The visual difference between a pitcher’s pitches is evident, but a lot of hitting is just waiting for the other player (or AI) to miss the target zone on the pitch meter. When this happens the hitter is automatically shown where the pitch is going to end up and from there it’s not too hard to get at least a solid hit. If a pitcher gives up too many hits with a specific pitch, they lose that pitch for the rest of the game.

There’s a coherence and logic to all this that is reasonably balanced and works well enough, but mostly the game still devolves baseball skills into a series of button mashing quicktime-style events and stockpiling power meters. Execute the quicktime events correctly when fielding and you’ll make a “legendary catch,” for example. Use a powered up turbo meter to, for one play, juice up your swing, pitch, fielding or baserunning. Or, collect enough points from things like hits and strike outs to execute Big Blast (near automatic home run), Big Slam (near automatic grand slam), or Big Heat (near automatic strike out) power ups. The result is a five-inning (by default) game of baseball that is largely determined by who is able to get in a Big Slam or two before it’s all over. It’s actually quite entertaining for the first few games, but after that you’ll have seen pretty much all there is to see.

As for putting it all in context, the main new feature in The Bigs is the Become a Legend mode, in which you create a player that is in the Mexican League, trying to recover from an injury. The goal is to get your player back to the big leagues (which takes about an hour of play) and, eventually, get him into the Baseball Hall of Fame. This is accomplished by executing each and every in-game and off-the-field feat with which the game can think to task you, whether it’s simply beating the other team, getting a Big Blast with your created player, or running a quicktime event-driven obstacle course. The problem with this format is that while you have multiple challenges available to you at any given time, you cannot move forward on a specific path without completing every challenge. It creates a reality in which team wins and losses are completely arbitrary. Sure you beat Baltimore 20-5, but did your player make a Legendary Catch? No? Oh. So sorry. You’ll have to play that one again.

Having to replay challenges isn’t the end of the world in small doses. Games only take about 15 to 20 minutes to play. But as the game goes on the challenges get stiffer and stiffer and I guarantee you the point will come where you’re absolutely fed up with trying to meet them and that point will come long before you get your player into to the Hall of Fame.

It might have all worked better had the developers combined the Become a Legend mode with the 162-game Season mode. Combine the individual player goals of Become a Legend with the team-based goals available in Season mode, where not every game is a strict matter of pass or fail, and the individual player challenges might have had more legs. As it stands, neither mode is particularly compelling for a $60 game.

The final significant play mode including in the game is the Home Run Pinball mini-game. Basically, you pick a setting, like Las Vegas, and a pitcher throws some meatballs to you that you can target at various different parts of the landscape. Hit a bunch of stuff and collect points. Swing and miss on three pitches, and you’re done. It’s a completely pointless diversion that would never be missed had it not been included at all.

Obviously, The Bigs 2 is not geared towards the dedicated baseball fan. Few dedicated fans of America’s pastime would play this ahead of a genuine baseball game. The question is are there more casual fans that would both A) rather play this game than 2k or The Show and B) are still interested in dropping $60 on any kind of baseball game? Those that do meet those criteria will find a game that tries very hard to make the notion of extreme baseball a fun, compelling experience. At times it is able to do that, but not very often and not for very long.

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