Got another game of MLB2k8 in last night. At some point I'll actually have to stay up late and have a longer game session, but with the kids not going to bed till after 8:00 and me getting tired by 11:00, it doesn't leave a lot of time.I was disappointed (yet again) to find that there is no practice mode... at least not from the main gameplay menu. (Maybe there is in franchise?) You'd think with a game like this they'd have pitcher/batter practice, as this has become pretty standard fare for sports game in recent years. Fortunately, I was much quicker on the uptake for the whole SwingStick 2.0 thing than I was two nights ago.
On a positive note, you can see the makings of a good baseball game in there. When I wasn't being put off by the choppy framerate and intolerable news ticker, I caught myself actually having a little fun. I'm starting to see what some people are talking about with the variety of hits and "events" in the field (like a ball tipping off the edge of an outstretched glove). The problem is 2k simply must get past this "building" phase they seem stuck in and actually release a complete product. Despite some sound baseball mechanics and, yes, even some fun gameplay, the game is just sloppy. Last night I charged down a grounder with my shortstop and he just ran right over the ball. I mean he didn't even reach for it. Just ran right over it and let it go into the outfield. There wasn't even an error charged on the play. There's no other word for that but sloppy.
I also think I've finally decided why the presentation of the game bugs me so much. This game is meant to present like a TV broadcast. That's nothing new these days, as most sports games are like that. However, whereas I think a lot of sports games benefit from that treatment, I don't think baseball does. (This is just my opinion, of course.) All things being equal, I don't like watching a baseball game on TV. It's far too confined and I'm never happy with the view I'm allowed to see. Which, as it turns out, is pretty much how I feel playing this game.
As a fan of baseball, I'm all about the experience of being at the game. I want to see the field in all it's grandeur. I want to feel the scope. When a batter hits a towering fly ball to right-center field I want to see the ball's flight path and watch the outfielder glide underneath it as another backs him up. I want to see the big picture. And the same holds true when I play a baseball video game. I don't care about being zoomed in for some utterly useless, vaguely close-up(ish) view of a fielder running to some form of cross-hair painted on the grass. That's not visually appealing and it takes me right out of the experience every time I'm sitting there waiting for a fly ball to re-emerge to the camera's view.
In short, MLB2k8 feels like a game from people who's primary experience with baseball is watching it on TV. I'm not saying there are no baseball people at Kush or that they don't understand baseball concepts. Clearly there is some baseball expertise at work in this game. But at the same time, the game's presentation doesn't feel like it comes from a bunch of people who spent their childhoods actually going to the old ballpark to take in a day-night doubleheader either.
