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The Bigs (Xbox 360)

By Mike Neylon on Monday, August 13, 2007 at 5:00 PM East
Filed Under Reviews  

“The Bigs” Screenshot
Sports games on the latest consoles generally tend to be highly realistic, trying to match not only the game play but the feel of the actual game down to the presentation and the timing. For sports enthusiasts this approach might be thrilling, but can be tedious for those less interested in the sport itself than in the game play. However, a few recent games have figured a way to break that mold, ignoring real world physics and expectations in order to make a game that feels more like an arcade game than a sports game. Just as NBA Street did for basketball, The Bigs takes the same arcade approach to baseball for a very satisfying experience.

The main career mode has you as “The Rookie” in an MLB franchise of your choice using the 2007 rosters, working your way through the minors and into the majors, eventually going to the World Series. Along the way, you need to complete certain challenges, some as easy as just winning a game against a given, others requiring you to meet certain goals such has having your rookie steal a base and still win the game, or having to come back from a 1-run deficit in the 9th inning while away. You also have the opportunity to steal players from other teams, replacing the weaker players in your initial lines, by successfully winning certain challenge. Your rookie character will earn points based on his fielding and batting performance which can be used to improve your statistics to create a more powerful player. In addition to the career mode, you can play against the computer or a friend on the same console or through Xbox Live, using your current rookie standings.

While you’re charged with making your rookie an outstanding ballplayer, you control pitching, fielding, and batting for all of your teams’ players. Pitching is rather simple: you use the thumbstick to set where you want the ball to go in and around the strike zone, and then select the type of pitch. You then need to hit the button one more time to set the pitch’s accuracy. A well-thrown pitch will end up exactly where you set it and likely throw the batter off, while a poorly timed press may allow the batter to gain insight as to where the ball will cross the plate and take full advantage of the situation (This works both ways, as your batter will be tipped-off should the pitch be bad). The game simulates pitcher stamina by given each type of pitch that can be thrown by the pitcher a meter. When a successful hit without an out is made, some of that pitch’s meter is consumed, the amount based on how damaging the play was. Once the meter is gone, the pitch is no longer available to the player. But, like most baseball games, you can swap out your pitchers when one is finally exhausted of pitches, though it will take several games in career mode to recover. Batting is straight-forward: you push in the area you think the pitch is coming to in the strike zone and then swing with the right timing. You can bunt, try for a regular swing which at best nets you a line drive, or try for the bleachers with power shots that require tight timing. While base running, you can take control of any runner quickly, allowing you to try for extra bases on a short drive, for example, in addition to stealing bases.

Fielding may be the weakest point in the game play. When a ball is hit, the closest man on the play will be highlighted for you and you gain full control of him; you can tap over to a secondary player if you want to. However, once the game decides who’s closest, that man will stop running, and for a brief moment, it took me a moment to recognize who I was controlling, and what direction I needed him to go. This caused a number of grounders to slip out of the infield, and field-splitting fly balls to be easily dropped because I was way out of position. However, beyond that, fielding is pretty straight forward: hit one of the face buttons to throw to the associated base, and with controls to try flying or diving catches, or to attempt a wall-climb to prevent a home run. A nice feature is whenever there’s a close play at home, you get to button-smash to try to turn the play in your favor (either when fielding or batting) as the runner attempts to barrel into the catcher and knock the ball loose. For the most part, the core baseball game plays instinctively, and brief tutorials help you get to speed quickly.

As part of the arcade nature, there are two additional features in the game. Mostly while pitching, though some offensive plays work towards this as well, you earn portions of a Turbo meter, which has a total of 5 segments. Once a segment is full, you can expend it with a trigger tap to get a single turbo shot for all four aspects of gameplay: for pitching, it allows you to through a smokin’ fast, barely-hittable pitch; for batting, it gives you a extra burst of power into your swing, and for both fielding and base-running, you get a quick zip in your pace. Because the Turbo mode is mostly filed by throwing lots of strikes, it really puts a bit of strategy for planning for your offensive inning or saving it up for a tough part of the other team’s lineup. In addition, a successful play (such as a strikeout or a double-play while on defense, or on-base hits while batting) earns points. At every 100,000 points, you gain a special Boost that lasts for as long as the current batter is up; as a pitcher, this pretty much ensures every pitch will be a missed strike, while as the batter, you will undoubtedly hit a homer as long as you make contact with the ball. This can be used very strategically, such as guaranteeing a grand slam at the right time. The computer AI is well-honed to use both of these extras to its advantage as well, so you have to play against those too; once you see the computer close to breaking 100,000, you either need to figure out how to stop him or minimize the damage that the guaranteed shot will do.

Besides the usual game modes, there are also a home run derby mode, and more impress, a home-run pinball mode. Here, you’re placed as the batter facing Times Square in New York City, and a pitcher throws you increasingly difficult pitches. With each pitch, you want to attempt to hit all the neon signs and other breakable objects that you can see in the Square, all which earn points and lead to super boosts just like in the main game. You’re given a number of pitches that you can miss, so once you’ve missed this, the game is over, which then allows you to upload your score to Xbox Live to compare to others.

The game looks fine, though while the various fields are well recreated within the game, there’s a lack of interactivity with them: no up-to-date scoreboards or the like. Plus, you can tell that the crowd in many of the stadiums are drastically reduced from its maximum capacity, and like most sports games, doesn’t really have a lot of distinct crowd action. The overall look may not have the spit and polish that the earlier MLB ‘07 had, but its certainly no clunker in appearance. Game sounds are fine, though the one announcer with his rather short list of canned responses can get a little monotonous.

2K Sports definitely hit one out of the park with The Bigs, combining the right elements of realism and sports play with arcade action to make this an excellent title that is easy to learn and plays quick. Graphics may not be as sharp as more realistic games, and there’s a few issues with fielding, but the formula and balance between reality and enjoyment is just about perfect, and shows promise for more sporting titles of the same flavor.

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