Major League Baseball 2K11 Review

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(More customer reviews)It took me DAYS to even come up with something I could say about this game, in the first few sentences, that would set the stage for the rest of this review. Rest assured, the amount of time it took me to come up with something to say required more work and thought than 2K Sports spent on creating this game for the Nintendo Wii.
Needless to say, I expected more from them. I was let down.
For awhile, us Wii owners didn't have good sports games. We had to put up with arcade style games like The Bigs and cutesy kids games like Backyard Football/Baseball.
2K Sports just didn't make good sports games. NHL 2K9 was awful and the last few MLB games were intolerable and, quite frankly, made me wonder if 2K Sports was just writing beta programs, on shiny drink coasters, before deciding they could make a bit of money off of them.
But, then came NHL 2K10, 2K11, and NBA 2K11 for the Wii. They didn't have the graphical polish of the PS3 and XBOX 360 but what it lacked in visuals, it made up for in gameplay and overall presentation. 2K Sports KNEW they had to cut corners with the Wii - the Wii just doesn't have the computing power that the competition has...and they did. Gone were some of the flashier audio bits, the detail on the uniforms, the sweat on players' faces...but the gameplay and everything else that the competition had was STILL THERE. Finally! We had some good sports games!
Imagine the joy in my heart when I saw videos of the upcoming Major League Baseball 2K11! Look at Brian Wilson's beard! Lincecum's long hair and trademark pitching stretch! The ballparks look incredible! Everything looks so real and beautiful. I reminded myself - the polish won't be there for the Wii but we don't really need to see player sweat and uniform stitching. They'll cut their corners here and there and us Wii owners will finally get the baseball game we've been longing for!
I'M STILL WAITING.
I put the disc in. Instantly, I'm told there's only ONE type of control scheme allowed: a WiiMote and Nunchuck. You can't use a Gamecube controller OR a Classic Controller for this game...all right. That's...I don't...huh. Ok. Well, we'll just live with that. Let's move on.
Graphics look like 2K Sports. Selection screen looks like what you'd see in the NHL and NBA series. So far, I'm excited. I start an exhibition between the Giants and Rangers.
The game begins to boot. Instead of the cool television presentation where both of the logos are shown and you get a cool "VS." screen...I get tips on how to field as the game loads...right there, I should have known something was up.
I see box-like "people" entering the "gates" of "AT&T Park"...it looks NOTHING like the entrance at all. Then we get on-field. That's when I frown. The graphics are dark and murky. The park looks almost NOTHING like its real-life counterpart. The grass on the field...oh God. What happened here? You can see graphical LINES on the FIELD. We're talking N64 graphics on a WII CONSOLE.
Look, I KNOW it's a Nintendo Wii...I also know that the Wii is MUCH more capable than THIS. You know how I know? EA Sports put out MVP Baseball six years ago for the Gamecube. The Wii is a slightly stronger console than the Gamecube. MVP Baseball looks GOOD. This is unforgivable.
So, I start the game with Tim Lincecum on the mound for the Giants...except that Lincecum's hair is CUT SHORT. Oh, and his face looks like it belongs on an old Star Wars action figure from the 80's. This is humiliating.
So, just to see what else they screwed up, I put Brian Wilson in the game in place of Tim Lincecum. BRIAN WILSON HAS NO BEARD.
That's right, folks. After 2K11 spent MILLIONS of dollars promoting this game with Brian Wilson, bragging that the game had his pitching motion, beard, and eyes, the Wii console has absolutely NONE of the above. The face is generic and, if you looks VERY closely, he has a very weak goatee. Screw trying to see the eyes. You can't see them at all, no matter how you zoom in.
Ok, I'm past the players...I have no choice but to move on.
The ballparks look terrible. Dodgers Stadium, AT&T Park, and Arlington Stadium all looks atrocious. Everything is cartoony. Everything. The lighting is WAY off, the colors are washed out, the stadiums "stretch" when the cameras move. It's sloppy. There's just no other word for it. And those lines on the grass...why? What happened?
And the scoreboard on your game? The score actually reads like this:
TEX 0, 0 SF.
I've never even seen that in real life. How does one even read that? Do you say, "The score is Texas 2, 1 Giants"? I mean, come on. Even the freakin' SCOREBOARD is sloppy!
Again, NHL 2K10 and NBA 2K10 had graphical issues but all they did was remove some of the finer high definition details on the players. Facial features and trademark looks were still there. 2K Sports gave you the same oak table they gave to the competition. They just didn't give it to you with the finish. This, however, is entirely different. This isn't getting a table without the finish...oh, no. This is like being told you'll get a beautiful oak table without the finish and, instead, receiving a footstool made of plywood.
And the audio...ugh.
The sound is muffled. It sounds like you're listening to everything from inside the clubhouse under the stands. The crowd doesn't care. They barely cheer anything, they don't really boo anything. It's just plain apathy, just like the attitude of the people who made this crap.
The commentary is mind-numbing and akin to something like getting nails hammered into your skull. Gary Thorne and John Kruk repeat things, they wrap up the game and say it's over when it's not, they don't call plays correctly sometimes...why bother?
Let's go over the gameplay, for what it's worth.
It sucks. I'd stop there but this needs to be said: why the hell did 2K Sports decide it would be a GOOD idea to NOT give you a choice of the type of control? As I said, you CAN'T use any other control scheme except for your Wii Remote connected to a Nunchuck and PUZZLINGLY, you have to utilize the Wii Remote to throw AND bat!
How does this happen when you're constantly connected to the Nunchuck?
You throw a pitch by "flicking" the remote...and you bat by "flicking" the remote. There's absolutely NO strategy or thought involved in this. The remote doesn't read your wrist, meaning you can't control where the pitch lands. It lands where you told the pitch to go BEFORE you flicked your remote so what's the freakin' point of using ANY sort of motion control?
And batting is a joke. You flick your remote when the ball is where you want it. That's it. You flick the freakin' remote. Again, there's no strategy. You could pop the ball up, you could ground out, or you could hit a homerun. It takes timing which I get...but one flick in the strike zone and ANYTHING happens. You can't swing low, you can't swing high, you can't swing inside. You just flick the remote when you want to hit and whatever happens, happens.
What a waste. If you're gonna utilize motion controls, MAKE IT INTERESTING. Use the Wii Motion controls to gauge the motion of the players wrists! This would determine how a pitch is thrown, how a ball is hit, etc.
The fielding is better than last year. That's the only GOOD thing about this game and I can't believe I'm saying that. The on-field play is mostly solid. Of course, I forgot to mention the horrible base-running scheme that had me pulling my hair out.
So, I quit the game I was playing and decided to just download a roster file and start playing a season with accurate ros--WHAT?! There's NO ONLINE DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT!!!
I think, at this point, I said to my wife, "I'm done. I am DONE with this game."
And my wife frowned. She knows how long I looked forward to this game.
This was bait-and-switch at its best. All those beautiful gameplay videos of this game for the other systems...and we get this crap. I remember, in college, I was given a tour of one of the nice model dorms I was going to move into. When I got to my empty room, in another building, the paint was cracking, I had leaks coming from the ceiling, and the rug was disgusting.
That's this game in a nutshell - a sleazy product from a sleazy salesman.
I've read that 2K Sports is just running out the clock on their contract with Major League Baseball and that they have "buyer's remorse". Good. They need to stop making the MLB games for every single system.
They may have had a couple of good NHL games and a great NBA game...but this is nothing of that quality. This is like a neglected child they care nothing about and it SHOWS.
Give EA Sports the contract back. They KNEW what they were doing when they produced the MVP Baseball series and they did it well.
-- Matt

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Major League Baseball 2K11 is baseball game for play on the Wii gaming system that puts you in the jerseys of your favorite Big League players as you take the mound, swing for the fences and play defense at every position like never before. The game features include: an analog pitching and hitting controls, the return of popular play modes, and the all-new Mini-Diamond multiplayer mode.

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