Review by: William Abner

First, the good news: Major League Baseball 2K10 is the best version of this long running franchise since the glory days on the original Xbox back when 2K had the ESPN license. Many issues are fixed, and you can actually sit down and play a 9 inning game of baseball without seeing something incredibly silly. When you consider where this franchise was – that’s a pretty big step.

The bad news is that 2K10 still trips over a few hurdles and it still rests in the shadow of Sony‘s MLB: The Show. (Disclaimer: I haven’t played MLB 10 yet but I still consider MLB 09 about as elite as baseball gaming gets.) Still, if you’re PS3-less then 2K10 is certainly a viable option, which again doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement but you have to consider the state this series has been in over the past few years. We are (finally) seeing significant strides.

Clearly the majority of the gameplay development attention was focused on what is the most vital component to a baseball game: the pitcher/batter confrontation. 2K9 struggled mightily in this department so it was as great idea to make this the focal point of 2K10’s design.

Several factors are at play during a typical at bat in 2K10: the scouting report of the hitter and pitcher, the pitcher’s fatigue, his composure, and both players’ basic ability. For this portion of a baseball game to work properly you need to see the entire spectrum of possibilities—not only hits and outs but the nuts and bolts of baseball: fouls, walks, strikeouts, pitches taken for strikes, players chasing pitches out of the strikezone, curveballs that are more difficult to locate than a 2-seam fastball, and so on. Major League Baseball 2K10 does a shockingly good job of simulating this part of the sport and it makes the game as a whole a hell of a lot more fun to play.

The only big problem is the lack of check swings when using the “Hit Stick” (the analog stick is used to swing and once you start there’s no stopping it, although you can change the setup to use a button to swing if you like.) While this is a glaring omission its effect on gameplay is lessened due to the camera angle as well as the new Hitter’s Eye feature which, if your batter has a good enough eye rating, will alert you the pitch type and its general location as the pitcher is about to release the ball. It may sound gimmicky but it works extremely well and unlike other games you can actually draw walks as a result. The last time I drew five walks in a game before playing 2K10 was back in 2001 with High Heat Baseball.