In retrospect, I think the biggest issue I had with MLB 2K9 wasn't that it was a broken product, but 2K Sports as a company felt it was strong enough to ask people to spend money on it. In turn they lost the faith of their fans and their product has since become the butt of many YouTube videos showcasing the game's abundant bugs. MLB 2K10 manages to right the ship and get the franchise going in a more progressive direction. Yes, it still needs some work and it's hard to say right now if it can restore the faith of the baseball videogame community. But this much is certain: when you put the game in and start playing, you'll actually be able to play a game of baseball. That alone is a huge improvement over last year's title.
Part of this improvement comes from a new mode called My Player, one that directly copies MLB The Show's Road to the Show feature in more ways than one. The core goal is the same: guide a created player through the minors into the big leagues by completing a series of objectives. If anything, it's a much more streamlined version than The Show's -- I was able to guide my AA pitcher all the way to the big leagues in only five starts (I guess the Giants are really hurting on pitching prospects). As such, a lot of that sense of "finally, I made it," or any feeling of accomplishment, was lost on me. It's a mode that seems designed for the casual baseball fan who wants to break into the majors as quickly as possible. That's probably fine for most, but I want to feel like I earned it. Just like Road to the Show, playing a position player instead of a pitcher turns this experience into a dull and repetitious job.
Click the image above to check out all MLB 2K10 screens.
What 2K is really pushing as this year's new, big feature is the retooled batting and pitching. In truth, it seems more like a slight refinement than anything radically new, far short of when 2K revamped their pitching and hitting mechanics a few years ago. Pitching motions are still done by executing Street Fighter-esque moves with the Right analog stick (like the half-circle Dragon Punch for a curve ball), and hitting is still tied to the Right analog stick. Adding a slight Right or Left flick to the batting side allows you to take defensive cuts on the pitches so that you can attempt to wear down the pitcher until he makes a mistake. But the biggest improvement comes from 2K dialing back the number of home runs, which turns the game into a series of contact hits and moving runners over instead of a home run derby. It's how baseball is meant to be played.
