Even the wearing out of a pitcher over the course of a game, or the nerves getting to your guy on the mound after he gives up a few runs or hits in a row makes the entire pitching experience feel a little more like real life. That unique mental dance and flow between pitcher and hitter that die-hard baseball fans and players understand is here to be experienced. This part of baseball seems to be translated almost perfectly. I am not an expert on theories or reasons for when and why one should pitch a certain pitch in real baseball, but after playing for a while I felt as though I was learning when it was a good idea to throw a strike or a ball, and even when I should throw a fastball or something tricky like a curveball. Any mistake I made when pitching felt like it was my fault for not executing how I should have. The timing is specific and hard to perfect, and the skill involved in pitching is rewarding but not frustrating. The pitch is then executed by motioning with the right stick in a way that makes you feel like you are truly throwing the pitch even though what you are actually doing is nothing like actually pitching a baseball. A type of pitch is first selected with a button, and then aimed with the left stick. Getting the action of pitching to translate to the actions taken on a controller seems like an almost impossible task, but 2K12 does this amazingly. In order to get the baseball experience correctly into video game for there are four things that need to be done close to perfectly: hitting, pitching, fielding, and umping.įirst I'll focus on the pitching. Though I cannot speak to the comparison between this game and the PS3 exclusive MLB The Show, I can tell you that MLB 2K12 represents actual baseball better than any of the NBA or NFL games represent their respective sports to date, and it even rivals something like EA's extremely successful FIFA franchise which I consider to be the best of the best in sports games these days. Although the chances of anyone actually winning the million dollar prize is extremely slim, the Perfect Game Challenge represents the breadth of different ways this game turns the basic baseball experience into something unique enough to keep you playing for a long time.Īs I said earlier, the game modes are all well and great, but if the actual baseball that you are playing in those modes turns out to be dull, boring, or broken, than the amount of variety in modes means nothing. Even my personal friend who has achieved the number one spot on the online leaderboards for both MLB 2K11 and 2K12 has yet to successfully pitch a perfect game within even the first week of release. Having tried pitching a perfect game myself, I can tell you that it is not an easy task. The Perfect Game Challenge, for those that do not know, is essentially a race to be the first one to pitch a perfect game (a game in which you record no walks, hits, or errors that allow a man to get on base) in order to win a million dollars. The game modes you have come to expect from a 2K sports game are here just as they have been in previous years including Franchise and My Player, as well as the famous Perfect Game Challenge that has become a unique and interesting way for the company to generate sales without coming off as shady or cheap, but also incentivizing players to play the game in a certain way without the use of the achievement or trophy system. I may not be an expert on what baseball games have been or should be, so hopefully if you have not played a baseball game recently you will know what to expect after reading this. Reviews of sports games often times talk about the game modes and features that allow you to get more out of the simple sport that you are playing, and although I will touch on these things in my reviews of sports games, I think it is much more valuable to evaluate the gameplay and how it compares or reflects the real sport and also how it is as a fun and competitive game.Īs someone who has played every Madden for around ten years or so but either returned, traded, or sold the last five games within the first two or three weeks because of how horrible they have gotten, and as someone who dabbled with NBA Live and NBA 2K until playing NBA 2K exclusively around 2009 when the it became so much better than Live that EA decided to eventually change the name and then cancel it at the last moment in 2010, you might be surprised to know that MLB 2K12 is the first baseball game I have bought since the NES back when baseball games were, in my opinion, at the top of their game.
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