(continued from previous page) ...lot more meaning and realism than the button mapping usually offers. The only minor hitch to this feature is the throwing meter seems to take a split-second before popping up. This could result in a tight play at first going to the runner because your throw lost that little bit of time. It also makes double-plays that much harder since the throwing meter usually has to pop up twice to complete.

Our favorite addition out of the main three was the Total Pitch Control. This ingenious mechanic has made pitching a lot more realistic and by far and away the best it has been offered in any baseball game to date. Every pitcher in the game will come with his set-list of pitches and the way each is thrown. However, they will all be thrown using the right analog stick only (option to change back to original is there, but believe us, you probably won’t want to).

You’ll push your analog stick in the direction indicated to begin your wind-up once that is done, you’ll rotate the stick or push it in the next expected direction to reflect the forward motion of the pitcher, and finally, you’ll let the analog stick return to the middle to indicate where the ball should be released. If you’ve done it even close to right, your pitch should hit the desired spot. Unfortunately, if you mistimed and executed it with a bit of error, you may want to brace yourself for getting tagged. An improperly timed pitch will result in a “meatball” being thrown to the batter. This will result in a huge hit and potentially a homerun.

Depending on the difficulty setting, you’ll see a wide variety of them. If you’re playing on a much harder difficulty, expect to see these meatballs get slaughtered for homer after homer. That happens to be the only issue with this new design. The computer makes you pay for too much at higher difficulties. We feel there should be a bit more variety around the hits that occur from your mistakes. Outside of that though, this new mechanic is absolutely fantastic and we hope to see other baseball games implement it as well.

One of the other issues that plagued last year’s title was the baserunning. Though this wasn’t a huge change to this year’s version, 2K Sports did take care of the problems surrounding it. One of the key factors was the ability to score the guy from second on a base hit. Last year this proved a lot more difficult than it should have been fortunately this problem has been resolved completely. Another error in MLB 2K7 took place online where a squeeze play between third base and home had a major glitch to it. This problem has also been rectified.

The baserunning has also been mapped to the four main face buttons, each representing the base they should. You’ll also still be able to use the triggers as well. In order to advance individual baserunners, you’ll be able to select them with the left analog stick and advance them separately. As we stated at the beginning though, good and bad come hand in hand in this title. Though this may be minor and only an issue for the impatient players, it is still worth mentioning. We cannot express how often we hit a single or a double, then pressed the X button to get to our next at bat, only to watch our guy on base take off for home. Due to the button mapping being arranged like this, it makes the impatient gamer pay. Kind of like Pavlov’s dog all over again, don’t you think?

Fielding has been completely redone as well. One of the coolest things we noticed and it took us a moment to realize it was happening, was that when a pop fly is hit to the outfield, you’ll be able to see where it is landing however if you have to turn your back to the ball in the air to run to that designated area, the target disappears. It makes sense, since you still can’t see the trajectory of the ball with your back turned. This small but added effect definitely brings out the realistic side of ... (continued on next page)