Edit: I totally wrote this up Thursday night since I didn't work on Friday and therefore expected to not post. Sadly, I was right. I promise one of these days I'll actually stick to my self-imposed schedule. But not posting on time actually became a good thing. See below.
I'm a big baseball fan as well as a video gamer, and as such, I am one of the relatively small number of people that are actually targeted to buy Baseball sim video games. Now, this might seem odd for me to emphasize how much I enjoy sports games when I usually blast EA for Madden, but the truth is, the last 3 baseball games I've played are all distinctly different games. First off is Mario Superstar Baseball, which Brian and Nick can attest that its just simple, silly, high scoring fun, but not a realistic baseball game. Next up is MLB Power Pros, which I got because it was the only Wii baseball game at the time (though its also very silly to see all my favorite players re-created as little floating heads and no legs) and most recently, MLB 08: The Show for PS3. This game is really the one I'd play if I was looking for something close to the real deal. Yes, the gameplay needs some balancing (but less so than the other 2) but seeing the realistic players and stadiums is always nice. Anyway, let me get onto the actual topic at hand here.
There are 2 major options available for a 'realistic' baseball game on the market. Thanks to 2K's exclusivity agreement with the MLB, there is 2K's MLB 2K8 and Sony's in house developed MLB 08:The Show. 2K's series has been around longer, but the truth of the matter is, it is by and large considered the weaker of the two. In a fittingly ironic move, 2K used the exclusivity agreement for the MLB the way EA did for Madden. EA had an outstanding MLB title, that no longer can exist, and now 2K's title, which was already weaker, has developed a severe case of 'EA-syndrome', churning out the same weak, flawed title year after year. They tried some new things this year, but the sense of gravity is still badly in need of ironing out, they haven't recorded new commentary for their game since 2005 (and not even all of it was new then) and their new mechanics require such precision perfection that its nearly impossible to actually use. Even just the demos of these titles reflect their differences. 08's demo made me very interested in purchasing the title, whereas 2K's demo didn't even allow me to turn off the new gameplay mechanics (all using the right analog stick, rather than traditional button presses) so it did the opposite of its job, it made me NOT want to buy the game. The reviewers spoke accordingly with 08 consistently receiving higher scores than 2K8. With 2 exceptions.
The aggregate rating for MLB 08 on metacritic (www.metacritic.com) is an 8.6 out of 10, which is really pretty damn good, especially for a sports title. Its very rare to see sports titles get aggregate ratings of 9.0 or higher, since the 'realism' they emphasize is usually undermined by odd clipping issues and just the general fact that everyone's abilities in game are determined by someone giving them a number (someone who may or may not be biased). The aggregate rating for 2K8 (both scores from their PS3 releases) is a 6.8. What these scores say to me is that while 08 is a well made game with some flaws, 2K8 is a well made flaw with some game. Seriously though, I feel like reviewers try to make it that anything about a 5.0 is worth playing, but the closer you come to that 5, the more you'll have to overlook to enjoy yourself. Granted, a large part of the problem is probably that 2K has to develop for 5 platforms (PS2, PS3, PSP, Wii, 360) whereas Sony's team only had to develop for 3, but that really isn't an excuse to not produce a quality product. If you need to cut down the number of versions, then do so. My point is, while there will always be a difference of opinion, it becomes clear which seems to be the better made game. So why is there not a consensus on this?
The 2 dissenting opinions come from 1up.com and X-Play. I'll let all the Americans make their silly "X-Play should be discounted" statements, which hold remarkably true. X-play praised things in 2K8 that seem more like bugs than features (they cited a lack of clipping when the players bump into each other, glossing over the fact that the AI is too stupid to NOT have the players bump into each other when there was no reason for them to) and generally made other mistakes that led me to feel like they were being paid for the whole ordeal. So, I can forgive one dissenting opinion. But its 1up.com's review that really makes me scratch my head.
To be fair, 1up.com did have 2 different people do the reviews for 2K8 and MLB 08. That in and of itself, I feel, is a mistake. Have one person do the PSP reviews, one person do the PS2 reviews and one person do the PS3 reviews. That way, when people look to compare scores, they can actually have a model of reference. Instead, they have 2 guys, one do ALL 5 of the 2K reviews and one for ALL 3 of the 08 reviews. Odd system indeed. The scoring difference is minimal, a B for 2K and a B- for 08. Which, when translated (remind me again WHY we need to translate review scores?) comes out to about a low 8 for 2K and a high 7 for 08. Ok, perfectly acceptable scores. But it kinda bothered me, why would this happen? I came up with 2 possibilities.
First, it was a perfectly normal disagreement on how the two would relate to each other, and thus, the reviews were conducted individually and are in no way a reflection of each other. I can live with that, even if its stupid, but it doesn't seem quite right. Secondly, was that this was an attempt for 1up.com to get site traffic by any means necessary, even through a silly shake up. This seemed even less likely, as its the kind of sensationalist trick that Fox News uses, but it makes you into, you know, Fox News. Now, I realize part of my argument here is that I'm telling people their opinions are wrong, but thats not what I want to say. I want to point out how in this instance, reviewing a single title by itself can have an impact on other games. Had the two titles been reviewed by the same person (people?) I'm confident the scores would have been flipped. So, I guess we just have to chalk this one up to disagreement on how that new letter scale should be used?
Edit: Over the weekend, someone pointed out an article claiming that 1up.com was pissed that Sony didn't send them review copies of 08. Perhaps a little journalistic revenge? Perhaps, but thats a damn stupid way to try and get your site noticed. Word of advice 1up. Purposely DEFLATING scores hurts just as much as purposely INFLATING scores. And if you see the user comments, you'll notice how far off you are. I'm not normally one to advocate listening to people on the internet (its a good way to pick up lots of diseases), but when they're consistently banding together, that should point something out.
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