MLB 2K5 from 2K Sports

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For this review, I played a game with the K-Zone on and True Aim. I could see what the developers where trying to do, but when I made a mistake and the pitcher missed his location, the batter knew where the ball would be and he would wail the ball. When that happened, the game goes in slow motion so all you see is the ball coming to the plate and then it’s over the fence. The Philadelphia Phillies were the computer team and I was the Los Angeles Dodgers. I lost that one 11 – 1 and needless to say, I did not get many slow pitches to hit. The CPU of course, had a lot. This to me seemed a bit arcade like.

The next game I played was an interleague game with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays at San Diego. This game took me longer to play because I was paying more attention to how the game was presented. In the Phillie – Dodger game, I played to learn about the new presentations so I can give an honest view of that. In this game I wanted to see how the game stacked up. I was happy with what I saw in this game. I used classic pitching and cursor hitting. Playing as the Padres, I lost 4 – 3 when Rocco Baldelli hit a solo homerun in the 9th. This game had everything you’d want. Walks and wild pitches. Tiring pitchers. Heckling fans. The fans are a big part of this game. During the seventh inning stretch, they were showed singing “Take me out to the Ballgame” and when Aubrey Huff of Tampa Bay came to bat, I heard one say “Nice name! Awwwwbury!!”

The fielding controls are very good. There’s no auto fielding, but with some practice you can do a pretty good job at diving for a ball with the infielders or going back and coming in on balls with your outfielders. With your right analog stick you can climb the wall to try and rob a homerun but I was unsuccessful doing it when I tried it.

The game between the Diamondbacks and Cardinals was the most exciting one of the three that I had. Mike Mulder struck out 17 and Albert Pujols won it with a walk-off home run in the last of the ninth. Joe Morgan and John Miller were on top of Mulder’s achievement and made note of each passing strikeout. It really felt like I was watching the Sunday night broadcast with these two here with the camera angles and shots at the end of each inning mimicking a live TV broadcast. Player animations are realistic too with Scott Rolen arguing a called third strike that ended the fourth inning. He stood at home plate pleading his case to the umpire. The pitch looked a little high to me too and I was wondering if Rolen would get thrown out, but that didn’t happen. And Mulder, who was on the top of his game, was shown jumping off the mound and making a fist, obviously pleased with himself for his performance in that game.

Once again the fans got on a visiting player. This time it was Royce Clayton of Arizona. When he came up to bat, someone yelled out “hey Clayton, cut your hair!” Something else was said to Craig Counsell, but I don’t want to give away all the funny comments I’ve heard so far. It’s worth listening to while you are playing.

The graphical portrayal of the players in this game is really impressive. Many of the players in the games that I played in already look exactly like they do in real life. Although I don’t have a way to capture the screens from my X-Box, this picture of Eric Gagne of the Dodgers shows you what I mean. They put a lot of time in to make these player models look like the subjects they are supposed to imitate.