Surprisingly, though, the controls do not seem to be superior to the 2006 Wii Sports baseball, and in some ways Nintendo’s pack-in title feels more fluid and responsive. Pitching and batting both use a combination of waggle and some timing, and while timing is not always precise with Wii motion, it works well enough here. The best thing that can be said about the controls is that they work. The play-by-play and commentary, which draws from the excellent talents of Gary Thorne, Steve Phillips, and John Kruk, feels authentic most of the time, and Thorne in particular is a natural.
The sound is somewhat better. The music is garden variety sports game pop, but it works good, and the in-game ambiance of the crowd and the pipe organ works fine. The framerate seems to hold well enough, though, so the gameplay itself runs smooth. The stadiums are blurry and sterile, the players are polygonal, and there is some unsightly “tearing” along the seams of some of the outfields.
MLB 2K12 FOR WII PS3
(This isn’t just a Wii thing, either, as the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions are also less-than-revolutionary when it comes to visuals.) Everything in the Wii version is decidedly last-gen, and while some of this may owe itself to Wii’s limited hardware and a baseball game’s graphical complexity, it’s still frustrating to see that other titles have managed to look better. It’s a good thing beauty isn’t just skin-deep, though, because graphically, this game isn’t a real looker. Whether it’s playing a quick bit against a hated rival team or getting a handful of friends to play through a season together, the game can be shallow or deep to a player’s liking. The franchise mode, with its front office considerations, is the deep end of the pool, and it certainly gives the game as much simulation as action. The gameplay modes are pretty easy to guess: single game mode, season, franchise, home run derby, and the requisite arcade-style baseball multiplayer minigame. (The exception is on PlayStation 3, where Sony also has developed MLB: The Show.) Major League Baseball 2K12, of 2K Sports, is the lone ticket to the ballgame on Wii, and while it doesn’t do anything incredibly foolish, it isn’t a brilliant sports title either. As in most other major sports, the onset of the season coincides with the annual ritual of a slate of tie-in games, and, also as in other sports, one company more or less has a monopoly. Baseball is once again alive, with 30 teams who all think they have a legitimate chance to win a World Series. It seems like it just ended, but the great summer pastime is back.