Because a baseball game with players on steroids brings the best image possible for baseball.

Despite my interest in the sim-side of sports games, I’ve really enjoyed a lot of arcade-style titles over the past (two) generation(s). I occasionally revisit the NHL Hitz and NFL Street games, and I think WWE All-Stars is my favorite wrestling game.

But the arcade game I go back to more than any other is The BIGS 2. One of the greatest crimes of this console generation is how 2K really mismanaged the MLB license; that there was never a true The Bigs 3 makes this tragedy worse.

What made The BIGS 2 so good?

There's a lot to really like about The BIGS 2.

What Holds Up

First, for an arcade game, it really contained the perfect balance of extreme action and baseball fundamentals. There is no silliness like punching players with the ball. And while home runs were monstrous and the glovework absurdly good, you could still walk, squeeze, and manufacture runs. Not every player looked like a juiced-up Bane with a bat. In fact, each player played to his real skills, whether they were contact hitters or speed demons.

It also demanded a certain degree of strategy, and didn't rest entirely on quick fingers and reflexes. Knowing when to spend your built up turbo or “Big Play” points for a nearly automatic hit, home run, strike out, or grand slam was crucial to winning--especially within the context of the score or scenario. Even more stressful is that nothing is guaranteed: spend all of your points on the guaranteed grand slam but fail to hit the ball and you are out of luck!

Additionally, The Bigs 2 added a level of strategy when crafting your line up, since players routinely affected each other. A player may make those around him field better, hit with more power, or run faster. This isn’t entirely realistic, but did abstract the idea of chemistry into simple modifiers that really influenced the way your craft your team.

Finally, The Bigs 2 offered a good deal of variety. Home Run pinball is ok, but the real star was the main Career Mode. It worked like Road to the Show stuck in fast forward; there’s little contextualizing or choices, but your progression did feel hard earned. And it was fun playing in all the parks--international tours included--and stealing the best players from each team. Even the season mode was relatively interesting, with mini-games for trades and training.

Coincidentally, this player model is scary accurate to real life?

What Doesn't Hold Up

Not everything was perfect with this game, especially in retrospect. The “Big Play” meter could really break a game open, for better or worse; this literal game-changer felt cheap at times.

The games really drug on for an arcade game--I can’t say I’ve ever fully played a nine inning game (five is the default) and some of the scenarios were brutally tedious and required you to play a little unnaturally--for instance, batting your lumbering 1B lead off to maximize your at bats and home run chances.

The Hall of Fame teams were nearly impossible to beat, even on the easiest difficulty. And there wasn't any real way to update the unfortunately tiny rosters.

The BIGS 2 is a really solid game worthy of your time if you want something different.

Should you Play it Today?

Each summer, when the always excellent Show starts to feel a bit stale, I load up The BIGS 2 for a dose of virtual "caffeine." Sure, the rosters are out of date, but the core gameplay remains fresh. Again, the variety is welcome: Homerun pinball, career, league, and mini-games modes.

All-in-all, The Bigs 2 will go down as one of my favorite baseball games of this generation. It’s a true mash-up of real baseball strategy and over-the-top gameplay, where every play is a SportsCenter highlight.