Major League Baseball 2K9 – Game Review | Señor Tomato's Blog – A World of Not Windows Stuff But Maybe Mac Stuff

MacHouse game rating: 9.0/10

Major League Baseball 2K9 (hereby, MLB2K9) is a real-time baseball simulation game that was published by 2K Games in March 3. This game is available for such platforms as Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 2 and PC. The game was developed by 2K Sports (Visual Concepts). I can tell you at the beginning that this isn’t an ordinary baseball game.

As the title suggests, MLB2K9 covers all 30 Major League Baseball teams. Well, that’s not it. The game even covers all Triple-A teams. I’m not a big fan of MLB myself. I lived in Norman, Oklahoma for several years. So I know that there is one Triple-A team in Oklahoma City. That’s the Oklahoma City Redhawks. This team is the Triple-A affiliate of the Texas Rangers. As shown in Screenshot 01, MLB2K9 is set up in such a way that I’m ready to play a game where the Redhawks is my team that will compete against Las Vegas 21S.

Screenshot 01 – Source: MacHouse

So MLB2K9 lets you pick a favorite team of your own and play against others. Actually, this game is much more complex than just offering non-competitive, freelance game plays. It allows players to pick a team or more and to start a season tournament. Suppose that you have picked one MLB team. And if your team plays well during the 2009 season, then there’s a good chance that it can proceed to post-season games. And the final goal is of course to win the World Series. This competitive mode is called Franchise.

Screenshot 02 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 03 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 04 – Source: MacHouse

In order to start the 2009 tournament, you need to select Franchise under Game Modes at first. (See Screenshots 02-3.) Then create an account with a team or more to choose. (See Screenshot 04.) What I mean by ‘a team or more’ is that you can control more than one team during the season.
Anyway, if you have already created an account, then you just need to load it. If you have chosen to create a new account, then the next screen that you will see is Franchise Setup. (See Screenshot 05.) One of the settings that you can control is the number of games during the season. The maximum number of games is 162. The least number is 52. You will get to choose the number of innings, too. That means you don’t necessarily have to play for all 9 innings in each game. If you want to shorten each game, you can set the number of innings to 3, 4 or whatever. (Choose the number of innings between 3 and 9.) Next, you will get to choose a team over your control. The first team appearing in the team profile screen is always Los Angeles Angels. (See Screenshot 06.) If that’s not the team that you want to control, then you need to use the [ and ] keys to toggle and choose a different team. Shown in Screenshot 07 is the 2009 game schedule for Boston Red Sox, which I have chosen as my team. The very first game of the season is scheduled in April 6 against Tampa Bay Rays.

Screenshot 05 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 06 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 07 – Source: MacHouse

What’s very interesting and unique about this game is that each team has its own budget. It’s like a typical car racing game where the player is allowed to purchase new vehicles and upgrade parts. Why would you need a budget in a baseball game? Buying better baseball bats and gloves? No. Instead of buying equipment, you can trade players. For example, you can talk to New York Yankees and convince them to give you A-Rod for one of your players or more. What I need to do is to go to Franchise > GM > Propose Trade at first. My team is Red Sox, whose name will appear at the top of the next screen. (See Screenshot 08.) Then I need to toggle teams with [ and ] and choose New York Yankees. As shown in Screenshot 09, I have proposed a trade of Alex Rodriguez for David Ortiz and Kevin Youkilis. The Yankees seem quite interested in this proposal. In the end, the trade offer has been accepted. (See Screenshot 10.) My team had $18.21 million before. The budget has now shrunken to $14.8 million. Yankees’ budget has jumped to $37.1 million from $34.04 million as a result of the trade.

Screenshot 08 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 09 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 10 – Source: MacHouse

The pitching part is relatively easy. When you first face opponent’s batter, your catcher will give you one pitching variation. Shown in Screenshot 11, Daisuke Matsuzaka is instructed to throw a fastball. Pressing the left shift key, the catcher will give him more variations. (See Screenshot 12.) Basically, you can ignore what your catcher will tell you. Instead, press the right arrow key. And you will see a batter report for the player you are currently facing. (See Screenshot 13.) It says that Johnny Damon‘s hitting average is relatively low for curveballs. He is not good at hitting the ball at left square zones. So I would first throw a fastball outside the strike zone and make him hit a foul ball. Then I would next throw a slow curveball diagonally opposite to the first one. Since he is not good at hitting curveballs, he will probably swing and miss the ball. He shouldn’t be able to catch up with the speed after being shown with a fastball anyway. And a third ball would be a fastball or slider to strike him out.

Screenshot 11 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 12 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 13 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 14 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 15 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 16 – Source: MacHouse

Batter reports aren’t always available when you play the franchise mode. Suppose that I know my next opponent is Tampa Bay Rays. Then I should to go to Franchise > GM > Inside Edge and purchase a team report for Rays. (See Screenshot 14.) Right… It’s not free. It will cost Red Sox $1.08 million. (See Screenshot 15.) It will be subtracted from your team budget. Screenshot 16 shows that my team faces Minnesota Twins this time. Since I haven’t purchase data for Twins, if I press the right arrow key, there is no batter report to be shown for Denard Span. (See Screenshot 17.) The Inside Edge report for Twins is relatively cheap. It’s only $580,000 compared with $1.08 million for Rays and and Yankees. (See Screenshot 18.)

Screenshot 17 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 18 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 19 – Source: MacHouse

You can find out how your team budget has been spent by going to Franchise > GM > Team Budget. Screenshot 19 says that I’ve spent $1.08 million on Inside Edge expenses, doesn’t it? That’s a very small part relative to MLB player salaries, which amount to $100.43 million in total for a $130.8 million budget team.

Screenshot 20 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 21 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 22 – Source: MacHouse

If you play the franchise mode, you have to take the pitching rotation into consideration. Your team may have one very good pitcher or more. Of course, he cannot throw in every single game. Going to Franchise > Manage > Pitching Rotation, you can work on the pitching rotation of your team. (See Screenshot 20.) Screenshot 21 shows that Daisuke Matsuzaka is the first pitcher in the rotation. I can easily bring Josh Beckett to the top of the pitching rotation. (See Screenshot 22.)

So the pitching part is not difficult as long as you stick to the basic drill. The fielding part is a lot more difficult. As for the fielding part, you need to use A-W-S-D keys to control the positions of your defense players. Screenshot 23 shows that an active field player is highlighted with a blue circle. If I don’t control the position of Jacoby Ellsbury properly, he might fail to catch the ball. In the worst scenario, the opponent might score two points in this particular situation. Controlling the position of an outfielder is not easy. He could run towards the back fence when in fact you try to make him to go right or left. A possible mistake that I could make here is to get Ellsbury to throw the ball back to the home base. Then the first runner might attempt to proceed to the second base. One mistake can cost you a big time.

Screenshot 23 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 24 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 25 – Source: MacHouse

The base running part is not easy, either. Screenshot 24 shows a situation where the offense team has one base runner. The out count is one. The batter should somehow let the first base runner proceed to a scoring position. In this case, if I hold down the Tab key, the base runner will be put into the steal mode. If I then release the Tab key, he will attempt to steal the second base. Screenshot 25 shows a bit more complicated situation where the offense team has two base runners. You can switch the active base runner by pressing the space key. Base runners don’t always run as you expect. Sometimes, they can get stuck between two bases. Anyway, in order to score a point, you have to have the batter get a hit at the same time you control base runners. Bunting the ball when you have a runner won’t be so easy. If you are not careful enough, the ball will fly and get caught by opponent’s catcher or pitcher. In such event, you have to quickly respond and return the player back to the original base.

The batting part is relatively easy. Basically, you need to swing the bat when the ball enters the middle of the strike zone. If the timing is right, you can hit a home run. (See Screenshot 26-7.)

Screenshot 26 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 27 – Source: MacHouse

Screenshot 28 – Source: MacHouse

MLB2K9 has a function called Batter’s Eye, which can increase the probability of getting hits. If you enable this function, a bat will appear before the pitcher throws the ball. You need to change the position of the bat with A-W-S-D keys and guess where the pitcher will throw the ball. If your guess is right, you are more likely to get a hit than without Batter’s Eye. A problem is that MLB2K9 has a serious bug. So this option can disappear from game setting window.

In summary, MLB2K9 is a very complicated game. The game doesn’t just cover 30 Major League Baseball teams but also covers minor teams. You can promote players from minor league teams. You can also send Major League players to minor teams. If you want, you can design a player of your creation out of nothing. This will definitely be a dream game for Major League Baseball fans. It’s a pity that the key control is very difficult, though. The learning curve is higher than for any other game that we have reviewed officially and unofficially. In the meantime, if you don’t like baseball, if you don’t have a single favorite Major League Baseball team, you may not enjoy this game. Unlike other simulation games, you can set a goal in MLB2K9 instead of just playing free-for-all games. The franchise mode allows players to enter the season tournament. By the way, even if you set the season length to 162, you wouldn’t have to play all 162 games to go to post season games. After playing the first several games, you could just let MLB2K9 simulate the rest.

Pros:

1. It’s such a complete game that allows users to even promote minor players to Major League teams.
2. Unlike other simulation games, MLB2K9 offers a competitive game mode (Franchise).

Cons:

1. An enormous amount of data can adversely turn off non-baseball fans.
2. There’s a glitch which may not allow users to turn on Batter’s Eye.
3. There are so many keys to control with both hands.
4. Players are forced to see commercial ads here and there on top of paying for the game.

Related articles: