I know that many people have craved a review from me, and I said “Wait a few weeks, let me give it some time.” Honestly, the only reason I said that was because I just wanted to see what the off-season was like. But, I figured hell, I could write a review without talking about the off-season stuff. So, I decided to.
Take my review for what it’s worth. It is a VERY long read. The very bottom stuff with all of the scores show all of my actual opinions about the game. Everything at the top is a very detailed summary of what the game is all about and what is included in it, making sure nobody skipped a heartbeat when playing this game.
So, without further ado, let’s read my review!
March 2, 2005
Introduction
There are things in this world that people have taken for granted their entire lives, and their taking advantage of it grows by the day, if not by the minute. As technology advances, so does the way that the human mind reacts to every product produced and released to the general public, including video games. What some people may have forgotten is how hypocritical they’ve acted all of their lives, after numerous demands and requests about things that has been blatantly obvious that they really don’t care about. Everybody surely knows the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” This happened to be the motto in ESPN Major League Baseball (2K4). This year, the motto for 2K Sports’ baseball videogame seems to be “It doesn’t matter if it’s an improvement or a change in everyone’s eyes, as long as it’s not repetitive.”
There’s something about Visual Concepts’ video games that pique my interest to choose to buy their product over another company’s top-notch product, although I’ve never really come to the conclusion as to what it was or is. I don’t know if I can be considered a fanboy or not, because I’m not buying these games because of the company, but because I prefer to buy what pleases me. Just like this review, it is my opinion, and everybody has their own opinions, and some people like to try and carry it on as a fact, which they aren’t. Visual Concepts, Kush, and Blue Shift has done something to all of these games that I’ve always liked, maybe it’s the graphics that I like, maybe it’s the amount of new features, maybe it’s just the motion of everything, maybe it’s the way that you can adjust the game to your liking, I’m really not sure. It is practically a rule that I have to buy these games now, even though this year, MVP Baseball 2005 is stellar. There’s an exception to this rule, however, and that would be ESPN NBA Basketball. Now remember, it didn’t please me because it did something that I didn’t like that I liked in years past, and that would be the passing game. Thankfully, ESPN NBA 2K5 was a great fix from the boys at VC. But, ladies and gentlemen, Major League Baseball 2K5 is not and exception.
From the beginning…
MLB 2K5, formerly known as ESPN MLB, and before that was World Series Baseball, is the next installment in the critically acclaimed series of 2K Sports’ baseball titles. The first World Series Baseball game that I bought was, well, World Series Baseball. This was for Sega Genesis, however. This is the first baseball game that I had ever owned, and I liked it very much, for that amount of time. At that time in my life, all I wanted was home run after home run, win after win, I didn’t care about realistic stats or anything, I had a different interest. The following year, I got World Series Baseball ’95, and that game, while working from the same developers, on the same system, with the same engine, was light years ahead of its predecessor. I don’t really know if I can add reasons in an ESPN review, but it just totally changed from the previous year. After that, I hadn’t heard of World Series Baseball. Then, the Dreamcast came, and World Series Baseball 2K1 formed a year later. Developed by WOW Entertainment, this game either had big excitements, or big disappointments. It had the stellar animations and cameras, but lacked in gameplay (defense was handled by the CPU, a major letdown). Then they dropped WOW (which then went to work on Home Run King for Gamecube), and picked up Blue Shift for World Series Baseball (Xbox) and World Series Baseball 2K2 (Dreamcast). This was the first time in a baseball game that self-shadowing was introduced, but it didn’t look so great. Then, after another year of World Series Baseball came ESPN Major League Baseball (2K4), an upgrade from World Series Baseball 2K3 which introduced the first large batch of ESPN integration, featuring Jon Miller. This was the first video game that I’ve ever had the most realistic results that I could create. That didn’t stop this year from being any different.
However, this year, something different happened. Blue Shift is officially done with Visual Concepts, and Kush Games (the developers of 2K Sports’ NHL and College Hoops series) had taken over the baseball series, and made it their own. Whether the ideas were from themselves or from VC, they were nothing short of different and unique. At first I thought that this news was the worst idea in the world, especially when they would need to make the exchange of consoles in a few years anyway, with the lack of any baseball videogaming experience whatsoever. I think that I may have been wrong.
Presenting: Major League Baseball 2K5
As you load up your Xbox or PlayStation 2 console for the first time after putting this game in, you are instantly brought in to a new look of this game; you saw it on the cover also, as the title of this game does not say “ESPN” anywhere on it. This is because the ESPN license has expired for 2K Sports games, and Electronic Arts now has the license for the next ten years or so. For one reason or another, Take-Two Interactive fired back, by writing up a contract excluding all third-party developers (aside from themselves) from designing a baseball game including players from the Major League Baseball Players Association, which takes away any possibility from an MVP Baseball 2006 including every (or any) player in the MLBPA.
Anyways, the Press Start menu flips up with the title “Major League Baseball 2K5” in nice big letters, indicating the new interface for 2K Sports games (without ESPN). However, this was a late move in making the game, just like how EA’s contract was a late signing. So, everything else ESPN-wise appears to be in the game, which will instantly blow you away as you start up the game. When you press Start, you will be introduced with sleek, sharp menus with a nice blue tone to the background, with a camera panning across the Sportscenter set. There is still ESPN background music in the game, but for me, the game now starts up with “Morning Star” by Fastball.
That brings me to my next subject. MLB 2K5 introduces for the first tie in a VC baseball game the addition of custom music for virtually every part of this video game; from the menus to on the field, from a strikeout to a home run, this game includes the possibility of taking any portion of a clip from a song (that is, even being able to narrow the timeframes by a nanosecond), and allowing that clip to play for the opening of a game. You want Trevor Hoffman to walk into the ninth inning with Hells Bells blaring over Petco Park? It is very possible in this game, and there are absolutely no setbacks to this feature for me so far.
Another important aspect of the presentation in this game is the commentary. Once you start up a game, the very familiar voices of longtime broadcaster Jon Miller doing the play-by-play, with Hall of Famer Joe Morgan doing the color commentary, will be presented to you in flying colors. Everything they say sounds silky smooth and well put together, especially after hearing Rex Hudler’s very annoying wise-cracks in last year’s game. The greatest part is that, unlike many games, the things they say and use in this game are actually incorporated into their live Sunday Night Baseball broadcasts, such as using the K-Zone. The commentary is very solid, taking note of every player, along with their every at bat, and year-to-year stats. They also track career numbers, and take note of any milestones that are reached or records that are broken, whether that be single-game, single-season, or career.
Along with the audio comes the sound effects, the crowd, and the in-game stadium music. As for the sound effects, well, let me be the first to say that the first things that I had heard in this game were the first things that I did not want to hear in a baseball game. As I watched a preview show one night in late December that had clips of MLB 2K5, I heard the sound of a gun firing, and hitting a metal sheet in a church. Little did I know, it was the sound of the ball hitting the bat in this game. While what I just said is quite an exaggeration, it should not be left alone like it isn’t a severe problem to those audio-heavy nuts out there. Likewise, those that consider it a game killer should probably have been ignored in the first place. When I go to a baseball game, the only thing that’s ever really heard is the sound of the ball hitting the bat, or the sound of the catcher popping a ball into their mitt after a pitch. Besides that, things such as the bouncing of ground balls, the sound of slides, and the zip of a fastball passing by are just unheard in a regular live game or a telecast. So, my main fix for such problems as the ball-to-bat sound is just turning down the sound effects. While it shouldn’t be all the way, it should be fairly low to the extent that that’s really all that needs to be heard.
Then there is the crowd, which has been asked by MLB 2K5’s project manager to take requests into what can be done to add to the atmosphere on this game. These prayers have been answered. This year, not only do you get more crowd heckles (and by more, I mean hundreds more), but you will now have stadium-specific crowd chants and cheers, along with reactions to strikeouts, double plays, and home runs like never before in this baseball series. The only problem, in my opinion, is the longetivity of all of the sounds; they really only last about 5 seconds, regardless of the event. Other things that have enhanced the crowd are things such as them taking pictures during a night game, so when all of the flashes go off during a swing, you know it’s a sweet feeling of the ambience of a night game.
The final thing to note about Presentation would be the replays, statistic overlays and references, and the cutscenes. Finally, there is a game to compare to ESPN NFL 2K5 in these departments. The replays in this game run very smoothly this year, cutting in and out just as they would for a “Going Going Gone” or “Web Gem” highlight on Baseball Tonight. Another part of that would be the cameras they use for these this year, which are no longer Matrix-like panning replays. This makes for a much better T.V. style broadcast. They have also put in a feature that I really like in ESPN NFL 2K5, where you are able to see a box score that is batter-by-batter. Not only that, but you can go back and replay any play earlier in the game that you desired. While there is no “Save replay” feature in this game, you can make a screenshot out of it, save it, and hang it on the wall in your Skybox. That will be talked about later.
Another thing that they’ve added is a large amount of brand new cutscenes, where I am still seeing new ones every game that I play. The beginning of a game itself opens up with a shot of something outside of the stadium, and some nice pannings around the stadium, showing off the true beauty of this game. There are also brand new crowd cutscenes, including a 7th inning stretch, where you will see them sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” With that, there is now a Trivia question after the third inning of every ballgame, with a question regarding the home team in some way. And finally, there are many statistical overlays to enjoy in this game, even with the HUD (Heads-Up Display) marking the pitcher’s and batter’s hot/cold zones, and their major statistics on the page.
The bold, the brash, the gameplay
Like I said earlier, their motto this year seemed to be making sure that nothing is old, and that everything is new. Some people love change, and others fear it. I was one that was fearing the move from Blue Shift to Kush because of their lack of experience making a baseball game. I figured that the small things would be left out that would keep this game realistic and fun at the same time. Again, I stand corrected. As a matter of fact, they exceeded my expectations. However, there are still things that would drive the average baseball nut completely nuts.
There are four major gameplay elements that have made a drastic change for this year compared to last year: pitching, fielding, baserunning, and player individuality. Notice that I say “change” and not “improvement,” because I don’t speak for everybody, and I happen to know that over 75% of people would disagree with that statement.
Ever since MVP Baseball 2003 made its debut with EA Sports’ brand new baseball title and engine, games have been trying to catch up with the competition in releasing their game with something innovative and different. As you can see, games caught on early, with ESPN NFL Football including First Person Mode, and ESPN NBA Basketball including 24/7 mode. But, the thing that set apart the MVP series from the other games was their pitching style, which involved a meter that’s motion reflected the timing of the pitcher’s windup and release. They have held onto that pitching style since 2003, and now 989 Sports has used the same concept for MLB 2006. However, Kush took a much different approach, and this was a little feature called K-Zone™ pitching. The name definitely does explain the pitching style well; it’s where you are able to pinpoint your location by using a vertical and a horizontal crosshair that will slide across the screen as you select your pitch. If you hit it, you will do your part, pitching it where you wanted. If you miss with both crosshairs, there is a good chance that you will end up throwing a mistake pitch, giving the hitter a rather big advantage. The other things involved in it are effort used, pressure situations, and confidence. When more effort is used, the crosshairs will move more quickly, resulting in a much more difficult change in pinpointing your location. Confidence level and pressure situations do the same thing, only in their own unique way of determining the accuracy size for your pitcher. This is only the default pitching option. For those that want to try something else, there is still the Effort option from last year, and a Classic style, involving absolutely zero effort. Then there’s Meter pitching; a style where there are two meters: the inner meter is accuracy, and the outer is power. You would press and hold A to start both meters. If you’re more concerned about just an accurate pitch, you would let go of A the pitch button to stop the accuracy meter when the line is in the Green zone. If you want more power, you would let the power meter cycle through more than once. This will increase the accuracy meter speed, but give you a more powerful pitch. The most amount of cycles a pitcher can have is three. This is yet another very intuitive pitching style. However, I feel that all of the time and resources spent on these ideas really could have been used for something else.
Fielding has also made a change for this year. It’s not too different from last year, this year’s main difference involves t eh way your controller maps out the leaping/diving aspects of the game. Maximum Fielding™ is now incorporated into this game—similar to MVP’s style of leaping and diving, if not the exact same thing. The right-analog stick is now used to perform such stunts, and this year, leaping finally has use, as you can make leaping catches this year. If you do not choose to use the right-analog stick, you can always just press A for a standard dive or leaping catch. My only complaint with this is that they seem to leap/dive to far, resulting in robbing hits that shouldn’t have ever been robbed. Everything else feels very similar to last year’s game in terms of fielding.
Baserunning has probably made the biggest change overall, possibly even bigger than pitching. This year, they have scrapped the standard baserunning window with the red dots on the diamond. Now, the border of your television screen is the baseball diamond, with picture-in-picture baserunning included this year. Controls are very hard to do at first with this new feature, but once you get the hang of it, it’s not too bad. The main problem with it is being able to control runners individually, but it just takes time to learn and develop. Kush has also made the attempt to add user-controllable sliding, which, is also, a nice rip from EA’s right-analog stick technique used to slide into bags, where you can choose to slide feet first or head first, and hook slide either way with either type of slide. It is definitely fun, but it is not anything unseen before. The final change to baserunning would be the all new BaseBurner™ mode, where you are now in a 3rd person perspective of one of your baserunners just me a single flick of the right-analog stick before a pitch. It’s quite simple, actually. You control the runner, and you can choose a command for the batter to do while at bat, be it swinging, taking, bunting, or just being selective. Once the ball is put in play, the camera tries its best to swivel around your baserunner to keep the ball on screen. This was very intuitive, and it is very fun to use while playing. Definitely recommended.
The final thing concerning gameplay would be player individuality. That is, not really an intangible effect, but this is the first time that I’ve seen VC’s baseball game really make the ratings make the difference, especially in pitching control and batter power, for both the Human and AI players. As for pitching control, the biggest factor in my opinion would have to be where your confidence level is at. If it is very high, you or the AI are definitely more than likely to have a much more successful game, as less balls and mistake pitches are thrown. As for batting, well, the hitters are definitely distinguishable this year (especially with power), you can take my word for it.
There is also a new batting feature in this game called SlamZone that I won’t get too deep into, but it’s basically the Matrix-like form of taking advantage of a mistake pitch. It does involve button mashing and produce 500 foot home runs, but that does not leave it as an arcadey feature, as sliders can easily take care of such problems that people may have with it. There is also a new way to bunting, as you can choose where to try and aim your bunt, also with where you try and make contact with the ball. Self-explanatory, but a good feature to announce nonetheless.
Anything else concerning gameplay, unfortunately, is negative. Fortunately enough, there’s not much more to say. However, there is one standout bug that I’m sure everybody’s been waiting to hear about from me, and that would be the “passed ball” bug. There seems to be a very strange problem with the Xbox version of this game, where in high-pressure situations with runners on while the CPU is pitching, they tend to throw a lot of pitches where the catcher will miss it, allowing you to potentially advance another base. As of now, the only fix for this is to just not advance on the pitches. However, I’ve already encountered several people claiming it a game killer and leaving the 2K Sports bandwagon because of it. Hopefully enough, there will be a patch released within the next 6 weeks or so that will fix this problem. There are also two options that, for one reason or another, aren’t a choice in this year’s game: the option to turn off the strikezone, and the option to have one-button swinging. Both of those being eliminated as options make things such as sliders much harder to make more realistic, but I did nonetheless.
So, to close up the gameplay section, I will discuss gameplay sliders. These are the heart and soul of the newest video games released, because it seems that these days, nothing plays perfect out of the box. Now, there is a good chance to fine-tune the game to your liking, or to what you think is “perfect.” I must say that after working with the sliders for quite some time now, I’ve come to realize why I like this game so much—the very same reason I liked last year’s game so much, and it’s because this is the only video game that I can get to play as realistically as the pros do at Camden Yards and Miller Park. While they may take some time, in my opinion, it is worth the time you take to adjust the game to your liking, if not your loving.
What is bread and butter without good graphics?
For the past few years, I’ve gone onto many message boards to read everybody say “Gameplay over graphics.” Of course, almost anybody that wasn’t an XSN fan will say the same. But, in my opinion, when it’s that kind of gameplay to graphics ratio that is something similar to that of High Heat Baseball, then no thank you, I will pass. Even though I’d like a game with great gameplay, I will not accept a game with poor graphics, especially when there’s a great example of this kind of game like High Heat. As for MLB 2K5, however, I think that many people will say that their problem is solved with the graphics. The question now that boggles people’s minds: does the game flow the way that people wanted the game to flow?
First of all, the newest graphical feature would have to be the same one used in ESPN NFL 2K5 and ESPN NBA 2K5, and that would be the use of Triple Pass Rendering. Triple Pass Rendering incorporates a technique, instead of just molding a player onto a skeleton, taking into account EVERYTHING from the wrinkles in the jersey to the flexing of muscles. Normal maps utilize geometry to show creases in the uniform in a more natural, not drawn in way. Then the light map is added to enhance the overall look of both the textures and player models. So, two different filters used in it, when combined with all of that and the excellent self-shadowing and bump mapping features, and a form of anti-aliasing, this game could not look much better on your standard television set. This game finally allows players to get progressively dirty on their uniforms, grass stains and all—they come at appropriate times and stay for the rest of the game. Unfortunately, because of normal mapping being used in this game, HDTV owners will be very sad to hear that this game does not support neither 720p or 1080i. The only higher support is 480p, which many people would say is not HD.
Player proportion and faces have vastly improved this year, now with nearly every general body part being editable (from the shoulders down). This makes for much more individuality being expressed in the players, as Rafael Furcal no longer has anything similar to David Ortiz, yet they resemble their real life counterparts. And, as for faces, well, let’s say that Sammy Sosa’s face last year is the worst face that you’ll ever see in any video game in your entire life, and there’s nothing even close to that this year. I think that the best part about this year’s faces is not the accuracy to their counterparts, but that they actually move and animate, unlike, again, last year’s stretched stills. It makes for a much better real-life experience with batter walkups and mound visits, etc.
Do I dare go back to the look of the stadiums again? I guess I will, because they are that awesome looking. They are very crisp and clear, the lighting is phenomenal. With the new looks of the stadiums, the grass and dirt finally look like they belong in the stadiums as opposed to last year (like the “dead grass” look at SBC Park). Also, skies have upgraded a lot this year, with three times of day, three wind strengths, and four types of weather. For the people that love close attention in baseball games, the day games progress as the game goes on; that is, the shadows of the stadiums structure will begin to cast more and more over the field as the game goes on. Unfortunately, they have yet to include this kind of system for twilight or night games, but the 2K series has yet to cease to an end, so there is still hope for next year. Another hope for next year is full stadium collision detection, which again does not seem to be integrated in this game.
Of course, with the good, there’s always the bad. The bad, in my opinion, has been improved, however. The bad has everything to do with the motion of this game, nothing visually from a standstill point of view. The first thing that you’ll notice is the same in all other 2K5 games this year—these games are not running 60 frames per second. This soon gets ignored from people by me, until you play the game using the behind the pitcher cam, which, if you use K-Zone pitching, is unplayable in my opinion. The framerate suffers horribly, and it makes for a lousy camera angle to use while playing.
The other thing is the animations. Now, according to me, last year, almost every animation, batting stance, and pitching stance had one problem or another. This year, bad batting stances are a thing of the past. While some aren’t totally accurate, none are jerky and cluttery like last year; all hitches in batting stances appear to be fixed this year. The other problem were the swinging animations. For the past three years, this has been a major issue. This year, the swings are fine, but when they make contact, the players have a rather unusual animation where they overturn, pull their head out, and break down on their front foot, which kills the look of a replay when you see Griffey hit a home run like that. It really makes you cringe. The only other animation that I think is pretty bad is the diving animation, and that’s only because of how far they go when they dive. Otherwise, I really don’t see why there is a need for complaints for the animations department. Like I said, stances and windups are much improved this year, just the diving and swinging (while making contact) just need a little bit of work. It really shouldn’t be anything to worry about for future titles of this game.
A final graphical problem would possibly be the fielding camera, where the zoom features aren’t really cutting it for many people. I’m suspecting the main reason people want a more zoomed out camera is because Visual Concepts has such great graphics, they just don’t find any ways to exploit them. It does zoom out when your selected player isn’t near the ball, however. But, it’s not really enough time to view that zoomed out look for a long while. Otherwise, the batting camera is pretty good, with an optional zoom feature included.
If you are a graphics whore, look no further, this game will no let you down for at least another two more years. This is the best looking sports game to date. Now, they just need to enhance anything that may disrupt the greatness of it, mostly just trying to make it run 60 frames per second, or somehow supporting high definition (even with normal mapping). There is no reason for this game to ever get the boot in graphics, even with a couple of unsmooth animations.
Running down a dream: Building a team
This is usually where everything falls together for a game, as most everybody either craves franchise mode, or online play. Well, this here is a feature that MLB Inside Pitch 2003 seemed to leave out, resulting in a huge hit in their sales. To most people that care about nothing else than franchise mode, I usually tell them to play OOTP5. But, there are many people, such as me, that would like to run a franchise while playing and managing my games with my team for a few years. Luckily, this game has all three of those things, and they do it well, too. But, what about the other things? How does it stack up against the competition?
There are two types of franchise modes in this game that you can play, where one may eventually build into the other one. The first type is called Franchise, where you are considered the Manager, the General Manager and the Owner. You start out by picking any of the 30 MLB teams (you can choose up to four teams), and then you enter a coaching draft. Unlike the other games, you don’t have these coaches to start out with. These consist of a Manager, Batting Coach, a Pitching Coach, a Scout, and then a pool of Minor League Coaches afterwards. The Minor League Coaches are much more important compared to last year, because now your minor league teams (both AAA and AA) request what type of coach they would like, and you must choose, or, allow the CPU to auto-draft, your minor league staff based on what you think will best improve your AAA and AA teams.
Once all of that is done, you are now the Owner of a brand new ball club (or two, or three, or four). The best part is, Franchise mode never ends. You can be a heavy simulator and sim up to 2,000 seasons without anything stopping you. I recall using the Yankees last year for a simulated franchise and going over 200 years. It was quite a fun aspect if you ask me.
Most 25-man rosters will have 10 pitchers and 15 batters. This, of course, can all be sorted out if you would like to promote or demote players to either the MLB, AAA, or AA teams. One way for you to really see what’s the best option is that MLB 2K5 finally has a system that tracks accumulated stats by the minor league players. So, if you see a guy is hitting .386 with 5 home runs in 12 games for your AA team, you may want to promote him to AAA to see if he can bring up similar stats, thus giving you the potential opportunity to possibly bring him up to the majors. It’s actually done very well; I had Bobby Estelella in AA just sitting there, really hot and off the charts—it was then that I had realized that Jason LaRue was doing poorly, and I decided to put in a backup. So far, he’s not disappointing me.
What’s a franchise without trades and signings? This year, with trades involved, there is now an interest meter that you can see if the GM of another team is interested in a trade that you’re offering. This was an awesome idea that was also used in 2K Sports’ football and basketball franchises quite a while back, and I’m glad to see it was used in this game. There aren’t too many trades that you can pull off that you may think you cheated to get, because there are players like Scott Kazmir where, even if he’s lowly rated, he has a lot of potential, and the GM of the other team will sometimes just not give him up, even if you offer Todd Helton. One extreme unfortunate, though, is that there is no trading block this year. This was actually first promised in World Series Baseball 2K3; so to have three years of not having a feature that was promised, I must say that I am utterly disappointed.
As for signings, the only major difference in this game is that the Budget Points are proportioned different from years past. Last year, I believe that 1 BP = $200,000. This year, I think it is 1 BP = $2.00. In my opinion, it makes everything a whole lot easier, although I wish that the MLBPA would just allow us to use American currency, rather than video game currency.
MLB 2K5 has all real schedules with all real scheduled times on the game, so there’s nothing to stop you from playing game-by-game if you want to follow the actual Pirates schedule or something. For each game, you have an option to choose: you can either play the game, simulate the game with a box score, simulate the game without the box score, or you can simulate the game using GameCast mode, which is a feature that allows you to play the game batter-by-batter with the simple press of the A button. You will see the box score, the lineups, the pitching matchups, everything. From this, you are still able to make managerial decisions, such as putting in a new pitcher, a pinch runner, or calling for a double switch (which is still broken in this game, by the way). The only thing that is not allowed in this game, which I think would be a grand idea, is to call for a bunt or a steal. The only problem with this is that this would resort in playing the game pitch-by-pitch rather than batter-by-batter, and I don’t think the guys at VC are willing to put up with something like that. Finally, there is the option to intervene into the game at any time that you’d like. Likewise, you can jump out of the game any time that you’d like, and choose to go back to GameCast mode, and simulate the game, where you can again, if you’d like, jump back in. Last year, it was just one time jumping in, and that was it, so I’m glad to see that they’ve added on to this feature.
The other type of franchise mode is GM Career mode, where you are, in fact, the general manager. You are working under an Owner, who will give you annual goals, and some small goals like winning the series against the next team or whatever. He will give you emails, rate you, etc. He may increase or decrease your budget depending on how you do. He will let you know how he's feeling about your trades, signings, promotions/demotions, standings, who’s hot/who’s not, and everything else. Also, you have a chance at getting fired, which isn't always good. GM Career mode lasts 30 baseball seasons—from 2005 - 2035. If you have enough money to buy a team, you very well can. Once the team is bought, you are the Owner and everything else, bringing you to what is basically franchise mode.
When you start up GM Career mode, all teams are available at the start. But, if your contract expires or if you get fired (which by the way, your rating [respect level] lowers, so don't instantly expect that you'll be hired), there will be a pool of maybe anything ranging from possibly 1 to 7 teams that you will be able to sign from. At the start of a GM Career, you can choose any team that you'd like. The Owner has a personality and focus of his own: he may be a dictator and want to win, or he may just be a fan and want to improve the team. He may be into finances and want to save money, etc. Make sure that you choose the Owner that you'd like to have, because the goals and the way that he rates you reflects his personality-type, and you’ll be with him for quite a while. Also, each Owner offers you a different contract. So, one may offer you more money than another. Remember all of this when you start your GM Career.
Right now, I am running a Cincinnati Reds franchise in GM Career mode. I created Dave O’Brien as my general manager, and signed with them. Personally, I am not into the franchise itself as much as other people, so I’m not as concerned about things like contracts, prospects, etc. What I like most about these modes is that I get to play 162 games a season, and watch my players develop. That, in my opinion, is the true glory of playing a baseball franchise. The other baseball games this year (MVP Baseball 2005, MLB 2006) have a huge franchise mode this year that is more concerned about finances in general, so you may have to set prices for your stadium tickets, or create promotions for upcoming games. While that is very fun an interesting, I am fine with where I am at right now.
As I said, I like to play 162 games of baseball in a season, and then another one. So far, in my franchise, I have played a total of 51 complete games. My season record is 29 – 22, 7 games back of the first place St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Central. When I talked about Goals in franchise mode, my goals concern getting rid of highly paid players, maintain a rather reasonable spending budget, and I also have a long-lasting goal of making the playoffs, if not the World Series. At the moment, my Owner is feeling very mediocre about me, mainly because I rejected getting Tim Hudson for Adam Dunn. I felt the trade wasn’t necessary, as right now, Adam Dunn is my most valuable player.
Again, I play franchise mode because I like to play numerous games with the same team, trying and building them up. Many people took MVP Baseball 2005 over MLB 2K5 because of the heavier franchise mode, when last year, while MVP’s franchise was much heavier, it had its problems with left-handed hitters unable to hit a fair amount of home runs, early and unnecessary retirements, and poor player progression. While those are pretty much tweaked this year, I still don’t understand the reasoning for nobody trading in a game like that and picking up a game like this. I plan on going to infinity and beyond with franchise—on World Series Baseball 2K3, I ended up playing over 500 games of franchise. On ESPN Major League Baseball, I ended up playing over 450 games of franchise, and the only reason I played a less amount of games was because I had a less amount of time with the game because of last year’s late release date and this year’s early release date. I do not plan on slowing up one bit with this game, and I intend on playing well over 600 or 700 games of franchise on here.
Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
Every game has something extra to deal with, be it another whole new gameplay mode or online play. Either way, there is still something to love and cherish about the boasts of features in a baseball game. However, sometimes there isn’t.
The first extra mode in MLB 2K5 that you will probably be checking out, because it’s in the main menu, is the Skybox. Very similar to ESPN NHL 2K5’s Skybox, this game has a virtual profile where you are in a skybox booth of your favorite baseball stadium (when you pick your “Favorite Team,” their stadium will be seen through the glass of your Skybox), and you’re able to unlock stadiums, jerseys, teams, cheats, and other extras via Skybox tokens. These tokens are earned whenever you accomplish certain feats during a game, be it striking out the side, being the first to turn two double plays in the game, or just plain answering the trivia question at the bottom of the third. Along with the Skybox are three games that you may see in an arcade, or something of that nature. There is an air hockey table, a dartboard, and a shuffleboard. All of them have pretty intuitive controls to make for a rather fun set of games outside of the baseball game itself. The only problem that I’ve had with these games is that your menu music no longer plays while you’re playing the games.
Another little feature in the Skybox, which I started to discuss earlier, was the ability to save a screenshot and put it up on one of your walls. The idea is pretty cool, but it’s nothing groundbreaking, especially considering I always forget that I had already put one up, because I never see it anyways. Anyway, with the simple click of the left-analog stick, you can save your favorite screenshots of possibly something such as a collision at the plate, or camera flashes going off as you’re hitting a home run with Manny Ramirez, or if there’s a famous strike out that gave you the perfect game that you want to save. Again, cool, but not important.
Another mode included this year is called In Your Face. Now, honestly, I haven’t gotten a chance to play this yet, but I don’t know if I am going to intend to play it in the near future. It’s basically the same thing as an Exhibition game, but, like Skybox tokens, you can earn what is called a “Face Point” by doing a specific something. Once you earn a Face Point, at the end of the half-inning you can choose to lock a certain capability fro your opponents to perform for an inning. So, do you not want them to be able to use turbo next inning on defense? LOCKED! Do you want to get rid of their power swing for an inning? LOCKED! It goes just like that for both teams for the entire game. Everything else about it is just like an Exhibition game.
Situation mode was again added this year, and unfortunately enough, was not enhanced in any way, shape, or form. I mean sure, you get the basics… you get to choose the score, what inning it is (bottom or top), how many outs there are, who’s up to bat, how many people are on base. Otherwise, things like setting who (specifically) is on base, who is pitching, and how much fatigue the pitcher has left. I forget if you can set what count it is, but if you can’t, that’s yet another option to add in it. I would also wish that there was an option that would allow us to restart the situation “from the top;” so, basically just redo just how it was set up at first.
Home Run Derby is back again, but it’s a style similar to MVP’s, where there is split-screen action only, whether you’re facing the CPU or another human opponent. There are three standard modes of play, and one unlockable mode of play. All of them contain a stamina bar, which is used to not allow you to just use the Power swing every time and crank every pitch out. There are also team home run derbies, where strategy is involved on who you want up to bat at what time, because as your opponent hits more and more home runs, more and more damage will be taken off of the Health bar on your batter. So, switching is necessary to raise their health when they are not batting. It is a very interesting concept, but there is still the lack of seeing the balls land in the stands with full collision detection, which is unfortunate, especially when playing something like Home Run Derby.
The final mode of play would be online play. I cannot say for myself what it is like, because I do not have Xbox Live. However, I do happen to know that there are online leagues and tournaments, including: league stats, buddy lists, connection updates, and “seamless” online play. The leagues would make for a fun time, however, I heard that SlamZone must be on for online play. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but if it is and if it’s a problem, I can see where there may be a problem in the leagues. Overall, many people crave this feature, as this is the only time that you are able to actually use something like K-Zone pitching, and not feel like you or the opponent is cheating when seeing it on-screen.
Closing comments
MLB 2K5 will obviously not beat the competition in customer sales, mainly because the competition is EA Sports. When they have a fanbase, they keep their fanbase. All that the guys can do at Take-Two is just try their hardest at delivering a quality game, and they will hope for the best for years to come. Fortunately for them, they’ve knocked EA out of the round for next year’s MLB titles (featuring all players associated in the MLBPA), and now have a chance to shine. Is less competition better? That is something we will find out next year.
To anyone that says this game has not changed, they need themselves checked out, pretty quickly I might add. Whether or not these changes were for the better is up to the person playing. Many people will take a review and say that the person is wrong, or that the person was spot on, but really… a review is a summary of the game; what are the facts, and what are the issues. A review is not a large-scale opinion, and shouldn’t make one person mad with it, and one person happy with it. They should read it, and base the game’s values on what they’ve read.
Overall, Major League Baseball 2K5 is a truly new experience for somebody like me. I was able to view a brand new ball game in some different hands, and I’d like to see what they can expand the game on to. The major problem about the outlook of their future is that the ESPN integration is now gone, it’s history for 2K Sports games. So, if the boys at Kush decide to step it up with presentation even more, they may have to create their own “network,” or sign with somebody like FOX Sports. I would personally call this game a “piece in progress,” because first attempts aren’t always the greatest, especially with Kush (look at ESPN NHL Hockey and ESPN College Hoops). Second year makes a bit of a difference, especially when pretty big bugs and glitches are fixed.
The main thing that they will need to focus on for next year is what the customers are asking for the most, which the top three things seem to be at the moment: 1) Fix all current bugs/glitches, 2) give a higher fielding camera, 3) fix animations. In my opinion, when all of those are fixed and all is said and done, I don’t see why to turn back to another game. That doesn’t mean this game has it all, that means that this game has fulfilled my needs.
MY GAME RATINGS
Presentation
If somebody were looking for a game that looked the part of the most true-to-life telecast you’ll ever see, this game will not disappoint one bit. Jon Miller and Joe Morgan sound great together, working what sounds like they are side-by-side in a Sunday Night Baseball broadcast. That with the custom music and crowd ambience makes for a greatly presented ball game. The major annoyance here would be the bat contact sound, which is not a major setback.
9.7
Gameplay
Kush did their best to make things new, different, and fun for the average customer and the average baseball fan. The K-Zone pitching and the BaseBurner mode are very useful, and make sense in a baseball game. However I personally believe they may have added too much, and left out a few necessary elements, such as an option to turn off the strike zone, and an option to include one-button swinging. The sliders work very well, I’ve been able to fine-tune them to give myself very good pitch counts with a very good box score. I still am, however, very concerned with the exaggerated diving catches, along with the “passed ball” bug.
8.4
Graphics
Triple Pass Rendering makes the game’s graphics, they truly do. The player models are flat out awesome, with better-proportioned players, and much more real looking player faces. The stadiums (along with the crowd, skies, grass, and dirt) are also top-notch. The fluidity of batting and pitching animations are also much refined, but could give more uniqueness to their likeness. There are still problems with the swing animations, but nothing that another year of producing this game will not fix. My main gripe, however, is the framerate, especially when playing with the behind-the-pitcher cam, which truly makes K-Zone pitching unusable with that camera angle. Otherwise, self-shadowing also gives a nice true feel to the players actually being alive and on the field. This game’s graphics will not disappoint anybody here.
9.3
Lasting Appeal
It just may be me, but like I said in the second paragraph of this review, there is something about these games that make me coming back for more. I wrote an entire review, and still do not know what it is that allows me to keep playing the 2K Sports games. Franchise mode will definitely keep me going for over 4 or 5 years of play (playing all 162 games each year, possibly including playoffs). Other things will definitely benefit others, such as online play, which I don’t get to experience first-hand. The game itself is just very addicting, despite the major “passed ball” bug. Most importantly, this game is $19.99 for both systems. If this review was good enough to persuade somebody to rent the game, it is probably just worth buying the game at such a low price. This makes the value of the game that much higher.
9.7
OVERALL SCORE (not an average)
8.3
I am a very harsh grader, and an 8.3 is a good score. The only game that I have ever rated over 9.0 was Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. So, for this game to get this score, it is actually a compliment to the game. Great job, Kush. I am only hoping that you come back answering all problems, and adding to your innovations. I truly believe that a fun quality product is what you guys are best at out there in Camarillo.
Written by Brandon Robinson (16) from San Mateo, California.
Take my review for what it’s worth. It is a VERY long read. The very bottom stuff with all of the scores show all of my actual opinions about the game. Everything at the top is a very detailed summary of what the game is all about and what is included in it, making sure nobody skipped a heartbeat when playing this game.
So, without further ado, let’s read my review!
March 2, 2005
Introduction
There are things in this world that people have taken for granted their entire lives, and their taking advantage of it grows by the day, if not by the minute. As technology advances, so does the way that the human mind reacts to every product produced and released to the general public, including video games. What some people may have forgotten is how hypocritical they’ve acted all of their lives, after numerous demands and requests about things that has been blatantly obvious that they really don’t care about. Everybody surely knows the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” This happened to be the motto in ESPN Major League Baseball (2K4). This year, the motto for 2K Sports’ baseball videogame seems to be “It doesn’t matter if it’s an improvement or a change in everyone’s eyes, as long as it’s not repetitive.”
There’s something about Visual Concepts’ video games that pique my interest to choose to buy their product over another company’s top-notch product, although I’ve never really come to the conclusion as to what it was or is. I don’t know if I can be considered a fanboy or not, because I’m not buying these games because of the company, but because I prefer to buy what pleases me. Just like this review, it is my opinion, and everybody has their own opinions, and some people like to try and carry it on as a fact, which they aren’t. Visual Concepts, Kush, and Blue Shift has done something to all of these games that I’ve always liked, maybe it’s the graphics that I like, maybe it’s the amount of new features, maybe it’s just the motion of everything, maybe it’s the way that you can adjust the game to your liking, I’m really not sure. It is practically a rule that I have to buy these games now, even though this year, MVP Baseball 2005 is stellar. There’s an exception to this rule, however, and that would be ESPN NBA Basketball. Now remember, it didn’t please me because it did something that I didn’t like that I liked in years past, and that would be the passing game. Thankfully, ESPN NBA 2K5 was a great fix from the boys at VC. But, ladies and gentlemen, Major League Baseball 2K5 is not and exception.
From the beginning…
MLB 2K5, formerly known as ESPN MLB, and before that was World Series Baseball, is the next installment in the critically acclaimed series of 2K Sports’ baseball titles. The first World Series Baseball game that I bought was, well, World Series Baseball. This was for Sega Genesis, however. This is the first baseball game that I had ever owned, and I liked it very much, for that amount of time. At that time in my life, all I wanted was home run after home run, win after win, I didn’t care about realistic stats or anything, I had a different interest. The following year, I got World Series Baseball ’95, and that game, while working from the same developers, on the same system, with the same engine, was light years ahead of its predecessor. I don’t really know if I can add reasons in an ESPN review, but it just totally changed from the previous year. After that, I hadn’t heard of World Series Baseball. Then, the Dreamcast came, and World Series Baseball 2K1 formed a year later. Developed by WOW Entertainment, this game either had big excitements, or big disappointments. It had the stellar animations and cameras, but lacked in gameplay (defense was handled by the CPU, a major letdown). Then they dropped WOW (which then went to work on Home Run King for Gamecube), and picked up Blue Shift for World Series Baseball (Xbox) and World Series Baseball 2K2 (Dreamcast). This was the first time in a baseball game that self-shadowing was introduced, but it didn’t look so great. Then, after another year of World Series Baseball came ESPN Major League Baseball (2K4), an upgrade from World Series Baseball 2K3 which introduced the first large batch of ESPN integration, featuring Jon Miller. This was the first video game that I’ve ever had the most realistic results that I could create. That didn’t stop this year from being any different.
However, this year, something different happened. Blue Shift is officially done with Visual Concepts, and Kush Games (the developers of 2K Sports’ NHL and College Hoops series) had taken over the baseball series, and made it their own. Whether the ideas were from themselves or from VC, they were nothing short of different and unique. At first I thought that this news was the worst idea in the world, especially when they would need to make the exchange of consoles in a few years anyway, with the lack of any baseball videogaming experience whatsoever. I think that I may have been wrong.
Presenting: Major League Baseball 2K5
As you load up your Xbox or PlayStation 2 console for the first time after putting this game in, you are instantly brought in to a new look of this game; you saw it on the cover also, as the title of this game does not say “ESPN” anywhere on it. This is because the ESPN license has expired for 2K Sports games, and Electronic Arts now has the license for the next ten years or so. For one reason or another, Take-Two Interactive fired back, by writing up a contract excluding all third-party developers (aside from themselves) from designing a baseball game including players from the Major League Baseball Players Association, which takes away any possibility from an MVP Baseball 2006 including every (or any) player in the MLBPA.
Anyways, the Press Start menu flips up with the title “Major League Baseball 2K5” in nice big letters, indicating the new interface for 2K Sports games (without ESPN). However, this was a late move in making the game, just like how EA’s contract was a late signing. So, everything else ESPN-wise appears to be in the game, which will instantly blow you away as you start up the game. When you press Start, you will be introduced with sleek, sharp menus with a nice blue tone to the background, with a camera panning across the Sportscenter set. There is still ESPN background music in the game, but for me, the game now starts up with “Morning Star” by Fastball.
That brings me to my next subject. MLB 2K5 introduces for the first tie in a VC baseball game the addition of custom music for virtually every part of this video game; from the menus to on the field, from a strikeout to a home run, this game includes the possibility of taking any portion of a clip from a song (that is, even being able to narrow the timeframes by a nanosecond), and allowing that clip to play for the opening of a game. You want Trevor Hoffman to walk into the ninth inning with Hells Bells blaring over Petco Park? It is very possible in this game, and there are absolutely no setbacks to this feature for me so far.
Another important aspect of the presentation in this game is the commentary. Once you start up a game, the very familiar voices of longtime broadcaster Jon Miller doing the play-by-play, with Hall of Famer Joe Morgan doing the color commentary, will be presented to you in flying colors. Everything they say sounds silky smooth and well put together, especially after hearing Rex Hudler’s very annoying wise-cracks in last year’s game. The greatest part is that, unlike many games, the things they say and use in this game are actually incorporated into their live Sunday Night Baseball broadcasts, such as using the K-Zone. The commentary is very solid, taking note of every player, along with their every at bat, and year-to-year stats. They also track career numbers, and take note of any milestones that are reached or records that are broken, whether that be single-game, single-season, or career.
Along with the audio comes the sound effects, the crowd, and the in-game stadium music. As for the sound effects, well, let me be the first to say that the first things that I had heard in this game were the first things that I did not want to hear in a baseball game. As I watched a preview show one night in late December that had clips of MLB 2K5, I heard the sound of a gun firing, and hitting a metal sheet in a church. Little did I know, it was the sound of the ball hitting the bat in this game. While what I just said is quite an exaggeration, it should not be left alone like it isn’t a severe problem to those audio-heavy nuts out there. Likewise, those that consider it a game killer should probably have been ignored in the first place. When I go to a baseball game, the only thing that’s ever really heard is the sound of the ball hitting the bat, or the sound of the catcher popping a ball into their mitt after a pitch. Besides that, things such as the bouncing of ground balls, the sound of slides, and the zip of a fastball passing by are just unheard in a regular live game or a telecast. So, my main fix for such problems as the ball-to-bat sound is just turning down the sound effects. While it shouldn’t be all the way, it should be fairly low to the extent that that’s really all that needs to be heard.
Then there is the crowd, which has been asked by MLB 2K5’s project manager to take requests into what can be done to add to the atmosphere on this game. These prayers have been answered. This year, not only do you get more crowd heckles (and by more, I mean hundreds more), but you will now have stadium-specific crowd chants and cheers, along with reactions to strikeouts, double plays, and home runs like never before in this baseball series. The only problem, in my opinion, is the longetivity of all of the sounds; they really only last about 5 seconds, regardless of the event. Other things that have enhanced the crowd are things such as them taking pictures during a night game, so when all of the flashes go off during a swing, you know it’s a sweet feeling of the ambience of a night game.
The final thing to note about Presentation would be the replays, statistic overlays and references, and the cutscenes. Finally, there is a game to compare to ESPN NFL 2K5 in these departments. The replays in this game run very smoothly this year, cutting in and out just as they would for a “Going Going Gone” or “Web Gem” highlight on Baseball Tonight. Another part of that would be the cameras they use for these this year, which are no longer Matrix-like panning replays. This makes for a much better T.V. style broadcast. They have also put in a feature that I really like in ESPN NFL 2K5, where you are able to see a box score that is batter-by-batter. Not only that, but you can go back and replay any play earlier in the game that you desired. While there is no “Save replay” feature in this game, you can make a screenshot out of it, save it, and hang it on the wall in your Skybox. That will be talked about later.
Another thing that they’ve added is a large amount of brand new cutscenes, where I am still seeing new ones every game that I play. The beginning of a game itself opens up with a shot of something outside of the stadium, and some nice pannings around the stadium, showing off the true beauty of this game. There are also brand new crowd cutscenes, including a 7th inning stretch, where you will see them sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” With that, there is now a Trivia question after the third inning of every ballgame, with a question regarding the home team in some way. And finally, there are many statistical overlays to enjoy in this game, even with the HUD (Heads-Up Display) marking the pitcher’s and batter’s hot/cold zones, and their major statistics on the page.
The bold, the brash, the gameplay
Like I said earlier, their motto this year seemed to be making sure that nothing is old, and that everything is new. Some people love change, and others fear it. I was one that was fearing the move from Blue Shift to Kush because of their lack of experience making a baseball game. I figured that the small things would be left out that would keep this game realistic and fun at the same time. Again, I stand corrected. As a matter of fact, they exceeded my expectations. However, there are still things that would drive the average baseball nut completely nuts.
There are four major gameplay elements that have made a drastic change for this year compared to last year: pitching, fielding, baserunning, and player individuality. Notice that I say “change” and not “improvement,” because I don’t speak for everybody, and I happen to know that over 75% of people would disagree with that statement.
Ever since MVP Baseball 2003 made its debut with EA Sports’ brand new baseball title and engine, games have been trying to catch up with the competition in releasing their game with something innovative and different. As you can see, games caught on early, with ESPN NFL Football including First Person Mode, and ESPN NBA Basketball including 24/7 mode. But, the thing that set apart the MVP series from the other games was their pitching style, which involved a meter that’s motion reflected the timing of the pitcher’s windup and release. They have held onto that pitching style since 2003, and now 989 Sports has used the same concept for MLB 2006. However, Kush took a much different approach, and this was a little feature called K-Zone™ pitching. The name definitely does explain the pitching style well; it’s where you are able to pinpoint your location by using a vertical and a horizontal crosshair that will slide across the screen as you select your pitch. If you hit it, you will do your part, pitching it where you wanted. If you miss with both crosshairs, there is a good chance that you will end up throwing a mistake pitch, giving the hitter a rather big advantage. The other things involved in it are effort used, pressure situations, and confidence. When more effort is used, the crosshairs will move more quickly, resulting in a much more difficult change in pinpointing your location. Confidence level and pressure situations do the same thing, only in their own unique way of determining the accuracy size for your pitcher. This is only the default pitching option. For those that want to try something else, there is still the Effort option from last year, and a Classic style, involving absolutely zero effort. Then there’s Meter pitching; a style where there are two meters: the inner meter is accuracy, and the outer is power. You would press and hold A to start both meters. If you’re more concerned about just an accurate pitch, you would let go of A the pitch button to stop the accuracy meter when the line is in the Green zone. If you want more power, you would let the power meter cycle through more than once. This will increase the accuracy meter speed, but give you a more powerful pitch. The most amount of cycles a pitcher can have is three. This is yet another very intuitive pitching style. However, I feel that all of the time and resources spent on these ideas really could have been used for something else.
Fielding has also made a change for this year. It’s not too different from last year, this year’s main difference involves t eh way your controller maps out the leaping/diving aspects of the game. Maximum Fielding™ is now incorporated into this game—similar to MVP’s style of leaping and diving, if not the exact same thing. The right-analog stick is now used to perform such stunts, and this year, leaping finally has use, as you can make leaping catches this year. If you do not choose to use the right-analog stick, you can always just press A for a standard dive or leaping catch. My only complaint with this is that they seem to leap/dive to far, resulting in robbing hits that shouldn’t have ever been robbed. Everything else feels very similar to last year’s game in terms of fielding.
Baserunning has probably made the biggest change overall, possibly even bigger than pitching. This year, they have scrapped the standard baserunning window with the red dots on the diamond. Now, the border of your television screen is the baseball diamond, with picture-in-picture baserunning included this year. Controls are very hard to do at first with this new feature, but once you get the hang of it, it’s not too bad. The main problem with it is being able to control runners individually, but it just takes time to learn and develop. Kush has also made the attempt to add user-controllable sliding, which, is also, a nice rip from EA’s right-analog stick technique used to slide into bags, where you can choose to slide feet first or head first, and hook slide either way with either type of slide. It is definitely fun, but it is not anything unseen before. The final change to baserunning would be the all new BaseBurner™ mode, where you are now in a 3rd person perspective of one of your baserunners just me a single flick of the right-analog stick before a pitch. It’s quite simple, actually. You control the runner, and you can choose a command for the batter to do while at bat, be it swinging, taking, bunting, or just being selective. Once the ball is put in play, the camera tries its best to swivel around your baserunner to keep the ball on screen. This was very intuitive, and it is very fun to use while playing. Definitely recommended.
The final thing concerning gameplay would be player individuality. That is, not really an intangible effect, but this is the first time that I’ve seen VC’s baseball game really make the ratings make the difference, especially in pitching control and batter power, for both the Human and AI players. As for pitching control, the biggest factor in my opinion would have to be where your confidence level is at. If it is very high, you or the AI are definitely more than likely to have a much more successful game, as less balls and mistake pitches are thrown. As for batting, well, the hitters are definitely distinguishable this year (especially with power), you can take my word for it.
There is also a new batting feature in this game called SlamZone that I won’t get too deep into, but it’s basically the Matrix-like form of taking advantage of a mistake pitch. It does involve button mashing and produce 500 foot home runs, but that does not leave it as an arcadey feature, as sliders can easily take care of such problems that people may have with it. There is also a new way to bunting, as you can choose where to try and aim your bunt, also with where you try and make contact with the ball. Self-explanatory, but a good feature to announce nonetheless.
Anything else concerning gameplay, unfortunately, is negative. Fortunately enough, there’s not much more to say. However, there is one standout bug that I’m sure everybody’s been waiting to hear about from me, and that would be the “passed ball” bug. There seems to be a very strange problem with the Xbox version of this game, where in high-pressure situations with runners on while the CPU is pitching, they tend to throw a lot of pitches where the catcher will miss it, allowing you to potentially advance another base. As of now, the only fix for this is to just not advance on the pitches. However, I’ve already encountered several people claiming it a game killer and leaving the 2K Sports bandwagon because of it. Hopefully enough, there will be a patch released within the next 6 weeks or so that will fix this problem. There are also two options that, for one reason or another, aren’t a choice in this year’s game: the option to turn off the strikezone, and the option to have one-button swinging. Both of those being eliminated as options make things such as sliders much harder to make more realistic, but I did nonetheless.
So, to close up the gameplay section, I will discuss gameplay sliders. These are the heart and soul of the newest video games released, because it seems that these days, nothing plays perfect out of the box. Now, there is a good chance to fine-tune the game to your liking, or to what you think is “perfect.” I must say that after working with the sliders for quite some time now, I’ve come to realize why I like this game so much—the very same reason I liked last year’s game so much, and it’s because this is the only video game that I can get to play as realistically as the pros do at Camden Yards and Miller Park. While they may take some time, in my opinion, it is worth the time you take to adjust the game to your liking, if not your loving.
What is bread and butter without good graphics?
For the past few years, I’ve gone onto many message boards to read everybody say “Gameplay over graphics.” Of course, almost anybody that wasn’t an XSN fan will say the same. But, in my opinion, when it’s that kind of gameplay to graphics ratio that is something similar to that of High Heat Baseball, then no thank you, I will pass. Even though I’d like a game with great gameplay, I will not accept a game with poor graphics, especially when there’s a great example of this kind of game like High Heat. As for MLB 2K5, however, I think that many people will say that their problem is solved with the graphics. The question now that boggles people’s minds: does the game flow the way that people wanted the game to flow?
First of all, the newest graphical feature would have to be the same one used in ESPN NFL 2K5 and ESPN NBA 2K5, and that would be the use of Triple Pass Rendering. Triple Pass Rendering incorporates a technique, instead of just molding a player onto a skeleton, taking into account EVERYTHING from the wrinkles in the jersey to the flexing of muscles. Normal maps utilize geometry to show creases in the uniform in a more natural, not drawn in way. Then the light map is added to enhance the overall look of both the textures and player models. So, two different filters used in it, when combined with all of that and the excellent self-shadowing and bump mapping features, and a form of anti-aliasing, this game could not look much better on your standard television set. This game finally allows players to get progressively dirty on their uniforms, grass stains and all—they come at appropriate times and stay for the rest of the game. Unfortunately, because of normal mapping being used in this game, HDTV owners will be very sad to hear that this game does not support neither 720p or 1080i. The only higher support is 480p, which many people would say is not HD.
Player proportion and faces have vastly improved this year, now with nearly every general body part being editable (from the shoulders down). This makes for much more individuality being expressed in the players, as Rafael Furcal no longer has anything similar to David Ortiz, yet they resemble their real life counterparts. And, as for faces, well, let’s say that Sammy Sosa’s face last year is the worst face that you’ll ever see in any video game in your entire life, and there’s nothing even close to that this year. I think that the best part about this year’s faces is not the accuracy to their counterparts, but that they actually move and animate, unlike, again, last year’s stretched stills. It makes for a much better real-life experience with batter walkups and mound visits, etc.
Do I dare go back to the look of the stadiums again? I guess I will, because they are that awesome looking. They are very crisp and clear, the lighting is phenomenal. With the new looks of the stadiums, the grass and dirt finally look like they belong in the stadiums as opposed to last year (like the “dead grass” look at SBC Park). Also, skies have upgraded a lot this year, with three times of day, three wind strengths, and four types of weather. For the people that love close attention in baseball games, the day games progress as the game goes on; that is, the shadows of the stadiums structure will begin to cast more and more over the field as the game goes on. Unfortunately, they have yet to include this kind of system for twilight or night games, but the 2K series has yet to cease to an end, so there is still hope for next year. Another hope for next year is full stadium collision detection, which again does not seem to be integrated in this game.
Of course, with the good, there’s always the bad. The bad, in my opinion, has been improved, however. The bad has everything to do with the motion of this game, nothing visually from a standstill point of view. The first thing that you’ll notice is the same in all other 2K5 games this year—these games are not running 60 frames per second. This soon gets ignored from people by me, until you play the game using the behind the pitcher cam, which, if you use K-Zone pitching, is unplayable in my opinion. The framerate suffers horribly, and it makes for a lousy camera angle to use while playing.
The other thing is the animations. Now, according to me, last year, almost every animation, batting stance, and pitching stance had one problem or another. This year, bad batting stances are a thing of the past. While some aren’t totally accurate, none are jerky and cluttery like last year; all hitches in batting stances appear to be fixed this year. The other problem were the swinging animations. For the past three years, this has been a major issue. This year, the swings are fine, but when they make contact, the players have a rather unusual animation where they overturn, pull their head out, and break down on their front foot, which kills the look of a replay when you see Griffey hit a home run like that. It really makes you cringe. The only other animation that I think is pretty bad is the diving animation, and that’s only because of how far they go when they dive. Otherwise, I really don’t see why there is a need for complaints for the animations department. Like I said, stances and windups are much improved this year, just the diving and swinging (while making contact) just need a little bit of work. It really shouldn’t be anything to worry about for future titles of this game.
A final graphical problem would possibly be the fielding camera, where the zoom features aren’t really cutting it for many people. I’m suspecting the main reason people want a more zoomed out camera is because Visual Concepts has such great graphics, they just don’t find any ways to exploit them. It does zoom out when your selected player isn’t near the ball, however. But, it’s not really enough time to view that zoomed out look for a long while. Otherwise, the batting camera is pretty good, with an optional zoom feature included.
If you are a graphics whore, look no further, this game will no let you down for at least another two more years. This is the best looking sports game to date. Now, they just need to enhance anything that may disrupt the greatness of it, mostly just trying to make it run 60 frames per second, or somehow supporting high definition (even with normal mapping). There is no reason for this game to ever get the boot in graphics, even with a couple of unsmooth animations.
Running down a dream: Building a team
This is usually where everything falls together for a game, as most everybody either craves franchise mode, or online play. Well, this here is a feature that MLB Inside Pitch 2003 seemed to leave out, resulting in a huge hit in their sales. To most people that care about nothing else than franchise mode, I usually tell them to play OOTP5. But, there are many people, such as me, that would like to run a franchise while playing and managing my games with my team for a few years. Luckily, this game has all three of those things, and they do it well, too. But, what about the other things? How does it stack up against the competition?
There are two types of franchise modes in this game that you can play, where one may eventually build into the other one. The first type is called Franchise, where you are considered the Manager, the General Manager and the Owner. You start out by picking any of the 30 MLB teams (you can choose up to four teams), and then you enter a coaching draft. Unlike the other games, you don’t have these coaches to start out with. These consist of a Manager, Batting Coach, a Pitching Coach, a Scout, and then a pool of Minor League Coaches afterwards. The Minor League Coaches are much more important compared to last year, because now your minor league teams (both AAA and AA) request what type of coach they would like, and you must choose, or, allow the CPU to auto-draft, your minor league staff based on what you think will best improve your AAA and AA teams.
Once all of that is done, you are now the Owner of a brand new ball club (or two, or three, or four). The best part is, Franchise mode never ends. You can be a heavy simulator and sim up to 2,000 seasons without anything stopping you. I recall using the Yankees last year for a simulated franchise and going over 200 years. It was quite a fun aspect if you ask me.
Most 25-man rosters will have 10 pitchers and 15 batters. This, of course, can all be sorted out if you would like to promote or demote players to either the MLB, AAA, or AA teams. One way for you to really see what’s the best option is that MLB 2K5 finally has a system that tracks accumulated stats by the minor league players. So, if you see a guy is hitting .386 with 5 home runs in 12 games for your AA team, you may want to promote him to AAA to see if he can bring up similar stats, thus giving you the potential opportunity to possibly bring him up to the majors. It’s actually done very well; I had Bobby Estelella in AA just sitting there, really hot and off the charts—it was then that I had realized that Jason LaRue was doing poorly, and I decided to put in a backup. So far, he’s not disappointing me.
What’s a franchise without trades and signings? This year, with trades involved, there is now an interest meter that you can see if the GM of another team is interested in a trade that you’re offering. This was an awesome idea that was also used in 2K Sports’ football and basketball franchises quite a while back, and I’m glad to see it was used in this game. There aren’t too many trades that you can pull off that you may think you cheated to get, because there are players like Scott Kazmir where, even if he’s lowly rated, he has a lot of potential, and the GM of the other team will sometimes just not give him up, even if you offer Todd Helton. One extreme unfortunate, though, is that there is no trading block this year. This was actually first promised in World Series Baseball 2K3; so to have three years of not having a feature that was promised, I must say that I am utterly disappointed.
As for signings, the only major difference in this game is that the Budget Points are proportioned different from years past. Last year, I believe that 1 BP = $200,000. This year, I think it is 1 BP = $2.00. In my opinion, it makes everything a whole lot easier, although I wish that the MLBPA would just allow us to use American currency, rather than video game currency.
MLB 2K5 has all real schedules with all real scheduled times on the game, so there’s nothing to stop you from playing game-by-game if you want to follow the actual Pirates schedule or something. For each game, you have an option to choose: you can either play the game, simulate the game with a box score, simulate the game without the box score, or you can simulate the game using GameCast mode, which is a feature that allows you to play the game batter-by-batter with the simple press of the A button. You will see the box score, the lineups, the pitching matchups, everything. From this, you are still able to make managerial decisions, such as putting in a new pitcher, a pinch runner, or calling for a double switch (which is still broken in this game, by the way). The only thing that is not allowed in this game, which I think would be a grand idea, is to call for a bunt or a steal. The only problem with this is that this would resort in playing the game pitch-by-pitch rather than batter-by-batter, and I don’t think the guys at VC are willing to put up with something like that. Finally, there is the option to intervene into the game at any time that you’d like. Likewise, you can jump out of the game any time that you’d like, and choose to go back to GameCast mode, and simulate the game, where you can again, if you’d like, jump back in. Last year, it was just one time jumping in, and that was it, so I’m glad to see that they’ve added on to this feature.
The other type of franchise mode is GM Career mode, where you are, in fact, the general manager. You are working under an Owner, who will give you annual goals, and some small goals like winning the series against the next team or whatever. He will give you emails, rate you, etc. He may increase or decrease your budget depending on how you do. He will let you know how he's feeling about your trades, signings, promotions/demotions, standings, who’s hot/who’s not, and everything else. Also, you have a chance at getting fired, which isn't always good. GM Career mode lasts 30 baseball seasons—from 2005 - 2035. If you have enough money to buy a team, you very well can. Once the team is bought, you are the Owner and everything else, bringing you to what is basically franchise mode.
When you start up GM Career mode, all teams are available at the start. But, if your contract expires or if you get fired (which by the way, your rating [respect level] lowers, so don't instantly expect that you'll be hired), there will be a pool of maybe anything ranging from possibly 1 to 7 teams that you will be able to sign from. At the start of a GM Career, you can choose any team that you'd like. The Owner has a personality and focus of his own: he may be a dictator and want to win, or he may just be a fan and want to improve the team. He may be into finances and want to save money, etc. Make sure that you choose the Owner that you'd like to have, because the goals and the way that he rates you reflects his personality-type, and you’ll be with him for quite a while. Also, each Owner offers you a different contract. So, one may offer you more money than another. Remember all of this when you start your GM Career.
Right now, I am running a Cincinnati Reds franchise in GM Career mode. I created Dave O’Brien as my general manager, and signed with them. Personally, I am not into the franchise itself as much as other people, so I’m not as concerned about things like contracts, prospects, etc. What I like most about these modes is that I get to play 162 games a season, and watch my players develop. That, in my opinion, is the true glory of playing a baseball franchise. The other baseball games this year (MVP Baseball 2005, MLB 2006) have a huge franchise mode this year that is more concerned about finances in general, so you may have to set prices for your stadium tickets, or create promotions for upcoming games. While that is very fun an interesting, I am fine with where I am at right now.
As I said, I like to play 162 games of baseball in a season, and then another one. So far, in my franchise, I have played a total of 51 complete games. My season record is 29 – 22, 7 games back of the first place St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Central. When I talked about Goals in franchise mode, my goals concern getting rid of highly paid players, maintain a rather reasonable spending budget, and I also have a long-lasting goal of making the playoffs, if not the World Series. At the moment, my Owner is feeling very mediocre about me, mainly because I rejected getting Tim Hudson for Adam Dunn. I felt the trade wasn’t necessary, as right now, Adam Dunn is my most valuable player.
Again, I play franchise mode because I like to play numerous games with the same team, trying and building them up. Many people took MVP Baseball 2005 over MLB 2K5 because of the heavier franchise mode, when last year, while MVP’s franchise was much heavier, it had its problems with left-handed hitters unable to hit a fair amount of home runs, early and unnecessary retirements, and poor player progression. While those are pretty much tweaked this year, I still don’t understand the reasoning for nobody trading in a game like that and picking up a game like this. I plan on going to infinity and beyond with franchise—on World Series Baseball 2K3, I ended up playing over 500 games of franchise. On ESPN Major League Baseball, I ended up playing over 450 games of franchise, and the only reason I played a less amount of games was because I had a less amount of time with the game because of last year’s late release date and this year’s early release date. I do not plan on slowing up one bit with this game, and I intend on playing well over 600 or 700 games of franchise on here.
Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
Every game has something extra to deal with, be it another whole new gameplay mode or online play. Either way, there is still something to love and cherish about the boasts of features in a baseball game. However, sometimes there isn’t.
The first extra mode in MLB 2K5 that you will probably be checking out, because it’s in the main menu, is the Skybox. Very similar to ESPN NHL 2K5’s Skybox, this game has a virtual profile where you are in a skybox booth of your favorite baseball stadium (when you pick your “Favorite Team,” their stadium will be seen through the glass of your Skybox), and you’re able to unlock stadiums, jerseys, teams, cheats, and other extras via Skybox tokens. These tokens are earned whenever you accomplish certain feats during a game, be it striking out the side, being the first to turn two double plays in the game, or just plain answering the trivia question at the bottom of the third. Along with the Skybox are three games that you may see in an arcade, or something of that nature. There is an air hockey table, a dartboard, and a shuffleboard. All of them have pretty intuitive controls to make for a rather fun set of games outside of the baseball game itself. The only problem that I’ve had with these games is that your menu music no longer plays while you’re playing the games.
Another little feature in the Skybox, which I started to discuss earlier, was the ability to save a screenshot and put it up on one of your walls. The idea is pretty cool, but it’s nothing groundbreaking, especially considering I always forget that I had already put one up, because I never see it anyways. Anyway, with the simple click of the left-analog stick, you can save your favorite screenshots of possibly something such as a collision at the plate, or camera flashes going off as you’re hitting a home run with Manny Ramirez, or if there’s a famous strike out that gave you the perfect game that you want to save. Again, cool, but not important.
Another mode included this year is called In Your Face. Now, honestly, I haven’t gotten a chance to play this yet, but I don’t know if I am going to intend to play it in the near future. It’s basically the same thing as an Exhibition game, but, like Skybox tokens, you can earn what is called a “Face Point” by doing a specific something. Once you earn a Face Point, at the end of the half-inning you can choose to lock a certain capability fro your opponents to perform for an inning. So, do you not want them to be able to use turbo next inning on defense? LOCKED! Do you want to get rid of their power swing for an inning? LOCKED! It goes just like that for both teams for the entire game. Everything else about it is just like an Exhibition game.
Situation mode was again added this year, and unfortunately enough, was not enhanced in any way, shape, or form. I mean sure, you get the basics… you get to choose the score, what inning it is (bottom or top), how many outs there are, who’s up to bat, how many people are on base. Otherwise, things like setting who (specifically) is on base, who is pitching, and how much fatigue the pitcher has left. I forget if you can set what count it is, but if you can’t, that’s yet another option to add in it. I would also wish that there was an option that would allow us to restart the situation “from the top;” so, basically just redo just how it was set up at first.
Home Run Derby is back again, but it’s a style similar to MVP’s, where there is split-screen action only, whether you’re facing the CPU or another human opponent. There are three standard modes of play, and one unlockable mode of play. All of them contain a stamina bar, which is used to not allow you to just use the Power swing every time and crank every pitch out. There are also team home run derbies, where strategy is involved on who you want up to bat at what time, because as your opponent hits more and more home runs, more and more damage will be taken off of the Health bar on your batter. So, switching is necessary to raise their health when they are not batting. It is a very interesting concept, but there is still the lack of seeing the balls land in the stands with full collision detection, which is unfortunate, especially when playing something like Home Run Derby.
The final mode of play would be online play. I cannot say for myself what it is like, because I do not have Xbox Live. However, I do happen to know that there are online leagues and tournaments, including: league stats, buddy lists, connection updates, and “seamless” online play. The leagues would make for a fun time, however, I heard that SlamZone must be on for online play. I’m not sure if that’s true or not, but if it is and if it’s a problem, I can see where there may be a problem in the leagues. Overall, many people crave this feature, as this is the only time that you are able to actually use something like K-Zone pitching, and not feel like you or the opponent is cheating when seeing it on-screen.
Closing comments
MLB 2K5 will obviously not beat the competition in customer sales, mainly because the competition is EA Sports. When they have a fanbase, they keep their fanbase. All that the guys can do at Take-Two is just try their hardest at delivering a quality game, and they will hope for the best for years to come. Fortunately for them, they’ve knocked EA out of the round for next year’s MLB titles (featuring all players associated in the MLBPA), and now have a chance to shine. Is less competition better? That is something we will find out next year.
To anyone that says this game has not changed, they need themselves checked out, pretty quickly I might add. Whether or not these changes were for the better is up to the person playing. Many people will take a review and say that the person is wrong, or that the person was spot on, but really… a review is a summary of the game; what are the facts, and what are the issues. A review is not a large-scale opinion, and shouldn’t make one person mad with it, and one person happy with it. They should read it, and base the game’s values on what they’ve read.
Overall, Major League Baseball 2K5 is a truly new experience for somebody like me. I was able to view a brand new ball game in some different hands, and I’d like to see what they can expand the game on to. The major problem about the outlook of their future is that the ESPN integration is now gone, it’s history for 2K Sports games. So, if the boys at Kush decide to step it up with presentation even more, they may have to create their own “network,” or sign with somebody like FOX Sports. I would personally call this game a “piece in progress,” because first attempts aren’t always the greatest, especially with Kush (look at ESPN NHL Hockey and ESPN College Hoops). Second year makes a bit of a difference, especially when pretty big bugs and glitches are fixed.
The main thing that they will need to focus on for next year is what the customers are asking for the most, which the top three things seem to be at the moment: 1) Fix all current bugs/glitches, 2) give a higher fielding camera, 3) fix animations. In my opinion, when all of those are fixed and all is said and done, I don’t see why to turn back to another game. That doesn’t mean this game has it all, that means that this game has fulfilled my needs.
MY GAME RATINGS
Presentation
If somebody were looking for a game that looked the part of the most true-to-life telecast you’ll ever see, this game will not disappoint one bit. Jon Miller and Joe Morgan sound great together, working what sounds like they are side-by-side in a Sunday Night Baseball broadcast. That with the custom music and crowd ambience makes for a greatly presented ball game. The major annoyance here would be the bat contact sound, which is not a major setback.
9.7
Gameplay
Kush did their best to make things new, different, and fun for the average customer and the average baseball fan. The K-Zone pitching and the BaseBurner mode are very useful, and make sense in a baseball game. However I personally believe they may have added too much, and left out a few necessary elements, such as an option to turn off the strike zone, and an option to include one-button swinging. The sliders work very well, I’ve been able to fine-tune them to give myself very good pitch counts with a very good box score. I still am, however, very concerned with the exaggerated diving catches, along with the “passed ball” bug.
8.4
Graphics
Triple Pass Rendering makes the game’s graphics, they truly do. The player models are flat out awesome, with better-proportioned players, and much more real looking player faces. The stadiums (along with the crowd, skies, grass, and dirt) are also top-notch. The fluidity of batting and pitching animations are also much refined, but could give more uniqueness to their likeness. There are still problems with the swing animations, but nothing that another year of producing this game will not fix. My main gripe, however, is the framerate, especially when playing with the behind-the-pitcher cam, which truly makes K-Zone pitching unusable with that camera angle. Otherwise, self-shadowing also gives a nice true feel to the players actually being alive and on the field. This game’s graphics will not disappoint anybody here.
9.3
Lasting Appeal
It just may be me, but like I said in the second paragraph of this review, there is something about these games that make me coming back for more. I wrote an entire review, and still do not know what it is that allows me to keep playing the 2K Sports games. Franchise mode will definitely keep me going for over 4 or 5 years of play (playing all 162 games each year, possibly including playoffs). Other things will definitely benefit others, such as online play, which I don’t get to experience first-hand. The game itself is just very addicting, despite the major “passed ball” bug. Most importantly, this game is $19.99 for both systems. If this review was good enough to persuade somebody to rent the game, it is probably just worth buying the game at such a low price. This makes the value of the game that much higher.
9.7
OVERALL SCORE (not an average)
8.3
I am a very harsh grader, and an 8.3 is a good score. The only game that I have ever rated over 9.0 was Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. So, for this game to get this score, it is actually a compliment to the game. Great job, Kush. I am only hoping that you come back answering all problems, and adding to your innovations. I truly believe that a fun quality product is what you guys are best at out there in Camarillo.
Written by Brandon Robinson (16) from San Mateo, California.
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