Genre: Sports
Publisher: 2K Sports
Developer: 2K Sports
Release Date: March 3, 2009

Major League Baseball 2K9 is the latest entry from 2K Sports in the long-running MLB series, and it's also the only baseball option that Xbox fans have, since 2K has secured the license for a couple of more years. With that in mind, how well does MLB 2K9 perform as the only baseball title available for the Xbox 360? It's a bit hit-or-miss really, and while there were plenty of things about the game I enjoyed, from the slick presentation to the baseball card unlockables, the misses end up outweighing the positives, and I felt that the quality assurance team could have used another month or two to iron out the kinks.

If you've played any of the other recent 2K9 titles, you'll notice right away that the presentation and menu design for MLB 2K9 seems to be ripped right out their NBA and NHL games, and you'd be right. Even some of the music seems to carry over, but I don't really consider this to be a negative. The menus are easy to navigate, aside from the fact that it defaults to an exhibition menu on start-up, and I really like the streamlined design overall. It's easy to find the various modes and sliders that you can use to customize your experience, and MLB 2K9 even includes a small training mode to help get players acclimated to the correct thumbstick control schemes for pitching and batting.

As far as controls go, you'll have the option of going with a Classic control scheme for batting and pitching, or the current controls that have you making use of both thumbsticks. Fielding seems to be similar to previous entries, with controls for both analog and button-pressing combined into one.

The current control scheme for pitching has you using both thumbsticks; the left one controls your aim and helps you line up the pitch with your catcher's mitt, while the right controls not only the force of the pitch but the type as well. On the left-hand side of the screen is a collapsing menu that displays the different pitch types and how to perform them, which is done with a series of movements that look like something out of a Street Fighter title. For instance, you can toss a fastball by holding back and pressing up with the right stick, or a changeup by reversing this movement. Other pitches might require you to push forward at a diagonal and then sweep the thumbstick down or in a near-360-degree movement. It took me a while to get used to what the game wanted me to do, and while I understand the concept of charging the pitch, I would often have a near-perfect movement but still land the ball in the dirt, and I'm not entirely sure if it was my fault or some issue with the game. Over the course of my initial 10 games, I noticed a considerable improvement, so I chalked up most of the problems to timing.

Likewise, batting makes use of both of thumbsticks. Pressing up or down on the left stick will help influence the likelihood of a ground ball or possible home run, and pressing left or right will help determine the direction. It's not always foolproof, however; I would often aim down and still pop up the ball, and a lot of it seems to be attributed to the timing of the swing, or which part of the bat connects. You can't shift your player at bat either, so reaching for swings outside of the pitching box displayed on-screen will sometimes have disastrous results. Using the right thumbstick performs the actual swing, and unlike last year, you don't need impeccable timing to hit. You can hold back on the right stick at any time, allowing you better control as to when to swing, and pressing up will perform the action whenever the ball is being pitched. It still requires some practice to get used to the timing, but newcomers will find the batting game in MLB 2K9 much easier than it was last year.

If you're not a fan of the current control scheme, a classic set of controls has also been included. Pitching assigns different types of pitches to the face buttons and shoulder buttons, and you only have to perform the charges by holding down the button. For whatever reason, though, when I tried out the classic controls, my pitches felt like they went wayward more often than not, and I really hated trying to get the timing down to perform a semi-decent pitch. Batting is also really simple with this setup, only requiring you to press the X button to swing, but once again, it's harder to get the timing down and really nail the ball when compared to the regular control setup.

Fielding only has one type of control scheme, most likely because there are two different options. You can use the thumbstick to control your throws, with each direction signaling a different base, or use the face buttons on the 360 controller to perform the same function. Each player will have a small meter that shows up when you're tossing the ball, and you want to try to hit the middle green section when you release the throw. Holding down the button for too long or not long enough will sometimes cause the throw or catch to go wrong, which will have the AI or yourself chasing down the ball while runners are coming in.

The fielding AI is one of my bigger issues with the game, and the AI in general is pretty dumb. The way fielding works in MLB 2K9 is that when an opposing player hits the ball, the game highlights the closest player to the spot where the ball initially hits the ground. This is easy enough for a fly ball, and those are pretty easy to catch, with the exception of some really random drops. However, it can be a big pain for ground balls, especially when the ball hits the ground but continues to whiz past the highlighted player, causing you to switch to a new player right away. Along with that, the AI will occasionally kick in even if a player is highlighted and automatically track down the ball, while more often than not, it'll begin to move, or get about halfway to the catcher, and then stop. At this point, you realize that you need to move the player now and it's usually a half second too late, which really screws up your reaction time. Sometimes the AI will just not respond, or, on occasion, it'll glitch a player into a wall or freeze them in place while the rest of the game plays on, sometimes not even allowing you to switch to another player (and the AI won't respond by itself in this situation). Defense is a frustrating experience altogether when you're not pitching, and it really brings down the entire game experience.

There are also a few more bugs in MLB 2K9, but the most frustrating one involves having your franchise freeze up and causing you to restart the entire thing. I had this happen once over the course of 30 games, and thankfully, when it occurred I was just two games into the run. I know that a patch has been released recently, but my freeze-up actually occurred after the patch hit, so from what I understand, it's still a possible issue. The other part of this that I find frustrating is that it's an issue I've had with other 2K Sports titles in the past, and it's almost something that I've come to expect when I play one of their games. Buyers should beware if you're looking at picking this up right away because it might serve you better to hold off and see the fixes that come down the line.

There have been a couple improvements, most notably with the ability to manage 40 teams in Franchise mode as opposed to the paltry four you were allowed last year. Online play seems to function well, and every game I played had little to no lag. Player creation returns this year, and there are plenty of options that you can either auto-assign in Franchise mode or choose to handle yourself, including the minor leagues.

If you're a fan of the MLB and are strictly an Xbox 360 owner, then you'll probably find something to like in MLB 2K9; after all, you pretty much have to. Unfortunately, you'll also have to put up with some of the shoddiest fielding AI I've seen in a while, and enough bugs that will cause semi-frequent frustrations with the entire game, including one that I'd consider to be pretty much a game-breaker at this point. While I won't recommend the title to just anyone, and while I don't think it's seen a great deal of improvement from the previous year's entry, I imagine that there will be a few die-hard sports fans who will pick up MLB 2K9 regardless, just to get their baseball fix. Keep in mind the problems that could possibly await you, and hopefully, you'll get a bit of entertainment out of this game.

Score: 5.0/10