MLB 2K9 Review

Grapefruit League.  JD Drew’s back hurts.  The MLB Network finds its way into your rotation.  Manny at home drinking margaritas.  All signs that Spring is around the corner.  And with the approach of Spring comes the release of baseball video games.  I own a 360, so that means MLB 2k9 for me.

I’m gonna be honest.  When looking at the screenshots and demo of this game, what really stuck out was Beckett’s mullet.  Well, the official release has Beckett sporting an official Billy Ray Cyrus haircut circa ‘81.  It’s tough to tell if that’s Beckett or a scruffy Jesse Katsapolous in a Sox uniform.  To be fair, most of the players look legit (e.g. Carl Crawford and his neck tattoo & ARod’s cousin looks good, too.)

The graphics are solid.  Player maneurisms are pulled off much better than in the past.  The gameplay is also smoother and easier than 2k8 (which I skipped out on getting last year).  The right analog is used for pitching, hitting and throwing to bases.  It’s pretty easy to just pick up a controller and go.  I haven’t had time to really explore the Franchise mode yet, but it looks to follow the same logic as previous releases.  No big surprises in that regard.

What did surprise me was the amount of bugs that I found just from a couple of hours of play last night.  My favorite was when I pulled Okajima out of the game.  Screen goes to a shot of Tito coming out of the dugout to relieve Okajima and what does he find!?  A floating baseball and no Okajima!  Oh well, Okajima has always been kind of a mystery to me.  Then it got better.  Tito must have been so freaked out by this magic disappearing act that he walked into the quicksand infield and walked around for a while.  Apparently, he made it out because he was in the dugout later in the game. A few players have frozen in the field as well – pretty frustrating. The bugs were disappointing at first, then became funny and now are just a general pain in the ass.

Bottom line, this game is an improvement from last year’s release with smooth game play and solid graphics. The amount of bugs I’ve found within a couple of hours indicates there are plenty more to find and that the game was probably released too early to coincide with spring training and “compete” with PS3’s superior rival. Too bad we don’t have a game that was given enough time to be thoroughly completed. Maybe I’ll save the $60 a year, take a hiatus from 2K baseball games and get a PS3 with MLB ‘14: The Show.