The adage of the once-great star being overshadowed by a young up-and-comer is ever-present in sports. You’ll find no better real world example of this phenomenon than what’s happening with the current state of baseball games. The old and wise MLB 2K series has been totally usurped by Sony’s MLB: The Show, which only recently broke onto the scene. Every year we wait and see if 2K is going to be able to keep pace with what Sony brings to the table, and every year we walk away disappointed. While MLB 2K10 takes small steps towards fixing the problems that made last year’s game such a disappointment, it still doesn’t come close to delivering the definitive baseball experience that we all want from the oldest baseball franchise around.
If you’ve been watching any of our coverage leading up to the launch of MLB 2K10, it should be clear that 2K Sports is putting a large focus on the hitter vs. pitcher duel that is inherent to the game of baseball. The authenticity that 2K Sports has been able to capture when you step to the plate or hurl the ball across it is probably the single best achievement in MLB 2K10. It’s something that other games have gotten right in the past, but 2K10 finally seems to have mastered the AI that drives these conflicts. If you swing at everything thrown your way, you’ll absolutely never get a hittable pitch. It’s up to you to display discipline and patience in waiting for a pitch to hit, much like players do in reality. It seemed like neither the hitter nor the pitcher had an advantage with the newly refined mechanic, something that was a worry when I first played MLB 2K10.
Sadly, it’s the hitter vs. batter interaction that’s really the only shining achievement for this year’s game. Everything else has one problem or another that keeps it from being great or, in some cases, good. Take the new My Player mode, for instance. It’s 2K Sports’ first effort at delivering a career mode in their baseball franchise and, at least at first, it seems like they might have nailed it. But the more time you sink into the mode, the more its design and technical failings become apparent.
Things begin with the requisite player creation. It’s just as detailed as any in the sports genre and even brings new last names for Gary Thorne and company to say such as “Ahearn.” From there, you’re off to your first game which, regardless of your position, is a bottom-of-the-ninth clutch moment for you to be either the hero or the zero. After that, it’s up to you to build up your player through good in-game play and training drills.
Your fun factor in My Player is largely dependent on which position you play as the experiences differ quite a bit. If you’re playing as a pitcher you’re going to obviously be confined to the rubber with few chances to hit the ball. You’re inundated with pitching points that you’ll be able to distribute as you see fit. Other stats fall by the wayside, but that’s understandable if you’re a closer or a middle-reliever. Playing as a pitcher provided the most fun for me in My Player. The hitter vs. pitcher altercations are strong; even when in the minors, striking guys out is as satisfying as ever. I would’ve appreciated the ability to develop a pitcher that can also hit, but that’s so rare it almost doesn’t make sense to include it.
The new pitcher vs. batter mechanic works very well with many subtle changes.
On the flipside, playing as a catcher is absolutely terrible. You don’t have any control over what pitch is being thrown, thus limiting your time in the field to catching pop-ups hit behind the plate and bunts. In other words, it’s really boring. The same goes for other fielding positions, at least to a lesser extent. MLB 2K10 only allows you (and forces you to do so for “key games”) to play moments where your player is directly involved rather than allowing you to sit through an entire game if you want. It takes away any of the organic nature of My Player and instead grounds it in being a chore of a videogame experience. Further detracting from the realism is the fact that you can’t be traded away from your club by your manager. Instead you can switch teams at any time without worry. I’d like to have the option of being totally under the AI manager’s control.
Problems persist when you try and focus on developing your player into a powerhouse. I understand the idea behind the distribution of skill points, but its execution is lacking. In order to progress your hitting, you have to hit the ball. That makes sense. In order to improve your fielding you’ll need to field balls effectively and make smart throws. That also makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is the base running. In order to improve your speed on the base path you’ll need to actually cross home plate to score a run (or complete a rare hit-and-run opportunity). To score a run, you’ll need to be fast and you’re also depending on your other AI-controlled players to put the ball in play, something that they can struggle with from time to time. It would have made more sense to give you points for every base that you run to or provide another alley in order to improve your player’s speed. As it stands the progression for everyone other than a pitcher is a tough road.
My Player is also plagued by lots of bugs, which is sadly something that we’ve come to expect from this series through the years. I saw things like players stepping to the plate without a bat on rare occasions, players will sometimes slide along the ground in order to catch a ball properly, and basemen will stutter against base runners when they’re running animations independently of one another (like when a base runner is walking back to the base and bumps into the baseman throwing to the pitcher). Of course, none of this mentions the incredible lack of visual fidelity in My Player. There’s much less graphical detail on everything in the game, which makes no sense when you consider that the bulk of the interactions are automated thanks to the artificial intelligence.
So while My Player is largely a mediocre rookie effort with poor design decisions and several technical shortcomings, the core baseball gameplay that you’ll see from most other modes has been nicely improved, even when considering it without the cool hitter vs. pitcher dynamic. For starters, everything is much smoother thanks to an enhanced framerate. It’s still not perfect and there is certainly a large hit taken in terms of the game’s visuals, but a sports game that’s generally free of game debilitating hitches is certainly preferable to one that chugs along. Now all they need to do is smooth out some animations, get the cloth physics back in the game (but make them good), and increase the overall quality of the crowd and the textures throughout 2K10.
My Player could be better.
You can also pre-load throws for the first time in MLB 2K. You’d think this feature would’ve been in years ago, but it’s making its first appearance here. It works very well for the most part. The only slight problem I had was when trying to tag a base and then make a pre-loaded throw to second; my player’s AI clearly had no idea that I was trying to tag first before making a throw. Instead what I got was one out at second base instead of a stylish double play. Other than that issue pre-loading works like a dream.
The core gameplay and modes that you remember are back with a few tweaks here and there. The pitching is a bit different than it has been, though those hoping for a change from the right analog stick movements will have to wait another year. I’m personally fine with the series’ different take on pitching, and this year’s mechanic works better than it has before. Hitting has also seen an addition in the form of a defensive swing. This being included in MLB 2K10 makes absolutely no sense to me. I never once used it other than checking it out for this review and certainly never felt as though I had to do so in order to stay alive at the plate. I’m fine with having it included because someone will likely find a purpose for it; I just didn’t. I did, however, take serious issue with the omission of any sort of check swing ability. It’s inexcusable for a game to ship without check swings, despite the fact that you’ll be able to download a patch on launch day that will add a check swing ability. I have no idea how well the mechanic will work, so for the sake of this review (and the fact that we can’t count on everyone reading this having Xbox Live or PSN connectivity) we’re reviewing MLB 2K10 without check swings.
Playing catcher in My Player isn’t nearly as exciting as this looks.
Franchise mode, despite the addition of My Player, will still be where you spend most of your time. MLB Today does a good job of keeping you up to speed with what’s going on in the league, and the commentators have a good repertoire of quips to spew out that reflect past performances and trends developing throughout the season. Trade abilities are standard, though the inability to spice things up with three-team trades, draft picks or cold hard cash is a disappointment. I also ran into what appeared to be a bug in the trading artificial intelligence. It seemed as though teams totally disregarded how much money they had at the time of the trade. I made a deal that included sending Derek Jeter and A-Rod to the Cardinals, thus leaving the team from St. Louis more than $20 million in debt. They didn’t really seem to care.
Of course, no game of baseball would be complete without some online play. MLB 2K10 comes complete with online leagues and standard quick match options. You can also invite a friend into any franchise game that you might be playing. Sadly, my experience online wasn’t quite as smooth as I’d expect from a release so late in a console cycle. Lag was apparent even when playing 10 feet away from another IGN employee on an insanely fast Internet connection. We also had a nearly debilitating bug pop up when one player stayed in the batter’s box as another stepped to the plate. The result was something out of a horror movie that was made only worse when one of the two now-conjoined players hit a homerun and my pitcher proceeded to pitch to the next batter before the guy who just blasted one out of the park finished rounding the bases. It was a buggy game to say the least.
CLOSING COMMENTS
MLB 2K10, despite its many flaws, is still a much better core game of baseball than the series presented last year. It’s just too bad that My Player mode didn’t work out as well as I had hoped after first playing it. There are some very questionable design decisions that will hopefully be ironed by next season because the idea behind the mode itself is sound. You can also see that the foundation for great baseball is nearly there with things like the pitcher vs. batter gameplay going so smoothly. I feel like I’ve said this for the past several years with MLB 2K, but I’m really looking forward to what they can put out with MLB 2K11. Let’s hope that release will be able to capitalize on what 2K started with MLB 2K10.
Kim Jong Il, North Korea’s longtime leader, has died at 69 of a heart attack, state TV reported on Monday in a “special broadcast.”
State media reported that Kim suffered the heart attack while riding a train on Dec. 17, and that he had been treated for cardiac and cerebrovascular diseases for some time. It said an autopsy was done on Dec. 18 and “fully confirmed” the diagnosis.
“It is the biggest loss for the party … and it is our people and nation’s biggest sadness,” an anchorwoman clad in black Korean traditional dress said in a voice choked with tears. She said the nation must “change our sadness to strength and overcome our difficulties.”
Kim is believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008, but he had appeared relatively vigorous in photos and video from recent trips to China and Russia and in numerous trips around the country carefully documented by state media. The communist country’s “Dear Leader” — reputed to have had a taste for cigars, cognac and gourmet cuisine — was believed to have had diabetes and heart disease.
South Korean media, including Yonhap news agency, said South Korea put its military on “high alert” and President Lee Myung-bak convened a national security council meeting after the news of Kim’s death. Officials couldn’t immediately confirm the reports.
In September 2010, Kim Jong Il unveiled his third son, the twenty-something Kim Jong Un, as his successor, putting him in high-ranking posts.
CRY OR DIE
State media called Kim Jong Un the “great successor” to the nation’s principles Monday, encouraging support for the heir-apparent.
It also said saying citizens must “respectfully revere” Kim Jong Un.
“At the leadership of comrade Kim Jong Un, we have to change sadness to strength and courage and overcome today’s difficulties,” it said.
Traffic in the North Korean capital was moving as usual Monday, but people in the streets were in tears as they learned the news of Kim’s death. A foreigner contacted at Pyongyang’s Koryo Hotel said hotel staff were in tears.
Asian stock markets moved lower amid the news, which raises the possibility of increased instability on the divided Korean peninsula.
South Korea’s Kospi index was down 3.9 percent at 1,767.89 and Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 0.8 percent to 8,331.00. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 2 percent to 17,929.66 and the Shanghai Composite Index dropped 2 percent to 2,178.75.
Kim ruled North Korea with an iron fist for 17 years. He succeeded his father, revered North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, after the elder Kim’s death in 1994. The nation remains one of the last remnants of the Cold War era, and is heavily isolated.
Kim maintained absolute control of his country and kept the world on edge with erratic decisions regarding the country’s nuclear weapons program.
North Korean legend has it that Kim was born on Mount Paektu, one of Korea’s most cherished sites, in 1942, a birth heralded in the heavens by a pair of rainbows and a brilliant new star. Soviet records, however, indicate he was born in Siberia in 1941.
The elder Kim fought for independence from Korea’s colonial ruler, Japan, from a base in Russia for years. He returned to Korea in 1945, emerging as a communist leader and becoming North Korea’s first leader in 1948.
He meshed Stalinist ideology with a cult of personality that encompassed him and his son. Their portraits hang in every building in North Korea, and every dutiful North Korean wears a Kim Il Sung lapel pin.
to what could have been… ya right lol!!
Kim Jong Il, a graduate of Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung University, was 33 when his father anointed him his eventual successor.
Even before he took over, there were signs the younger Kim would maintain — and perhaps exceed — his father’s hard-line stance.
South Korea has accused Kim of masterminding a 1983 bombing that killed 17 South Korean officials visiting Burma, now known as Myanmar. In 1987, the bombing of a Korean Air flight killed all 115 people on board; a North Korean agent who confessed to planting the device said Kim had ordered the downing of the plane.
When Kim came to power in 1994, he had been groomed for 20 years to become leader. He eventually took the posts of chairman of the National Defense Commission, commander of the Korean People’s Army and head of the ruling Worker’s Party. His father remained as North Korea’s “eternal president.”
He continued his father’s policy of “military first,” devoting much of the country’s scarce resources to its troops — even as his people suffered from a prolonged famine — and built the world’s fifth-largest military.
Kim also sought to build up the country’s nuclear arms arsenal, leading to North Korea’s first nuclear test, an underground blast conducted in October 2006. Another test came in 2009, prompting U.N. sanctions.
Alarmed, regional leaders negotiated a disarmament-for-aid pact that the North signed in 2007 and began implementing later that year. The process has since stalled, though diplomats are working to restart negotiations.
Following the famine, the number of North Koreans fleeing the country rose dramatically, with many telling tales of hunger, political persecution and rights abuses that North Korean officials emphatically denied.
Kim often blamed the U.S. for his country’s troubles and his regime routinely derides Washington-allied South Korea as a puppet of the Western superpower.
Former U.S. President George W. Bush described Kim as a tyrant. “Look, Kim Jong Il is a dangerous person. He’s a man who starves his people. He’s got huge concentration camps. And … there is concern about his capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon,” Bush said in 2005.
Defectors from North Korea describe Kim as an eloquent and tireless orator, primarily to the military units that form the base of his support.
He also made numerous trips to factories and other sites to offer what North Korea calls “field guidance.” As recently as last week, the North’s news agency reported on trips to a supermarket and a music and dance center.
“In order to run the center in an effective way, he said, it is important above all to collect a lot of art pieces including Korean music and world famous music,” the Korean Central News Agency story read in part.
The world’s best glimpse of the man came in 2000, when a liberal South Korean government’s conciliatory “sunshine” policy toward the North culminated in the first-ever summit between the two Koreas. A second summit was held in 2007 with then South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun.
Kim was said to have wide interests, including professional basketball, cars and foreign films. He reportedly produced several films, mostly historical epics with an ideological tinge.
A South Korean film director claims Kim had him and his movie star wife kidnapped in the late 1970s, spiriting them to North Korea to make movies for a decade before they managed to escape during a trip to Austria.
Kim rarely traveled abroad and then only by train because of an alleged fear of flying, once heading all the way by luxury rail car to Moscow, indulging in his taste for fine food along the way.
One account of Kim’s lavish lifestyle came from Konstantin Pulikovsky, a former Russian presidential envoy who wrote the book “The Orient Express” about Kim’s train trip through Russia in July and August 2001.
Pulikovsky, who accompanied the North Korean leader, said Kim’s 16-car private train was stocked with crates of French wine. Live lobsters were delivered in advance to stations.
A Japanese cook later claimed he was Kim’s personal sushi chef for a decade, writing that Kim had a wine cellar stocked with 10,000 bottles, and that, besides sushi, Kim ate shark’s fin soup — a rare delicacy — weekly.
“His banquets often started at midnight and lasted until morning. The longest lasted for four days,” the chef, who goes by the pseudonym Kenji Fujimoto, was quoted as saying.
Kim is believed to have curbed his indulgent ways in recent years and looked slimmer in more recent video footage aired by North Korea’s state-run broadcaster.
Disputing accounts that Kim was “peculiar,” former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright characterized Kim as intelligent and well-informed, saying the two had wide-ranging discussions during her visits to Pyongyang when Bill Clinton was U.S. president. “I found him very much on top of his brief,” she said.
Kim’s marital status wasn’t clear but he is believed to have married once and had at least three other companions. He had at least three sons with two women, as well as a daughter by a third.
His eldest son, Kim Jong Nam, who is about 40, is believed to have fallen out of favor with his father after he was caught trying to enter Japan on a fake passport in 2001 saying he wanted to visit Disney’s Tokyo resort.
His two other sons by another woman, Kim Jong Chol and Kim Jong Un, are in their 20s. Their mother reportedly died several years ago.
This is one of the best new animes I have seen thus far.
A mysterious, lethal disease is on the loose worldwide, resulting in a catastrophic death rate of humanity, and the increasing rise of attacks, caused by the living dead.
In Japan, several high school students and a school nurse have banded together to escape Fujimi High School shortly after it was attacked by zombies. The group now attempts to figure who or what was responsible for this plague, and in the meantime, attempt to survive the present apocalypse.
The story is initially narrated through the eyes of Takashi Komuro, one of the students who had survived in the initial outbreak.
