MLB 2K 7 Review

Summary: If you're into simulation styled baseball games this is a must have title to add to your collection. The minor deficiencies aren't enough to knock this years game off the top perch. Batter up!

My favorite genre in video games is sports. Football, baseball, basketball, and hockey are my top purchases every year, so when the new version of MLB 2K7 came out 4 days early I had to pounce on it. While last years game was more than adequate, there were some shortcomings that kept it from getting scores hire than 7.9 to 8.5. Were these issues fixed this year? Is this years game a perfect 10? Read on to find out.
Baseball is a sport that's very hard to perfect in a video game, because there are 3 separate areas that need to be spot on. Pitching, batting, and fielding. If even one of these is less than perfect it will ruin the entire game. Let's take each of these areas in this years game and see just how 2K faired.

Pitching: 8.9/10
This year 2K took took the old adage "if it ain't broke don't fix it" to their approach to pitching. Last year the pitching mechanic was made up of a 3 step process. Select your pitch type, aim your pitch with a cursor, then throw it. When you begin the wind up process a circle appears on the screen indicating your power. The longer you hold down the button, the larger this circle becomes indicating a harder throw. Once your power is set that circle begins to retract and the key is to stop it right in the center of the bullseye, which determines your accuracy. If you nail the bullseye you will throw darts on the mound. But if you miss, prepare to do your best imitation of Jose Mesa during the World Series against the Marlins. The computer will make you pay for your mistakes which is a refreshing touch. It adds a nice risk reward to pitching that makes you think about the situation. Do you reach back for a little more on that 3-2 count to finish him off, or do you play it safe and stay within yourself? On the default difficulty you will probably average 4 to 6 strike outs per game because the computer is really aggressive. I would like to see the computer take more pitches, but they do swing at balls which is cool. You can adjust the settings and sliders to "fix" the AI, but you will miss out on any achievements! The best camera view for pitching is behind the pitcher because it looks just like a TV broadcast. The camera is zoomed in enough to give you a great view of the batter and the plate.

Batting: 7.0/10
Batting is probably the hardest thing to get right in a baseball video game, especially when you're playing against the computer. This year batting is made a little more difficult than least year due to the speed of the pitches. You have so little time to react to the ball that you really can't tell if its going to be a ball or a strike. Now I know some of you are thinking "well it's supposed to be fast! These are major league players here!" Well, that's true but this is still a video game and the last time I checked I wasn't making $4 million per year to hit .300 from my couch, thank you very much! That being said it does make the game more challenging, and once again the sliders can be adjusted to your liking. Home runs seem to be a little too plentiful this year, and I wish there were more walks. I have played several games and I have not been able to draw one walk! Not a single walk! I would be a lot more patient at the plate if I knew I stood a chance of drawing at least a few walks per game, but as i currently stands your only strategy is to go up there and whale away at just about every pitch. This is one slider that I may eventually adjust, because it's just not baseball without walks. You have too choices to swing the bat. There's the old school method of just pressing a button and hitting away or theres the "MVP Baseball" method of using the right analog stick to swing, which is the default setting in the game. To swing using this method you pull back the right stick just as the pitcher comes out of his wind up, then as the pitch approaches home plate you either let go of the stick for an average contact swing or push it up for a power swing. Both methods work fairly well, and you don't have to push the stick up to hit a "big fly". Instead, your timing plays a big part in how much power you generate on your swing. The more in sync your loading up your swing the more power you generate. Pretty cool. Batting is passable this year, but I'd like to see it overhauled for next years game.

Fielding: Fielding is what really brings the score down for this years game. While you can adjust sliders to fix the issues with pitching and batting, there's not a whole lot you can do about the fielding portion of it. Fielding just seems so "mechanic" this year. Its almost as if you don't actually control your fielders. Last year the fielders had too much momentum that hampered their movement. This your it seems they over compensated for this by completely doing away with momentum. You will over run several balls because they players move so fast. What should be routine put outs become infield singles that eventually lead to costly runs. Another problem with the fielding is that they did away with the option to add power to your throws by holding down the turbo button. In fact the turbo button has been done away with all together. This really puts you at the mercy of the computer left to determine how hard to throw balls from the outfield back into the infield. Now where's the strategy in that? It might as well be auto fielding! Lastly fielding is made even more difficult by the size of the baseball after it leaves the bat. You can barely see the ball! In fact if it wasn't for a blue trail left by ball coming off the bat fielding the ball would be nearly impossible. I'm hoping for a code that will make the ball the size of a beach ball! I know they're going for realism but next year make the size 4 times larger!

Presentation: 9.5/10
This is where this game shines. You know how some reviews say that if your friends or family members happened to walk by as you were playing they might mistake it for an actual broadcast? Well it's definitely true for this game! Last years game looks average compared to this years. The crowning jewel is the player models and animations. I don't think they are as good as NBA 2K7's but they are the best we've seen in a baseball game to date. Now some of the lesser known players still look like crap but the big name guys look great. Heck, they even nailed the managers and coaching staff! Mark Hargrove looks just like Mark Hargrove! I"m playing with the Indians and it is really cool to recognize your players on the bench just by looking at their faces! "Hey, that's Cliff Lee!" As for the animations they included all of the big time players swing animations, mannerisms at the plate, and what their on deck warm up routines. Its really amazing. The stadiums look just as good too. If there's one complaint about the graphics its the rain effects. We've seen the same old effects for the last 10 years! This is a "Next Gen System" isn't it? Surely they can do better than vertical lines crawling down the screen. Maybe next year.

Overall this game is still work checking out if you like realism. I highly recommend it even if you do have to adjust some of the sliders to make it more playable. My final score for this game is an 8.1 / 10. Swing for the fences!

DT