Much like the real MLB, the last few years have been a rather tumultuous for baseball video games.
It’s conceivable that many gamers have lapsed in their dedication to both “the game,” as well as the games.
If the last time you picked up a controller to swing a bat was back in the early 90’s to play some “Bases Loaded,” can you ever pick up a baseball game again? There may still be hope for you yet.
I recently put the PS3 version of “MLB ‘08 The Show” and the Xbox 360 version of “MLB 2K8” releases to the test to see if they are tuned for your average gamer to just pick up and play.
Sony’s MLB series “MLB ‘08: The Show” and 2K’s multi-platform franchise “MLB 2K8″ have been going head to head for years. Every year, each game offers the same basic content - a Major League Baseball game for your favorite console. But, much like all on-going sports franchises, each release brings slightly tweaked features and controls. This year’s round of MLB games are no different, offering glimmers of hope for the casual baseball fan.
The biggest difference between the current baseball sims and the older games are the controls. Over the years the controls have been changed so drastically, they are the biggest factor in chasing away baseball fans, and intimidating new ones. Years ago, the same game used to be able to be controlled with essentially one button and a directional pad, so how did everything get so complicated? Somewhere along the line simplicity was sacrificed for realism, and that was the moment when I dropped sports games in general.
If you have any experience with other baseball games, Sony’s PS3 “The Show” will feel the most familiar to you. Pitching is timing based, and batting is triggered with a simple one button press.
In comparison to “MLB 2K8,” familiar doesn’t necessarily mean better. “2K8″’s pitching and hitting mechanics have an analog-stick-based control scheme that bases the precision of the pitch or swing on your ability to time a series of movements correctly. While that may sound more complicated than hitting the “X” button at the right time, it does work, if only after a slight learning curve of about one nine-inning game.
This makes “The Show” better for gamers who are really only looking to play a quick game against their friends, and “2K8″ better for players who want to make a longer term commitment. However, “2K8″ does offer the tradition button based controls as well, should you find the analog movements too difficult.
There’s more to control than just when the batter is at the plate. Once the ball is in play, both offensively and defensively, controls are key; games are won and lost based on your ability to move the runners around the bases effectively. The winner here is, again, “2K8,” but only by a narrow margin.
Both games seemed to offer up a decent amount of fielding assistance when tracking down long fly balls, but, otherwise, the fielding difficulty was unbalanced. My biggest gripe was that “The Show”’s fielding controls didn’t easily offer the ability to select which fielder I wanted to use to chase after a ball in the gap. If I think the centerfielder should get the ball, then the game should allow me to send the centerfielder after the ball without having to hit an extra button. “2K8″ accounted for this very problem by judging which direction I pushing on the analog stick once the ball left the bat and let me send my CF to get the ball if I wanted.
Base-running was a whole different story. I didn’t like it in either game. After finally managing to get on base, why does going to second take so much effort? It seemed so easy back in the day, but now it is a series of complicated button presses and switching that usually just results in me getting tagged out in both games.
Neither game offers a full-on tutorial mode, but “2K8″ does allow you to stop at any time and work on you analog stick pitching, which, for the new-comers can be extremely helpful. Each game offers in-game tutorials and tips, but they may only be minimally helpful for someone new to either franchise, since they always come up after they were needed in the field. If you’re up for doing a little bit of reading to really nail down the controls, “The Show” offers eight pages of instructions compared to “2K8″’s five pages.
I used to play baseball games all the time, but they simply got too complicated for me. While this year’s games may keep the current fans of the 2K and “Show” series happy, I think they are still a little bit too complex for the average gamer. “2K8″ does slightly edge out the competition, taking a step in the right direction towards making their baseball games more accessible, but if neither of these games work for you, you may just want to wait until Mario’s Wii baseball game is released, hopefully later this year.
