With sports games it's a constant struggle to innovate on a yearly
basis. You hear it all the time from those who pick up Madden or NBA
Live every year and are disappointed by the familiarity of the product.
With The Bigs,
2K Sports
seems to be going with a two-year development cycle which, you'd
assume, would afford them plenty of time to add cool, new features and
gameplay mechanics. While that is true on PS3 and Xbox 360, the same
cannot be said on PS2. That's not to say that
The Bigs 2
doesn't present a solid game of arcade baseball, but those who dropped
their cash on the first game should let this one pass by.
The basics have unsurprisingly stayed the same. You still pitch by
holding the appropriate button, charge a meter and release the button
at the appropriate time. You still have the big heat ability while on
the mound (provided you've maxed out your points) and big blast while
at the plate. Unlike the console versions, though, there are no
legendary abilities on the PS2. Instead you'll see the same star
ratings that were in the last version of The Bigs.
Really the only change that has been made to the core gameplay is
the addition of the wheelhouse. The wheelhouse is a power zone for
hitters that can be diminished if pitchers can sneak the ball by.
You'll also get a significant turbo boost for venturing into the zone.
Still, that isn't enough to truly change the game in a substantial way.
I would have liked to see improvements made to the fielding mechanic as
it's still a little too difficult to make your way under a routine fly
ball and throwing to a base seemed sluggish at times. Again, none of
these refinements are present. Baserunning can also be problematic. I
found rounding bases to be an annoyance. All too often my player would
hold at a base even though I was clearly telling him to make a mad dash
elsewhere.
Sadly, there are no legendary catches, no legendary abilities and
no new mini-games to be had. Not only that, but there's also no Big
Slam ability present on PS2. Again, this all leads up to my main point
that not enough has been added to warrant the sticker price on The Bigs
2.
The Rookie Challenge that was in the first Bigs has been renamed Legend
Challenge but that's really the only change that has been made. Sure,
this time you'll have the opportunity to eventually take on legendary
baseball players but the structure of the mode hasn't budged an inch
and feels almost identical to the previous rendition. You still earn
experience points which you can assign to your player's attributes and
you'll still need to complete a number of challenges to play different
teams and move locations on the map.
Another of my biggest issues with The Bigs 2 is the total lack of
online play. The first Bigs at least had ad hoc play. Not ideal by any
means, but it was something. The Bigs 2 has nothing in the way of
online support which is a massive letdown.
The visuals have stayed largely the same from last year. Everything
looks decent for a PS2 game, but nothing has improved all that much
from last year. The big blast and turbo effects are still a little
cheesy being that they're only color filters placed over the screen.
The slowdown that hurt the first Bigs has also been remedied for the
most part.
The audio performs well enough, though comments are regurgitated
fairly often and are never very specific to what's happening on the
field. Sound effects are solid with nice bat cracks and sounds on the
field. The overall audio package hasn't changed much from last year,
but it's still serviceable this time around.
Closing CommentsThe Bigs 2
isn’t necessarily a bad game of baseball, but it just doesn’t pack
enough new content to make it worthwhile for those who invested in The
Bigs the first go-round. It would have been nice if the developers had
taken the time to port some of the cooler features from the other
console version, but there are none to be found. As it stands, those
who didn’t play The Bigs on PS2 might want to give this one a try, but
everyone else should steer clear.
Author by:
Nate ahearn
