Major League Baseball 2K9 (Xbox 360, 2009)

If the only baseball videogame you have played for the last 4 years is MLB 2K, then this is the best in the series so far, presuming that you download the patch, via xbox live right from the start up. If you do not have internet access then you will be in for a game that presents itself great but gets lost in the gameplay department. Do yourself a favor and GET THAT PATCH DOWNLOADED! The only drawback to the patch is that, if you download it and then start a Franchise, Any download patches after that will not take effect unless you restart your Franchise. This kind of stinks for anyone who is well into their season. Then again, I feel sorry for anyone who could tolerate the bugs and glitches for that long anyway.

The game sucks. It looks great, but it sucks. It's not at all realistic. I purchased it because I read that the update patches fixed a lot of issues, boy, am I sorry I did. The presentation is hokey, but that's not even a big issue. The issue is online and the amount of homeruns. I understand that you can adjust sliders and yadda yadda, but I like playing online ranked matches and it is damn near impossible to not give up more than two runs a game. The pitching overlay also looks terrible and the changed the way a fastball looks coming in, so it has almost no gas on it and you can just jack them out of the park. You can never get away with throwing a fastball to a big hitter, no matter the location, without it getting knocked out.

They need to fix this title with a patch. I love baseball and the only reason I got this was because I have an Xbox 360. 2K8 was solid enough for me, but this is terrible. Tons of other errors too, but the pitching/homerun thing is the worst. It plays like an arcade baseball game. It's goofy. If I wanted "The Bigs" I would have gotten that game.

Maybe they'll get it right next year.

This game is best better than last year's game. It runs smoother, it looks better, and in the beginning at least it is simply better during the actual game. However, some issues still carry over, and some new things exist:
1) Hitting the ball against the wall can result in the fielder merging into the wall and getting stuck. This is only resolved by jogging all the way home and scoring. I mean, maybe you could have gotten a triple...and this happened twice in two consecutive innings.
2) Sometimes you throw the easy out to first, and the dude is simply stupid and isn't on the bag. There's no way to easily rectify this if this is a bang-bang play, but if you beat out the runner by a lot, you can wheel the fielder around to tag him out. Maybe.
3) Pitching is a bit too easy now. There have been times I've just gotten lazy and just jerk the stick ever which way, and a perfect pitch comes out.
4) And...while we're at it, the AI in this game is not so good. Stealing bases is harder in this game; you have to time it just right, but the button to steal is apparently on a delay. You can't just punch the button once you see the pitcher start the windup. That makes it a lot harder. However, if you screw up and start charging for second while the pitcher still has the ball, you can still return to your base easily, even if you go 3/4ths of the way to 2nd. Also, the CPU will not take balls that much. 3, 4, and 5 pitch innings are common for you. Therefore, stamina is not really an issue.
5) As noted before, stats for the opposing team is not available unless you buy the stuff during the game, and even then you don't get to see the batting order, which is ridiculous. That should be a no brainer. It sometimes feels like a hockey player designed the baseball stat mechanism.

Even after all of that, though, this isn't that bad of a game to play. If you're really serious about baseball and stats, you probably won't like the game. For the casual fan of baseball or of baseball games, this isn't the worst. Basic improvements to this game result in a much better game than last year, but they clearly have room for improvement. ADVICE: If you are getting this game because you have an XBOX, ok. If you have a PS3, get the other baseball game; I think it's a lot better.

I usually love the 2k baseball series, but 2k9 has some glitches that takes away from the game. The new player menu takes away from the in-depth feeling. The graphics are awesome and current roster updates are cool.

The controller layout is a bit awkward so dont get this game thinking the layout is like 2k8. baserunning/fielding is frustrating and will take time to figure out. Its the perfect game to buy used for a much lower price. I'll be looking forward to next year's improved game.

True to the real thing. Difficulty sliders are a bit off, so those need to be manually changed when you start. For instance, every infielder plays like a gold glover on the current settings, including Rookie mode. So fix them after. However, this limits the Card Collection aspect of the game.