Major League Baseball 2K7 Review

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It’s time for another Baseball game! This one could actually be the last one I review for a while which is pretty crazy. I have two more MLB games, but they haven’t been working. If they don’t start working soon then it’ll be time to cut my losses with them. Baseball is one of the few series where I actually tend to prefer 2K to the main line games. 2K7 is no exception and actually has the best batting mechanics I’ve seen yet. If you really like Baseball then this is the title for you. It’s still not really my sport when it comes to video games because I feel like there is too much RNG, but at least now I can hit the ball back.

There are a lot of modes as always here but the one you will want is the exhibition mode right off the bat. I just wanted to test my skills against another Baseball team and so I dashed over. Much to my surprise I actually put up a pretty good fight here. It started out badly as I was down 3-0 after a few innings. I just couldn’t manage to hit the ball. I checked the settings and the reason for this was that the game was using motion controls. You were supposed to tilt your controller in order to swing. This is all well and good except for the fact that my PS3 controller has no such feature. I switched the controls to what they listed as “Classic” which allowed me to hit the ball normally. It went back to a classic “Press X” control scheme which is way more my speed.

So I started to make my comeback. I was hitting balls left and right. A lot of them went foul but others would actually be home runs. Eventually the game ended with a score of 9-6. I may have lost, but I got really close compared to most games where I lose 18-0 or something like that. At least this one made me feel like I was in the game at several points. It still doesn’t really take away from my main issue with these Baseball games though. My problem is that none of it feels like it’s in my control.

When pitching, the guy will just hit the ball sometimes. It doesn’t matter if you hit the perfect pitch, sometimes the guy will simply be ready for it. Likewise when you’re batting you can be in just the right spot and still not hit the ball. Perhaps it was outside and it just looked like it was in. Even worse is when you hit the ball and it goes out of bounds or straight into someone’s mitt. I know there are ways to angle your hit better and if you don’t want to go out of bounds then you’ve got to work on timing but there is too much that is out of my control for me to enjoy it as much as the others.

Basketball, Football, and Tennis are my three favorite sports to play in video game format and that’s because RNG is kept to a minimum there. What you see is what you get. If you mess up then it’s all on you. Sure, there is RNG present in every game and those are not exceptions, but they don’t feel nearly as frequent as they do in Baseball. No matter how refined the controls get, I feel as though that will always be holding the series back to an extent.

As always the graphics are good though. The players all look lifelike and the Baseball field is very clear. A lot of effort went into this even if it’s not quite up to Madden level. The presentation is also nice with a lot of quick cutscenes showing up between plays or after the game. Even seeing everyone heading into the stadium was a lot of fun. Slowly but surely the games are all starting to have big presentations like this and I think it’s definitely a good thing. It makes the whole thing look and feel even more realistic.

There’s a lot of replay value to be had here so you don’t have to worry about running out of content. That’s never really been a concern in Baseball games though so I would have been surprised if there was a lack of content. You can play endless matches against all of the teams and there are a lot of modes to try out. Considering that the game is only about a dollar or two nowadays it’s really a great deal for sure.

Overall, Major League Baseball 2K7 is probably one of the best Baseball games I’ve played. It’s quite solid for a Baseball game, but still doesn’t solve the things that were issues for me. I think the games need to take a bit of inspiration from the Mario Baseball game for Gamecube. Of course they wouldn’t grab the special abilities or anything like that, but the batting mechanics were quite solid. There you felt like every ball went exactly where you wanted it to go and that’s a really good thing. I’m confident it will happen in a main Baseball game someday.

Overall 5/10

Lance vs Redips

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Suggested by Anonymous Redips is the final boss of Command Mission and so he is definitely powerful. The guy was basically a cosmic threat by the end and he is able to heal as well as use elemental attacks. One on one it is hard to stop him, but Lance has a powerful army of dragons at his disposal. I think they could actually manage to notch out a win here. Redips has great power, but he’s lacking in speed. Lance’s army would whittle down his health slowly but surely and then they would be able to claim victory. Lance wins.

Wild Jango vs Zeraora

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Suggested by Anonymous Wild Jango is definitely a maverick who has always been one of my favorites from Command Mission. His punishing electric attacks are a lot of fun to watch and the guy loves a good fight. I believe he will have met his match with Zeraora though. This Pokemon is fine with electricity and has more speed than Jango will know what to do with. Zeraora also has his electric barrier which protects from enemy attacks. In a battle of two powerful forces like in this film, the one with the superior speed has a significant edge. Zeraora wins.

Angry Birds Trilogy Review

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It’s time to look at the Angry Birds trilogy on the PS3. The game was definitely an odd port when it first came out because you can get Angry Birds for free on the mobile. Why pay the 30-40 bucks for console when you can do that? I suppose playing on console is more fulfilling with the controls for most games, but with the way this one plays out the mobile controls are actually your best bet either way. In the end I bought this game for a few bucks and I’d say that it’s worth the price for the sheer amount of content. You certainly can still get it on mobile but if you look at this port in a vacuum it certainly is worth a buy.

There isn’t really much of a plot here. The evil pig empire wants to take control of the birds base of operations so now the Angry Birds are being called in to put a stop to this. Keep in mind that the cutscenes don’t have any dialogue or voice acting so you have to interpret this as best you can but the games did get a movie so that also helps you get the plot across. You get some quick cinematics at the end of each chapter for the main game but not really any for the two spinoffs.

I’m not sure what the name for this kind of gameplay is, but I’d call it a motion shooter. Basically you have the bird on a slingshot and you launch him towards some constructs which have pigs in them. The goal is to hit all of the pigs before you run out of birds. From the start you can see how many birds you have so that’s how you start budgeting where to fire them. Sometimes you’ll aim for the pigs directly but other times you need to hit a part of the base and get it to all topple down. There’s a lot of factors to consider with each shot and towards the end there is a lot of trial and error or at least I ended up using a lot to get the wine.

As you go through the game you’ll start getting more advanced birds to use. The Red bird is the basic one that you launch into the air. The Yellow one can use a booster after launching so you can really power through some of the obstacles. The small blue one can turn into 3 birds after launch but they are all pretty weak so be careful on what you tackle. There’s the egg bomb bird which can drop a bomb below which deals a lot of damage. Finally there’s the actual bomb bird which blows up after a short time or you can trigger the explosion early. You’ve definitely got a lot of options for the birds and ultimately you will need to master them all.

You’ll have a lot of time to do so because the game has a crazy amount of levels to go through. We’re not just talking one or two hundred, but significantly more than that. I don’t know exactly how many there are but there’s enough content here to last you for an extremely long amount of time. You’d have to be a really big fan of the series to stick around with it for so long though. After a while you are effectively playing the same same stage. While that can be said for many titles, you really feel the repetition in Angry Birds. It’s just unrelenting even if the actual gameplay can be fun. I think it just needs more cinematics or razzle dazzle to make you want to stick around. Otherwise you’ll probably just stop playing after 100 or so levels. That’s what I did at any rate.

There are 3 games here, but they all have the same gameplay style so that doesn’t really solve the problem. My favorite was actually the summer game because I liked the level designs the most but they all have their charms. The graphics are pretty good I’d say. It’s not as if there is a lot in the game that really needs graphics so that probably made it easier for the company to focus on making those sections look good. We also get a few cinematics in the first game, but not really in the others. Calling them “cinematics” may be a bit strong since it’s mostly just stills that try to make you think they’re moving. I’m definitely still glad to have them though.

Angry Birds can be surprisingly difficult as well. Some levels took me dozens of tries to complete so they definitely weren’t your average mobile levels. The spike happens quite suddenly so even if you have a pretty good understanding of the birds and their various abilities I expect you will have some trouble here. I wonder how the final levels would be. They’ve got to be crazy since I was relatively early on in the game when I ended up putting it down. I have this nagging feeling that some of the birds have extra abilities that I don’t know about, but more likely I just wasn’t hitting the right angels.

Overall, The Angry Birds Trilogy is a fun game. It’s just not the kind of title that you want to play in long batches. I think it’s at its best a few levels at a time like most mobile games. It’s just not really convenient to be turning your console on and off so often the way you can on a cell phone. You’ll likely enjoy the game more if you play it on the mobile, but if you do choose to get the console version it is nice to have all of the content available right away. I do think more mobile games should try to port over to console though. It sounds like it should be fairly easy to do so the companies should make at least a bit of a profit in the transition.

Overall 6/10

Red Sonja vs Maximo

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Suggested by iKnowledge Maximo may have just come off a win, but he won’t be able to repeat that with Red Sonja. Red Sonja is an expert close quarters fighter with her sword skills and her augmented physical abilities will allow her to get the better of Maximo. She has been shown to be able to dodge lightning. Her speed is far greater than that of Maximo’s and that will be the key difference in this fight. I don’t believe he will be able to stop her. Red Sonja wins.

Prince Phillip vs Maximo

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Suggested by iKnowledge Maximo has arrived from the Ghosts n Goblins series. He’s a talented swordsman who got some handy abilities by the end of the game. He can cause swords to come up from the ground and his sword is surrounded by fire. It’s also unbreakable which never hurts either. Philip once became a fire beast in the live action Disney crossover series, but for the most part he hasn’t gotten all that powerful. His best portrayal may be from Kingdom Hearts, but even then in a 1 on 1 I don’t see him beating Maximo. They are very similar, but Maximo ultimately has the better weapon and abilities. Maximo wins.

Erdrick vs Kirby

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Suggested by Sonic Erdrick is a powerful warrior who really proved himself in the climax of Dragon Quest. The kid may have started out as a modest fighter, but his abilities are to be feared by the end. Kirby is very versatile and has attained a lot of abilities over the years, but they really can’t even begin to compare with Erdrick’s. Erdrick will be able to keep Kirby at bay with his projectiles and there’s no way the pink fighter can avoid them forever. Erdrick wins.

Terry Bogard vs Captain Falcon

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Suggested by Sonic Captain Falcon is definitely a powerful fighter and he’s a really solid matchup for Terry. Both of them have similar fighting styles and abilities so this will all come down to who has more skill. I’ve got to give that to Terry. Captain Falcon has had some great showings thanks to Super Smash Bros and F-Zero GX, but it’s hard to compare that to Terry who has been in over 10 games with a lot of great feats to show for it. He has more stamina and will land hits more consistently. Terry Bogard wins.

Terry Bogard vs Mario

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Suggested by Sonic Mario is a character who has been around for a very long time so lets not get that confused. The guy can ball! Mario has been shown to be proficient in every sport as well as kart racing. He’s also fought in many games and has power ups ranging from Power Stars to other such enhancements. That being said, I don’t think he is ready for Terry. Mario’s reaction times have been shown to be downright terrible in the main Mario games and his physical stats aren’t amazing. I believe Terry would be able to keep Mario missing until Terry delivers a punishing counter. Terry Bogard wins.

Terry Bogard vs Snake

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Suggested by Sonic Terry Bogard is a very skilled hand to hand fighter and now he is finally making his debut onto the blog. Terry’s a true threat and he will be too fast for Snake to deal with. Snake has basic hand to hand training, but his main specialty is with his guns. Those won’t be very helpful here because Terry is just too fast. He’ll weave his way in and out of Snake’s firearms and all he needs is a single direct hit to deal massive damage. Terry Bogard wins.