Game Stooge

REVIEW: Major League Baseball 2K7 (360/PS3)

• Scribbled on March 19th, 2007 by Jonah Falcon
• Filed in Microsoft Xbox 360, Reviews, Sony PlayStation 3, Sports

There’s nothing more disappointing, frustrating, or annoying than a beautiful looking game that feels like an early beta version of a classic game. Ben Brinkman, formerly of Electronic Arts’ MVP Baseball series, took over the reigns of Kush Games, and had one main job: fix the horribly broken Major League Baseball 2K6. To an extent, he succeeded. It is perhaps the best looking baseball game of all time, and has one of the greatest pitcher/batter inferfaces, but the rest is either half-assed or buggy.

Major League Baseball 2K7 is a prime example of the ugly trend of forcing out a new iteration of a given sports title every 12 months, with 10 months of development time. When one considers that normal games require at least 18 months of development, it becomes clear that most sports games release a beta version of the next iteration every other year.

The positives are few, but compelling. As mentioned, the pitcher/batter duel is the highlight of the game. For pitching, the method is simple - the longer you hold down the pitch button, as indicated by the Pitch Selection options (as usual, pitchers have different repetoires), the more potentially effective the pitch is. However, you must time the release or the ball either is thrown well out of the strike zone or becomes extremely hittable. One of the most pleasant aspects is that the computer will swing and miss at pitches in the zone; it is also more likely for the human pitcher to walk batters. If the situation gets tense, the pitching cursor starts to jump around - the more fragile the psyche of the pitcher, the worse.

The hitting interface is less good. While the game features a “Swing Stick” feature involving the right analog stick, it’s far more effective to just switch to the simpler “Press A” to swing. Unfortunately, there’s no check swings in the game.

The graphics now scream “next-gen!” this time around. Players actually look like their counterparts, and 150 players have unique animations - Chien-Ming Wang has his halting delivery, Dontrelle Willis is all arms and legs, and so forth. The faces of well-known players are exacting as well.

The rest of the game is a buggy mess, however, filled with curious decisions, bad/spotty AI, and outright game-killing bugs.

First and foremost is the fielding. Not only do fielders take a second to react to balls, but often, players will get lost during the play, which features one, just one, fielding camera. Worse, the aim circle (where the ball is going to end up on fly balls) is a light blue color, set against light green grass, making it often impossible to find til the play is all but other.

Baserunning is improved in that the baserunners no longer are complete idiots (such as staying at second on grounders to the right side), and neither are the fielders, but there are moments in which it’s clear the AI breaks down, such as when a shortstop fields a ball, then just does NOTHING while the runner runs from second all the way home to score. Sometimes, a runner will stop and head back to the base on clear extra base hits to the gap. It’s near impossible to score a runner from second because the outfielders all have cannons for arms.

This makes for a disjointed experience, in which a game will feel perfect, but then at some point break down completely when the nasty glitches and bugs rear their ugly heads. The franchise modes are also broken as well. Forgetting the sometimes insane trading AI, some game-breaking bugs arise, such as a peculiar bug in which newly acquired lefty relievers don’t appear in the pitching staff roles screen, and don’t appear during sims (they’ll be completely ignored, causing the rest of the pitching staff to tire out.)

This reviewer’s advice: skip 2K7 and await 2K8 with some reserve. (Sony owners might want to check out MLB 07: The Show in April.)