. The batting problem, which happens when playing online, causes each player to have to switch their batting style if they like what the opponent doesn’t. So if you opponent enjoys using the swing stick and you’re not, well you’re going to have to manually set it every half inning, causing lapses in memory and free strikes, and noticeable hold up on the game, one of which some players will frequently scream at you for. These are easy issues that should’ve come up during QA, but sadly did not.
The game’s graphics look fairly nice on the Xbox, with some accurate recreations of famous players and smooth animations. The ballparks themselves also look splendid, yet the game suffers from horrible models for the fans, which they show up close and often, either inhabiting the stands or during the pre-game presentation.
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As a whole, MLB2K6 does what EA failed to do with their exclusive on the NFL license: improve over their previous title. Fixing the pitching and adding a new dynamic to the hitting makes MLB2K6 an easy transition for any MVP Baseball fan that may be a bit apprehensive about turning Benedict Arnold. With its competent single-player modes and fun online gameplay, it’s a shame to see the two frequent bugs in the game show their face as they bring down what would’ve been a perfect experience.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
|
+ Smooth controls and gameplay + Improved pitching + Very detailed single-player experience' |
8.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Bugs 'a plenty |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| A good step forward and an idea of how 2K Games will utilize their exclusive license. | |
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Tags: Major League Baseball 2K6
Posted by David Hinkle on May 10th, 2006 and is filed under Reviews, Xbox Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
