Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: MLB 2004

Written by Adam Woolcott on April 16, 2003

Full Review: Son, you just need some more seasoning in Triple A before you can hang with the big leagues.

Surprisingly, 989 Sports' only franchise that hasn't gone from great heights to awful lows has been the MLB series of hardball simulations. Of course, much of this has to do with Sony's reluctance on releasing an MLB game on the PlayStation 2, where 989's Gameday, Shootout, and Faceoff franchises have struggled to regain the acceptance they held in the PlayStation era. In its place has been 3 УnewФ versions of MLB on the PSOne, each offering roster upgrades and little else. Finally though, 989 has been deemed ready to unleash their first PS2 baseball title, in MLB 2004. The result? A mixed bag.

While other 989 franchises made their debuts in dubious fashion, MLB 2004 can boast that it doesn't fall into this category Ц on the contrary, 989 has delivered a game with a solid baseball engine in place, one that does need numerous tweaks to push it up into the elite of hardball games, where World Series Baseball, High Heat Baseball, and MVP Baseball reside. Fans of the PlayStation editions will find many of the classic gameplay elements that made those editions the cream of an admittedly poor baseball crop Ц it's just 989 slightly erred on the execution of these elements.

989 certainly didn't skimp on MLB's front end, or gameplay modes Ц in many ways, the vast selection of game types puts it ahead of the competition in this department. Besides the standard exhibition, season, Home Run Derby (always a hit in multiplayer) and playoff modes, MLB 2004 features a pair of different Franchise modes to use and abuse. One is your basic franchise, taking a team through multiple seasons, signing free agents, making trades, and such. It's quite standard by now, and nothing stands out that isn't in other games that offer franchise or career play. The other lets you completely wipe out the rosters, then host a draft to pair out the players, creating a vastly different league. Non-purists Ц you know, the ones who don't read the sports page for the latest roster changes and free agent signings Ц will probably enjoy the fantasy element here, while hardcore fans will be greatly disturbed when the Tampa Bay Devil Rays are the home to Barry Bonds, Curt Schilling, and Alex Rodriguez. There's also a Manager mode where you only call the shots and not actually do much playing, but why bother? If you want that, go buy Baseball Mogul for your PC or something.

The MLB series' most famous trait also makes its grand return Ц that being the Spring Training mode. In this, you create a player Ц yourself, your neighbor, your dog, whomever Ц and you play through Spring Training, hoping to earn a spot on the big league roster. If you manage to make the team, you have to actually stay on the team, or be sent back to the minor leagues. For most of us, who enjoy baseball but can't hit a major league fastball, this will be the best way to live out the dream of making a big league club.

As always, when it comes to playing a baseball game, there's 4 major elements that should be outlined when discussing one Ц hitting, pitching, fielding, and running the bases. MLB 2004 is no different. Baseball games carry this luxury over all other sports games, since all of them are vastly different and all control differently.

Pitching is cursor based, which is fine Ц but it's different from other cursor-based baseball games Ц but if you played past MLB games on the PlayStation, it will be familiar. Instead of letting you choose a location then actually pitch the ball, MLB 2004 lets you choose the pitch first, then you quickly must aim the direction before the windup commences. The problem with all this is, the cursor is rather sluggish to aim with and numerous times you can't even get the pitch in your desired location because you're still fiddling around trying to aim the pitch. You roughly get about 2-3 seconds before the pitch, and when a second of that is moving around a sluggish cursor, you get the idea.

Like most baseball games though, successful pitching strategy is the only way to really do anything. MLB does this well despite the hassles with the cursor. Getting a strikeout is somewhat tough against a computer opponent, but is possible if you mix up your pitches and locations. As you might expect, with the sluggishness of location selecting, this is a challenge, but at least you can select different pitches to keep opponents thinking.

On the other side of the plate, hitting is a more complex situation, and one that requires a whole lot of practice. By default, MLB is cursor based for hitting as well, though you can go without a cursor. Unfortunately, this game was built on the cursor element, so it's pretty useless to go without it. There is plenty of depth though to the cursor system, known to 989 as Total Control Batting.

The beauty of TCB is that the complexity of it is all defined by the player of the game. If you really want, you can just do the bare bones aim and hit, which requires the least amount of effort Ц but also yields the chances of actually hitting the ball accurately. The next step is the switching between a normal swing, or changing to a power swing. This will make the cursor smaller, thus less margin for error, but if you make just the right contact, it could mean an extra base hit or a homer. The final step in TCB is the pitch guessing process. It works like you'd think Ц before the pitcher goes into his delivery, you get a few seconds to not only guess the pitch, but the location. If you guess wrongly, the cursor is reduced to the smallest possible size, but if you guess both of these correctly, the chances of a big hit increase tenfold. It's not necessary (this has been in MLB games for years, and I never really used it much), but if you really want to tear into an opponent, learning the pitch patterns will give you a chance to really light up the scoreboard.

All is not perfect, however. The cursor-based system in itself works similar to the pitching version Ц before the actual pitch, you can see the location of the pitch, and from there you can move the cursor to the area to make contact Ц of if it's out of the strike zone, avoid hitting it. The thing is, you only get a second or so to see where it is, so making it directly on the location is a tough task. And like the pitching cursor, the hitting cursor is quite sluggish, making it more of a chore to line up your swing. The other problem with hitting is quite subjective Ц pitches come in way too fast to recognize. Even a changeup seems to arrive in a split second, and getting the timing down is a toughie, especially after playing other baseball games.

The final 2 elements of baseball video games are done well enough, as it's hard to screw it up. Fielding is mapped out right, and rarely gives you the wrong fielder to work with. On the other hand, errors seem to never happen, no matter what. Throwing the ball is based on the now-traditional method of using the diamond-shaped configuration of the Dual Shock controller, which is expected. The only real problem is, if you like to have auto-field on, but want control of the ball once it's fielded, MLB 2004 will irritate you Ц when auto-field is on, the computer controls every aspect, including throwing. At the least though, the computer is smart about throwing the ball, making it easier if you don't want to field. The basepath game is fine, though it's very challenging to steal bases, even with the fastest players. The controls are simple for advancing and returning runners, though not as good as the system in place in MVP Baseball 2003. It works though.

The problem that really sticks out with MLB 2004 isn't the standard elements of baseball, but how it's all executed into a whole package. The art of manufacturing runs is lost on this game, as, like the old MLB games, home runs are the way a majority of runs are scored. There's almost no use in using sacrifice bunts or basestealing, since you can just as easily keep the power cursor on and swing for the fences. In every season game I played, at least 90% of the runs scored were off homers. That's just not baseball. In years prior this could have been overlooked (as it was in the PlayStation days), but in an era when High Heat or WSB is demonstrating the perfect balance between manufacturing runs and hitting clutch home runs, it can't be glossed over. It's the tragic flaw of MLB 2004, and one that really needs to be fixed for next year.

Another issue with MLB 2004 is the game pacing. In short, it takes quite a long time to play a game, as the time between pitches is terribly slow. You can adjust the speed of the game by selecting gameplay speeds, but then you miss out on player intro's, and it seems like a hack job of a ball game. Without taking a stick to Mr. Ed (that would be another way of saying Уbeating a dead horseФ, to the slow readers), games like High Heat, World Series, and EA's MVP Baseball, which have speedy gameplay time without trimming the fat, are the norm, and as such MLB 2004 lags behind.

Visually, MLB 2004 takes advantage of the Renderware middleware program to create a nice looking game, albeit one that hasn't shook off its PlayStation days all that much. While the overall look is squarely average, with nice, but not outstanding player models, the game does have beautiful stadium renders, detailed almost as well as their real-life counterparts. And in 989 tradition (see NFL Gameday and NCAA Gamebreaker), the venues are gigantic, making a homer seem more like a feat than an uneventful happening.

Another strong point is the facial animations, something Sony has been hyping up for this game. Pretty much every big leaguer has had their face texture-mapped onto their corresponding player, creating players that can almost be recognized by their face rather than their jersey. Many of the bigger stars also have their own batting stances, pitching motions, and such, making up for the generic player models, adding a touch of accuracy.

MLB's audio performance is relatively unchanged from past MLB games, which means its fairly solid all around. Los Angeles Dodger announcer Vin Scully handles play by play, while ESPN's Dave Campbell (I think he still works for ESPN, not on Baseball Tonight anymore) handles color commentary. While their announcing works and is pretty authentic, many of the lines are recycled from games that are possibly 4 years old. Obviously the newer players and stadiums have been updated, but so many of the old canned lines from MLB 2000 and on up make their way here, without a re-recording of them. At the very least, this means less repetition, and more solid baseball announcing. Scully is a legend though, and even if he repeated the same thing over and over, I couldn't tire of hearing him call a ballgame.