MLB 2K8 or MLB '08?
 

I haven't bought a baseball game since MVP '04 and I'm getting conflicting reports on each of the two current series of games. Some of my friends have said decent things about the 2K series and hated The Show games, while sites like Gamespot seem to have had more favorable ratings for The Show than the 2Ks.

Can someone with knowledge of the games run down some pros and cons? Does either have a batting simulation similar to the old MVP games where you can guide your swing with L3? What are the franchise/career modes like?

Any help would be appreciated.

People say the Show is better, but its your basic hit the button and press the button for hitting and pitching. They say its a good game. I have never played it before. So i dont know. 2k games at least try to be innovated with pitching and batting and what not. This year. they have rewritten the ball engine. The fielding engine, the batting and pitching engine. Demo should be out within the next few days.

I will be buying MLB2k8 for sure.

Yeah, from what I've read 2K8 rehauled the pitching/hitting and has swing stick. Batting simulation is arguably the most important aspect to a baseball game to me and I much prefer that to what I've heard about The Show's batting sim.

The Show is one of the best baseball games ever made

Expound on that, if you don't mind. Whatcha like?

I have enjoyed MLB 07 a lot last year, the next seems more interesting, the most realistic baseball experience to date with innovations, and I have preordered MLB 08: The Show on PS3, which will be released on March 4, 2008. looking forward to it.

I've only played the MLB 07 on PS2 and it was pretty good, but I only played maybe twice so I never got a real feel for it. The feature list they packed into the upcoming PS3 one is insane though.

It "feels" right and is about the closest to a pure baseball sim in my mind since High Heat 2002/03 which was #1 in my book until I played the Show last year

That - and the Road to the Show mode where you play as a player in the minors trying to make your way up make the game a winner

About the only thing I didn't like last year is that the graphics weren't too eye-opening (which didn't bother me much, I'm more into a better gameplay experience) but from all things I've read, they much improved it this year.

I haven't gotten a chance to download it yet, but the demo for MLB the show '08 is on the PSN marketplace - download it and try it for yourself and decide

Some of us like the simpleness of those games.. That is why the Wii makes me mad, I want to sit down and play a game.. Not ****ing learn techno moves to acomplish something..

I loved the original allstar baseball game on n64..

That and basewars.. Give me a new version of basewars...

I still enjoy Baseball Stars original 8 bit game.

I believe it was the first game to ever keep running stats.

MLB2K7 was crap.

I have The Show 07 for PS3. It's ok.

I think that in-game, it's an average baseball game. Nothing special. The other things like franchise and career mode have some problems with generating realistic simulations.

It's been a long while since I played it, but for example in career mode I created myself as a closer. After building my player up diligently over several seasons, I could never get a contract like an upper echelon closer should get. Even being almost max skills and in the mid/late 20s, I'd get contract offers like $2 million over 3 years.

Further, my player started with the Royals, and after making it to the majors finally I kept getting sent down to AAA for seemingly no reason. At the start of one season, I made 6 or 7 appearances, gave up a run or two but saved all of them, but it was back to Omaha. Conversely, I was mowing them down in Omaha and couldn't do anything to get called back up. It seemed to go away once you signed a free-agent deal, but before that it was almost random.

Hopefully they fix the career mode because it was pretty cool apart from the realism issues.

I'm really torn on what to get.

I know they made improvements in 2k from last year, but last year's game was brutal to play. Everything was a HR or a single. Pitching was impossible.

I might wait a day, and check the reviews on both games because I dont want to waste 60 bucks again.

Plus you could run multi-player leagues. I had it in the Army and everyone on my floor in the barracks was in it. We wore the piss out of that game. I even had to change the battery inside the game once.

Played the MLB08 the Show demo. The game seems pretty cool. I didnt care for the pitching. Its like hitting golf balls in video games. 2ksports kills them in graphics no doubt.

Going to play the demo some more, and whenver the 2k demo drops check it out and see what game i will purchase. I am curious to see the new swingstick 2.0 and the new pitching from the 2k game.

I too just played the demo for the show and it killed MLB from last year.

If the graphics are the same in 2k8 as 2k7, the show will destroy them.

2k7's graphics are way better then the Show. I dont even see a comparison really. The show runs alot smother though, but thats compared to last years game. No clue on this years game. Will find out in a few days though.

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Thats funny I was just getting ready to say, I'm still partial to RBI Baseball and Bases Loaded. :)

I liked 2k7 a lot (sliders were vital, though), and the series has really made strides since Brinkman came aboard. I'll probably rent 2k8 at the very least, and probably end up capitulating and buying it if I can pry myself away from OOTP long enough to play it.

That being said, The Show makes me want to say "**** it" and buy a PS3. I'm still tempted to pick up the PS2 version, despite the pains that are the load times and graphics.

Speaking of OOTP, I love dis beisbol game.

http://i31.tinypic.com/25i0imr.png
http://i30.tinypic.com/25i4tjm.png http://i29.tinypic.com/344wbvm.png

absolutely! Still play it from time to time in NES emulator.

I played that game day and night back in the day....for an NES game, it was quite complex....free agency...building up your players attributes...standings....full stats with top 10 in many categories....and that catchy music non-stop.

The best was when you could climb the outfield fence and rob someone of a HR.

Great game.

I just thought 2k7's graphics were very, very choppy. In playing the demo for the Show, I didn't get an ounce of that. The graphics were very smooth. The gameplay was smooth.

This is an easy fix: Just go to the OPTIONS menu and DESELECT "Carl Peterson" as the GM of your team.

You know I'm biased, but The Show is off the chain for this year. We just shipped the commercial we shot with Ryan Howard, it will begin airing this week. But the graphics are dam amazing. You do get to select your swing pre-pitch. The "stick" batting in 2k is still glitchy, from what I've heard. And though I'm not a sports gamer, I could get into The Show pretty easily in Rookie mode. And in Franchise mode, you have to learn all the 3rd base coach signals (they really give them to you based on the situation) and deep strategies for hitting and building your career. That is, if you're that deep into the game of baseball.

I just read the IGN review of The Show: 08 and it was pretty good. They said it is the game to get.

I played the 07 version on PS2 and loved it.

I love the show but playing online pisses me off..it always goes into "traffic delay" mode and sometimes stays that way until someone quits..2k had no problem playing online

Off-topic, but: Awesome avatar. I can't wait to play LittleBigPlanet.

I guess the show comes out tomorrow? I'll have to pick it up after work.

I think Tuesday.

I got it tonight in VA.

Graphics and gameplay are great.

I might be the worst player in baseball history at laying off pitches.

I just played a 23-inning game. I lost 1-0.

The Show 08 is 100x better than 2k7 was last year.

I haven't played The Show, but my gamer nerd associates swear by it over the 2k series.

I've read reviews that 2k8 is terrible.

IGN gave it a 6.9 I believe.

The show, while not perfect, scored an 8.6.

2k8 apparently has Fangraphs after games, which is pretty cool. Everything else I've seen about it has been pretty overwhelmingly negative, though. I think the IGN review was 7.4.

Guess I'll be buying Bully: Scholarship Edition.

The MLB 2k series has basically become Madden. The game has some bad stuttering issues, but instead of making the game smooth they slapped on some features like the trading cards and swing stick 2.0, which is apparently broken. I do hear the pitching and throwing with the right stick is nice though.

edit: UPDATE! The stuttering problems are believed to be caused by terrible use of the hard drive for caching. Taking out the hard drive will cause the game to run smoothly, so hopefully this can be patched quickly and easily. In the meantime, deal with the stuttering or use a memory card if you want to save.

It plays a good game of baseball no doubt. ITs very simulation now, but the framerate issue they have to fix in a patch asap. I dont mind the game to stutter every now and again. All games do that.

I hope they can fix it, because if they can its really sad because its a rock solid game of baseball finally.

Also, there is a few reviews which rate 2k8 over The Show, its just a matter of opinion i guess.

The demo is great. All the right analog stuff works well. The pitching is amazing. There is a slight stutter on the demo but I think it's worse in the final product. Hopefully they can patch it, if they do this is going to be a great game.

Has anybody played 2K8 for PS2? I'd like to hear about the swing stick and the gameplay.

IGN rates MLB 2k8 a 7.2 (which is pretty low for that site for a non-downloadable game) and The Show 08 gets an 8.7.

Main complaints with 2k8 center around graphical issues... frame rate, collision detection, animation glitches, inaccurate commentary.

Is 2k sports really going downhill? I mean, their hockey game got poor reviews this year and now the baseball game too. Their baseball games IMO were always pretty bad though.

IT actually got rated fairly high on other websites. xplay rated it 4/5 while it gave the show 3/5. EGM rated it 85/100. If it wasnt for the stupid framerate issue it's a damned good game of baseball.


ONly work around is you have to be signed out of xbox live for the game to run good. Its like it has some kind of memory leak when being logged on.

All the gaming message boards I have read have destroyed 2k8.

Bottom line, a released game should not have these types of issues.

It has 1 issue. Its a pretty big issue, but its not related to gameplay. I guess thats a good thing, but it shouldnt have went live with the ****ed up coding when being signed on to live.

I didn't catch whether you were discussing the Xbox version or PS3. I'm a ps3 guy, so that's the only reviews I have been reading.

Well, have both systems, but i bought it for the 360. No clue how the ps3 game runs. I may have to rent it just to see the difference.

Who wants to play a game of mlb 08?

Same here... I'm really not interested in spending $60 in a game that can't run at a reasonable frame rate. Ken Griffey Jr. baseball had that figured out 10 years ago.

thank god they finally posted and said they are working on a patch for the vip/framerate issue.

MLB The Show 08 is incredible. I've been playing Road to The Show mode with myself as a Royals system shortstop. I had a decent spring but was still optioned to AA to begin the season. Callaspo was playing short for the Naturals, but, fortunately for me, he had an injury after the 2nd game. I took over and played well in the first few games.

The minor leage stadiums are fun to see and the gameplay is outstanding. It's been a great pickup for the PSP for travel.