Solid Contact
Major League Baseball 2K10
I first started playing the 2K baseball series back when it first started when it was put out by Sega Sports on the Dreamcast. And was easily one of the first baseball games that i really got into. Almost five years later, i'd have tried other baseball games, such as the MVP series then came The Show series put out by Sony. They seemingly have been putting out a stellar product each season improving each game. While the 2K series has been going in the opposite direction for the ladder half of the decade. Finally though once again it is worth it to give MLB 2K10 a shot.Presentation
One of the better parts of this years installed has to be the commentary. easily one of the best sport commentary's in any sports game. Sadly though little things like just flat out wrong calls are far to common. For instance, i'll swing and miss and then i'll here "Strike looking.." really? Or a ball just barley low out of the strike zone being saying it bounced in the dirt. This isn't odd by baseball game standards its just annoying.The game looks okay.. graphic wise, a lot of visual problems, with clipping awkward looking textures, areas on players disappearing, cursors disappearing. Also animation quirks, you'll see the third base coach caught in awkward positions. It will look like hes still sitting in the dugout but is right on the third base line, or just stuck in some other motion. Theres a lot of graphical glitches here, to many i would think for a 'finished' game. I also had an issue where i hit a ball off the left field wall and instead of bouncing off it got stuck and the AI would the run in circles away from it... Yay inside the park Home run David Ortiz but come on.. really?
The Fun Stuff
Now my many gripes about the PC version has to do with just the standard controls with the keyboard.. and boy it took some getting used to,and a little altering. Getting past that this is a solid game of baseball. Single player on the normal difficulty the game challenges you to be patient and hit your spots. While good pitches and good hitters are tough in there own right. Hitting is simple 4 buttons replace the right stick. 8 on the numpad to swing normal, 2 to get ready for a power swing, 4 and 6 to perform a defensive swing. while w,a,s,d like most PC games where used to aim either to left right field or hit a pop fly or ground ball. Its simplified yes but the way the timing is so important in the game sometimes thats a good thing. The reason timing is so important is because sometimes seeing the ball and what type of pitch it is, happens to be extremely difficult. At times fast balls can look like splitters when they get closer to the plate dropping out at the last second, high curve balls look like fast balls to begin. For a while at the beginning everything right out of the pitchers hand looks almost the same. Take a look at jeff struggling during the MLB2K10/MLB 10 The Show quick look, with the batting. really seeing the ball isn't as easy to start.Now, my favorite thing about this is easily the my player mode. Which honestly at first i wasn't going to even bother with. My past experiences with modes such as these from The Show and other 2K games i haven't hated but they required to much time. While the my player mode may take up a lot of your time its fairly fun for the most part. You start out as you would think in a mode called my player.. you make a player, position, looks, and build up attributes and try work your way to the hall of fame! Once you make your player you can select the team you want to go to i picked the Royals! i was a shortstop. Immediately i was sent to double A minors and had to progess by making certain goals during select situations which don't vary far from, get on base, get a hit, get ahead in the count, drive in the run. Yippe. After you get on some roals and start streaking or slumping you'll eventually get past the first wave of main goals. HOWEVER once you obtain these i'm not sure if this is true for all situations but they decide to send you right up to the Majors and face off against Jake Peavy then Mark Buehrle. i batted a solid .100 for the first two weeks of my major league 'career'. I felt the game decided to send me up to early because of my struggles so i kinda would of liked an option to get sent back down to the minors to improve my stats some more. But there isn't so i muscled through the remaining half a season with a decent .290 batting average but few RBI's and only 5 home runs. 3 of which the AI made since i simulated a couple of weeks to see if I could earn points without playing every single game which i guess you can but its very minimal and not worth doing. Besides you can't simulate whole seasons since you HAVE to play key match up games which come up pretty often.
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