Another huge gameplay problem revolves around runner speed and outfielder arm strength. It’s way too hard to score from second base on a base hit and nearly impossible to score from first base on a double. Even after editing running and throwing sliders, the outfielders all have cannons for arms, leaving base runners high and dry; as a result the game is a station to station affair, for the most part. You can get doubles on balls hit into the gap, but good luck scoring with a fast runner from second base on a base hit to right field. These issues really detract from the experience because these are the things that help make baseball what it is, and by messing up these basic game elements, it adds to the notion that you are playing a game that needed another two or three months of work.

Then there are the bugs. From stats to gameplay errors, there are way too many bugs in a game that runs $60. The game fails to count earned runs properly; if you walk a batter and he later scores, it is counted as an unearned run. If there are two outs and a runner crosses home plate before the third out is made, the game counts it as a run. This is a huge, huge, bug. Imagine something like this costing you a crucial playoff game? This is something that simply should not happen in today’s baseball gaming market. Playing the game online helps to alleviate some of this as it removes the crazy AI from the equation, but it doesn’t help with the runner speed and defensive arm strengths. It is what it is. Still, playing online against a buddy or in a league is a lot more fun than dealing with the AI.

The franchise mode falls in line with its gameplay. It’s part brilliance and part disaster. Franchise mode does a lot right and is a huge improvement over last year’s debacle – this year players actually develop and decline over time (last year this didn’t work at all.) There’s a handy trade finder, and a surprising amount of depth. You need to manage your budget, particularly if you are playing as a small market team. You can’t just sign players like mad (or like the Yankees) if you’re using a team like the Royals or the Reds.

But again, as cool as franchise mode is, there are bugs that drag it down to mediocrity. If you play with injuries turned on, the CPU teams tend to leave star players rotting in the minor leagues after they come off the Disabled List. The Yanks leaving Jeter in AA is just painful to watch. CPU free agent signings are equally bizarre as the teams do not take their own rosters into account. Why sign Ryan Howard to a crazy deal when you already have Delgado? In fact, a lot of top notch free agents go unsigned – which just shouldn’t ever happen. The kicker is that you are only allowed to manually control one team. If you could go into a CPU team and manually change this stuff it wouldn’t be as big of a deal.

In the end, it’s easy to see that 2K Sports is getting ever so close to producing an elite level, top quality baseball game. But there’s still an ample amount of work to do – and not just in the department of adding new features to the marketing list. This game needs fixed – first and foremost the game needs to be bandaged up so that its basic mechanics work as they should. 2K has stated that the game is on a three-year plan to get it to where the company wants it to be. That’s all well and good, and you can see that progress has been made, but $60 is still $60, and there are just too many frustrations with this edition to give a full recommendation. - William Abner