09 baseball for 360 owners - my thoughts - boomhauertjs's Blog

boomhauertjs's Blog

09 baseball for 360 owners - my thoughts

Posted on January 26, 2009 at 12:10 PM.

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I haven't bought a new baseball game since MVP 2005 on the Gamecube. I've mostly been playing High Heat 2004 on my PC. I was all ready to buy MLB 2k8 last year on release day, until I read on OS all of the negative impressions on the game. This year I've decided I'm going to buy a new game, whether it's 2k9 or The Show. However, I'm not going to buy a PS3 just for one game.

I bought a used PS2 off Craigslist for $30 and rented The Show 08 this weekend to get an idea of the gameplay. Overall, I really liked it. Reminds me of MVP except that the hitting is better (MVP 05 had too many weak lineouts and groundouts) and the fielding is not quite as good. Graphics were definitely last-gen, but I can live with it because of the solid gameplay. It looked like editing rosters might be a pain, but hopefully this will be easier in 09.

I'm going to give 2k9 a chance because I'd rather play a baseball game on my 360, but if the impressions from OS after its release are not good (or if they actually release a demo ahead of time and I don't like it), I'll go last-gen and buy The Show 09. With the PS2 version at $30, the overall cost for me (including the used PS2) is the same as if I get 2k9.

With 2k9, I'm hoping for elimination of the framerate issues and the ability to use "classic" pitching controls (I hated the right stick junk from playing 2k8's demo). The inclusion of 2kShare rosters would be a great thing. I love the NBA 2k series, so hopefully VC can work their magic with MLB.

Hope this helps any of you 360 owners not sure of what do to about a baseball game this year. To close, here are some of the main plus and minuses for me buying The Show v. 2k9:

Plus:
Great gameplay
New franchise mode with 40 man rosters

Minuses:
No online support of rosters (my PS2 doesn't have the online hookup)
Last-gen graphics
Not a big fan of the PS2 controller