Rough diamonds

by ERIK LEIJON

Quit your kvetching. As the last outpost of positive baseball love in this city, I feel it’s my solemn duty to keep the baseball flame alit until the eventual return of Major League Baseball to Montreal (ETA: year 2080). MLB 09 The Show (PS3/SCEA, SCEA San Diego) and MLB 2K9 (Multi/Visual Concepts) therefore have an added importance, as it’s the closest any of us are getting to the big leagues minus a roadtrip or John Fogerty solo record.

Without a doubt, MLB 09 The Show is the better overall package, and is definitely in the discussion for best sports game ever alongside EA Sports’ NHL 2K9 and a few classics. The Show is a technical masterpiece, with crisp beautiful visuals, the ability to micromanage every aspect of baseball on and off the field, tense, realistic games and an even deeper Road to the Show mode, which gives players the chance to create a player from scratch and take them from career cradle to grave. Very few changes have been made in relation to The Show 2008, but the game was already near perfect then. My only gripe is the extreme difficulty, which is sure to infuriate fans of America’s Pastime and completely turn off rookies.

TIRELESS WORKHORSE: MLB 09 The Show “

The absurdly tough hitting system means few long balls will be hit in the early going as you learn not to swing at every off-speed pitch outside of the zone. The game’s unforgiving hitting (it’s a one-button-press swing system while you follow the ball going through the zone with the left analog stick) will easily cause new players to quit as their batting average refuses to climb over the Mendoza Line and the Golden Sombreros rack up. As a test, if you have no idea what the expressions in the previous sentence mean, The Show will be too tough for you.

That brings us to MLB 2K9, brought to you by Visual Concepts, the developer that redefined sports gaming in the early Dreamcast days—so much so that EA Sports spent millions to strip them of an NFL licence and Take-Two re-branded themselves in order to receive that good 2K karma. Conceptually, I like the way they’ve attempted to simplify their NHL and MLB series. Unfortunately, most of this personal goodwill goes flying out the window as every ball game degenerates into a horrific error-fest, where outfielders run as if they’re glued to the ground and first basemen seem unable to keep their feet planted to the bag.

Not that fielding matters, as the left analog stick aiming system means every hit can be either a monster homerun or deep fly ball provided you tilt the analog stick upwards to pull the ball. Comparatively MLB 2K9 looks pretty muddy and the animations aren’t as crisp. Player models are weaker than The Show’s too—even 2K poster boy Tim Lincecum looks like a hunchback.

I could picture myself preferring MLB 2K9’s pitching and hitting controls provided they were included in a better game. Pitches are done by mimicking unique analog stick moves. Although not realistic, it broke up the mundanity that comes from throwing hundreds of pitches. The Show’s pitching system is finely tuned and the catcher AI calls a mean game, although the familiar button timing system leaves no room for error. Then again, a perfect pitch in MLB 2K9 will still end up in the bleachers.

MLB 2K9 is the Mark Prior of baseball games—it oozes all-star potential yet every Spring seems to blow out his arm. The Show is like Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, a tireless workhorse that could start regressing at any moment.