Major League Baseball 2K8 Review

[RaychelSnr]

After some database problems this afternoon, we have finally posted our review of Major League Baseball 2k8, written by Dave Branda (aka BlyGilmore).

Quote:

"Taking one step forward and two steps back isn’t new to sports gaming. Nonetheless MLB 2K8 falls into that exact pitfall this year."

[wsu_gb23]

Finally an accurate score.....

[BlyGilmore]

why thank you ;-)

very tough game to review. balancing some of the new things they've done with the utter inexcusable frame rate issue wasn't that easy.

[gallandro]

Spot on review. This title will be a solid 7 after lag fixes and the frame rate patch. A step in the right direction, but some steps back.


Yancy

[wsu_gb23]

After playing MLB 2k8, I now have new respect for 2K7.... 2K7 had beautiful lighting and player models....

[ezekiel55]

One thing you failed to mention is the fact that they removed vendors walking down the aisles and the fact that the fans dont reach for foul balls anymore. I cant undertand the reasoning behind that. Overall though, the game with a few tweaks, would play one hell of a game of basesball...to bad the developers rushed it out the door.

[Blzer]

I agree with everything you said, but I still see potential in this series. I don't know why the graphics took the hit they did (I understand dumbing down details, but now the sky (and overall lighting) and grass look God awful), and I don't understand why presentation overall hasn't gone a notch up... but with only playing the demo, the framerate is supposedly better than retail, and I can't complain any more than the crap 30- FPS that was MLB 2K7. I'd say that and anti-aliasing were marquee components to add in MLB 2K8, even with optimization.

But, far and large, as everyone else says... gameplay over graphics. Surprisingly, "gameplay" isn't one of your bolded terms at the end to go over... but baseball is purely nothing else other than hitting, pitching, fielding, and baserunning. Aside from some herky-jerky looking animations, the gameplay has improved ten-fold, and that's what everybody claims they wanted fixed... though now it seems some people are showing their true colors, and that visuals certainly may matter. Either way, you couldn't sit there with a straight face and convince yourself that MLB 2K7 had these four facets ironed out and working properly. Brinkman promised hit variety, seamless fielding, intuitive pitching, and user-friendly baserunning (all whilst motion-capturing more signature styles than ever seen before and maintaining 60 FPS in the pitcher/batter duels). It was a good segway going into 2K9, which gives it a higher potential rating.

However, compared to its opponent, it is falling short in some departments. In the future, they may be neck-and-neck once again. Until then, as long as the patch comes out soon enough, all console owners should have a playable game this year.

[Heelfan71]

6 is how I would rate it also. Maybe come back and look at the game again if they patch it.