by:	April 04, 2005

When I think of Major League Baseball 2k5, I now think of steroids… I m kidding obviously, no really I think of pitching. Pretty much everyone think the same thing of MLB 2K5 but how Visual Concepts has revamped the pitching concept of this Baseball series is awesome.

Just a small note that this baseball series has been through many names so do not get confuse if I mention something from it previous series. I am kind of disappointment that it wasn’t ESPN Baseball 2k5 but after ESPN separated from Take-two and to EA… well it’s kind of obvious that the name change would come next to build a reputation.. Another interesting fact is that Take-Two inc. (publisher) has sign a MLB exclusive third party rights so that is the end of EA’s MVP Baseball 200x series for 7 years. It does leave way for Microsoft, Nintendo, and Play station to make first party baseball games.

Well enough with the legal obligations and on what baseball games are truly about…Game play. Now MLB 2K5 offer a lot of options of game types, maybe to much. Which nobody is complaining about because baseball games in general need everything they can get. To start off the Home-run Derby idea of having stamina and health bar in some occasions is creative and very fun. This idea use to be flaw because in past games, you can hit 30-50 home runs depending on difficulty but now you actually have to think of the players you pick and there ratings before going head to head against another opponent. Something that I found disappointing was the concept on Gamer GM and franchise mode which is the system they use for World series baseball 2K3, I don’t know if there exactly the same but disappointing none the less. Maybe it is good for the hardcore fans but after doing it once, it is good enough and wants to continue on with the actual game. There is mode called simulation which seems kind of pointless unless you want to see how the computer simulates games batter through batter and join in sticky situations. This feature would possibly be rarely use unless you are bored.

Now the teams they used quite surprise me because they added the Dominican Republic & Venezuelan Caribbean team. I would personally being a Hispanic myself would of like to seen a lot more teams from other countries, it would of made it way more innovated and drawn in a wider range of audience. Another surprising creativity spark that enters the developers mind was actually making the game hard. Seriously, even in Rookie mode I could barely win…maybe, I just plan suck but it is definitely hard. Now to the biggest innovation that I never seen in any baseball game is the PITCHING! Yes, the pitching is absolutely the best I have seen in ages. You are in totally control of how you want the pitch in form of several options which is Classic, Effort, K-zone, K-zone 2 and meter.

Personally, I like K-zone 2 because it is a lot easy to maneuver to the direction you want the pitch to go to and the angle of the type of pitch. Now a-line with pitching is batting which you have two options of choosing from which is Videogame and True Sim. Videogame is pretty much like an arcade type of batting (easy) and True Sim is definitely true sim if you mind it being hard. There is also a variety of solids in MLB 2K5 like fielding, trivia, un-lockable, cool featured options and slam zone which allows you to take advantage of a pitcher mistake or fatigue. Also Xbox live, which is pretty much the standard with leagues, tournaments and downloadable rosters. Going on Xbox live while playing against a person is exciting at first if you can talk to your opponent, if not then you are rather off playing the computer AI which is fun to. Game play in general could have been improved but still good none the less.