perpetual memory loss

Riiiight.

Yesterday after I got back from school I decided to take a break from studying for the night and play some video games.  I downloaded the new MLB 2K9 demo and hoped that it would be a vast improvement over the previous incarnations.  My hopes were shattered as the 2K series continued its tradition of suckery.  For some reason the powers that be decided that competition amongst sports games was a bad idea and so they embarked upon all these exclusivity contracts.  Unfortunately for baseball fans 2K received the exclusivity on Xbox and the MVP series ceased to exist, and because of that I haven’t played a good baseball video game since MVP ’05.

My main gripe with the 2K series is that there are way too many layers.  Back in the day video game baseball used to be fun when all I had to do was worry about pressing a couple buttons in conjunction with the D-pad.  Now things have just gotten ridiculous; let me count the ways.  Swing stick = lame.  You know I don’t want to sit there and decide if I want a 40 degree downswing, or 55 degree swing, or a 30 degree upswing.  I just want to swing the fucking bat.  I don’t need to ‘mimic’ a real swing.  I just want to hit the ball.  Pitch stick is likewise lame.  I don’t want to ‘mimic’ a slider, curve, circle change, or whatever.  If I wanted to mimic the real motion of a slider I would go outside and throw sliders on my sidewalk, and if I was any good at it I wouldn’t have to play the goddamn video game to begin with.  So what else is annoying?  Running the bases with any degree of skill is pretty much impossible and usually I end up getting two players tagged out at one base–a la J.D. Drew and Jeff Kent in the ’06 NLDS–because I didn’t have the manual dexterity to hit the required 12 button combination to advance the lead runner but not the other runners.  How did they fuck this up when I never had any problems with this on my old Nintendo?  It’s because 2K is terrible and they make everything as complicated as possible.  Speaking of the Nintendo at least they had a good excuse for crappy looking four pixel characters, but in this day and age how does 2K keep churning out shitty models.  Why does Prince Fielder look like he weighs 180 lbs.?  Why does Ryan Howard look like Jimmy Rollins?  Seriously are you guys even trying anymore?

I’m assuming that next year they will go beyond baseball simulation, and do something a bit like this:

“Hey baseball fans! Are you tired of the same old same old baseball simulations?  Are you tired of only playing baseball in your baseball games?”

“Ummm no I kind of like playing baseball in my baseball games.”

“Well you’re in luck because this year 2K sports is taking you places where your baseball game has never gone before.”

“Why?”

“In this years MLB 2K10 we have added all kinds of great extra simulations that have NOTHING to do with baseball or the enjoyment of the game.”

“Again why?”

“Ever wondered what it would be like to simulate Chipper Jones throwing in a dip in between pitches?”

“No.”

“Well now you can and bonus, if you finish off an entire can of dip in one game, Chipper will tell you about how he is going to name his next kid after the fishing boat that he always gets lucky on.”

“Why, why do I care about this.”

“But wait there’s more…”

“Oh for the fucking love of god stop please.”

“Ever wondered what Big Papi does when he’s not hitting?”

“Please stop I think my ears are bleeding.”

“Wonder no more because in MLB 2K10 you can sit on the bench with Big Papi and simulate him eating box after box of Krispy Kreme donuts whilst watching his teammates play.  All this and more non-baseball simulation in MLB 2K10.  Pre-order your copy now.”

You may think that I am being ridiculous, and ok I am, but still some of the bull shit they have been putting in these games just mystifies me.  Throwing out runners from behind the catchers mask (lame), stealing bases via the thumbstick (lame again what the fuck is their fascination with the thumbstick), and don’t even get me started on the unrealistic stats and attributes.  I am sick and tired of way too many homers and of having players like Josh Willingham playing the outfield like Junior Griffey circa 1993.  Willingham couldn’t play himself out of a paper bag let alone steal 5 homers in one game.  I should not feel like destroying my controller every four plays because something ridiculous happened.

So I have been griping and complaining but I am a solutions orientated person which is why I have a remedy for 2K to fix this series.  I have even boiled in down into an easy to remember acronym–K.I.S.S.  Keep It Simple Stupid.  There it is easy as pie.  You want to make a good game start scaling it back.  Go back to the basics.  Hitting, catching, throwing, and running.  I don’t need hitting planes, don’t need to mimic a real curveball motion, I don’t need power graphs for every throw from every position player.  You know what a need a nice simple baseball simulation with realistic looking models and physics.  That’s it Keep It Simple Stupid.  I’m sure they won’t listen and we will all get the Chipper Jones dip spitting simulation, but whatever I won’t be buying any of their games anytime soon.

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