MLB 2K10 - a love letter...Part II - Effectively_wild's Blog

Effectively_wild's Blog

MLB 2K10 - a love letter...Part II

Posted on September 8, 2022 at 06:16 AM.

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I don't know if you're a believer in love at first sight. It's a strange phenomenon, an extremely personal and private experience for those individuals fortunate enough to experience it unequivocally.
Whether you believe in it or not is for you to know but what I can tell you is that on that day in May 2010, I fell in love at first sight.

As I mentioned in Part I, I was heavily into US sports from a young age (not to the mention football/soccer - a prerequisite for a boy in the UK). The US sports indoctrination was mainly due to my uncle who introduced NFL and NBA to my brother and me when we were toddlers. I wont get into those here as they might be in a separate blog. My point being though, is that from my formative years, sports were an active part of my daily life. If I wasn't playing them at school, in the garden or organised weekend football games, I was 'playing' them on whatever console I had at that moment in time.

Back to that day in May 2010, I was sitting there watching an Indians game on Channel Five (they would show a few MLB games a week) and I remember being totally enamoured with what I was seeing. Without going into too much detail, just trust me, I was in love with what I was watching.
So what does a dude in his twenties do when he falls in love? Well, he gets on the phone to his cable provider (obviously!) and gets a contract for ESPN after doing a quick channel search to see who's carrying MLB games. What else? Subscribe to Baseball Digest? Check. Purchase the latest Baseball Forecaster and almanac? Yep. How about getting a copy of the Official Rules of Baseball 2010? Of course. I won't go on but you get my point. I wanted to immerse myself in everything baseball.
I went to bed thinking about it and when I woke up it was the first thing I thought about (no I didn't tell my girlfriend that). I was just so besotted with what I was watching reading and also 'playing'. That's right, playing. Apologies for taking this long to bring the blog back to MLB 2K10.
I've always been a sports gamer and I mean always. 2010 was no different. At the time I was playing NHL 2K10 alongside NBA 2K10 and I couldn't wait to play my first baseball game.
What game was I going to get though? I obviously knew of 2K sports as I had a brief history with them (NBA 2K8, 2K9, 2K10, NHL 2K10) but I didn't know if they made a baseball game. So I jump on Amazon, punch in 'Baseball PS3' and up comes MLB The Show along with MLB 2K10.
Ok cool, what do I do? Do I look at the reviews? Sure but as a matter of course I never pay much attention to reviews.
What I decide to do is go with my instinct and that is to get MLB 2K10. I do this mainly because I have tangible reference points for 2K games.

So it arrives and I do what I always do with a new game...I sit down and read the game manual. Great, then I pop the game in my PS3 and I'm greeted by lovely loading screens including all the team logos and a pleasing flash of gold for the tenth anniversary addition of the game. This is accompanied by the familiar snippet of commentary for a pleasing, polished aesthetic.
I was loving every second and I hadn't even done anything yet.

In Part III I'll detail some more initial memories and maybe even get sidetracked into telling you how I became an Os fan.