For me, baseball is a lot like Nascar; I’m really only interested when things are blowing up, smashing into each other, ending quickly or otherwise collapsing into a gong show of epic proportions.
Suffice to say, I’ve been hooked on The Bigs.
Finally a game that gets what’s actually fun about baseball. This isn’t a sport about honor, honed skills and quiet victories. This is a sport about big egos, big hits, highlight reels and the occasional implied steroid use. Where The Bigs could have easily been another monotonous exercise in muscle memory with “’07’” stamped on the cover, 2K Sports have instead cut out a majority of the fat and packaged a slick, fast and fun experience. This is baseball as directed by Jerry Bruckheimer; complete with needless explosions, bigger than life attitude, slow-motion show boating, copious ‘whooshing’ sounds and a bombastic pop rock soundtrack pulling it all together.
And the formula works ... well, mostly.
At its core, The Bigs is still a baseball game and, as such, prone to the same repetitive gameplay elements that winds up bogging every other baseball title under the sun. That is; for all the flare and eye-popping production, you’re essentially still playing with a limited set of repetitive actions over a limited amount of time, all the while praying that something ‘cool’ happens to break up the monotony. This is exactly what The Bigs excels at; cramming those ‘cool’ moments into almost every pitch, hit and play. Think of playing the Bigs as the entertainment equivalent of watching Pride and Prejudice in totally wicked awesome 3-D!
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Yet for all the ‘whiz-bang’ effects, The Bigs owes much of its pick-up-and-play appeal to 2K’s addition of the ‘Turbo Bar’. Throughout the game, each team will have a chance to fill and stock five individual turbo bars at bat, in the field and on the mound. Obviously, the better the play, the more turbo one will receive. I.e. Get a single; turbo. Get a triple: more turbo. Get a homerun and go home with the opposing pitcher’s girlfriend; mega-turbo.
It’s a simple system, to be sure – especially since even the simplest actions are rewarded at least a few turbo points. Once a turbo slot has been filled, it can either be tucked away for later plays or applied immediately to whatever action you wish to ‘super-size’. At bat, triggering turbo will allow the batter to enter a big hit mode – thereby increasing the odds of, well, pulling off a really big hit. Reversely, pitchers can turbo-size their throws for lightening fast pitches and fielders can hold down the turbo button to launch a ball from outfield to infield in little under a second.
In addition, racking up the big plays will also net you Big Play Points (go figure, huh?) which, if totaled past the 100,000 mark on you Power Meter will allow both the pitcher and batter to enter a ‘Power Blast’ and ‘Big Heat’ mode respectively.
Admittidly, both of these features are by no means revolutionary to the whole ‘arcade’ sports genre. In fact, this kind of surface ‘extremism’ has pretty much been used to death ever since linebackers lit on fire in NFL Blitz. That said, 2K has tinkered with the concept enough so that the end result doesn’t feel tacked on as it does an important and easily manageable part of the game’s overall strategy.
Unfortunately, the gameplay isn’t completely without its flaws and while the good far outweigh the bad, I do like to complain at least a little, so skip ahead if you’re adverse to a little nit-picking. Let’s just say that for the most part, the controls work; it’s just that they can also be so damn picky. The controls when both pitching and hitting require almost zen-like precision and even the slightest nudge of the nub can mess up the easiest pitch or swing. Seriously, no matter where you think you’re aiming, you won’t really know for sure until you hit – and what you thought would be a line drive to third can easily end up smacking some fan along the first base line. Even pitching requires thumbs of steel with a touchy aiming system and a power meter that takes a certain degree of twitch ability to really nail down. And let’s not forget the fielding which can be a frustrating in its own right with pop flies that land almost inches from your player or fielders that seem to ignore simple commands such as ‘dive’, ‘jump’ or ‘move in the freaking direction of the ball, you overpaid slob!’.
With practice, errorless fielding, throwing and batting can certainly becomes second nature, but for a game that seems to be gunning for the more casual sports gamers, these exacting controls can be a bit frustrating off from the start.
As for game modes, rest assured that in this golden age of XBOX Live, 2K games has set up the requisite online options, thereby giving everyone ample chance to challenge with angst ridden foul mouthed 12 year olds everywhere. In addition, there’s also much to do for the single player via the lengthy rookie challenge. Seeing as I’ll sooner get my girlfriend to watch the L Word with me than play any video game sport, it’s this solitary game mode that I’ve been playing the most.
Using a very basic character creation system, players are able to Frankenstein together a rookie from a stock of standard baseball paraphenillia and lead them through their entire inaugural season. For the most part, a majority of the gameplay is spent taking on teams from across the states in quick 3 to 5 inning games. However, completing different series will unlock skill drills or specials matches, some of which call on certain special conditions to be met in order to win. Ultimately, these are the most rewarding and infuriating games to beat as most require spot on playing in order to fulfill the win requirements. One challenge, for example, called upon my own future hall-of-famer Marty McSlugger - the Blue Jay’s hottest player - to get two hits in a 3 inning game. No easy task, I assure you, but one that is certainly doable after at least a few dozen restarts.
Completing these games and challenges will give your team access to better teammates and also allows players to gain points which can then be spent on enhance their rookie’s abilities in the basic skill categories (fielding, hitting, running, baby-making etc.). Also, and at seemingly random points throughout the season, players will gain access to a nifty selection of ‘attitude’ adjusters like tattoos, sunglasses, struts, bats and such.
Other highlights of note are the batting mini-games, one of which pits you in a standard homerun derby and another which challenges you to a pinball style hitting match in a fully destructable Times Square environment. Quick guess as to which feels like a boring baseball necessity and which one actually holds your interest for longer than three plays. The only downside to the pinball challenge is that unless you’re jobless and have a good week to spend alone, there’s no chance you’ll be seeing the top of the leaderboard anytime soon.
At the end of the day, it’s the little fun touches that end up elevating The Bigs from being just another yearly baseball installment. Sure, most of the extra options are superficial and about as deep as a kiddies pool, but added together, they make for something genuinely different than some of the more cookie-cutter baseball fare Of course, it helps that The Bigs also sports so some of the best next-gen graphics I’ve seen since on the XBOX 360. Granted, I’m fairly new the whole 360 scene, but considering I’m comparing most everything to ‘Oblivion’, that’s a fairly big compliment.
To be fair, 2K doesn’t have much in the way of competition yet (unless you count itself), but with solid production and over-the-top fun this is certainly a title that has a chance of being remembered well past the year it was released.
WHAM! Rating: |
8 out of 10 |
ESRB Rating: |
E (Everyone) |
Official Web Site: |
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