Name: The Bigs 2
Publisher: 2K Sports
Developer: Blue Castle Games
Genre: Sports (baseball)
Interactivity is a fickle friend to gamers. Being constantly split on what they like, the public is always going to be demanding a different way to play the same game. The motion-sensing phenomenon is occurring solely because it's fresh and exciting. So, take baseball for instance. For a long time, baseball games were sim-style games, recently dominated by 2K's MLB series and Sony's MLB series. Suddenly, arcade-style gameplay was all the rage, and we received games like Mario Super Sluggers and The Bigs. Now, The Bigs was an interesting first step for Blue Castle Games, who's first project was 2K's new uber-arcade baseball game. The Bigs did reasonably well, and was a pretty fun game. After two years in development the sequel, The Bigs 2, is now out. Does it deliver the arcade experience the public craves? Read on...
The Bigs 2 continues on from the game mechanics of The Bigs. The premise of the game is all about getting turbo. Turbo is earned by pulling off big plays such as striking a batter out, making a big catch, or throwing a double play. Turbo can then be used in any position to power up your player. Batters can hit harder, pitchers throw faster, baserunners have better foot speed, and fieldman can execute plays quicker. The trick is to use the turbo at the right times to execute effective plays and score lots of runs.
Graphics
The best looking part of The Bigs 2 are the effects. When using turbo, the interface switches to a sepia tone and the ball gets a vapor trail behind it. Hitting a Big Blast shot out of the park into a water tower are the "wow" moments that make the game come alive, visually. Not everything is terrific looking though. None of the players look quite like their counterparts. Even your created player has very limited options. If the create-a-player cannot match up with the competition's, then there is a problem. It certainly doesn't have the fidelity of a Tiger Woods game, but dammit, there isn't even a face-shaping tool; it's just 20 pre-created faces to choose from. Pretty weak. The stadiums all look decent, and there's a moment of awe when you first see the Major League stadium after playing in crummy Mexico diamonds for a while.
0.5/1
Audio
Again, another poor showing. There isn't much they did right with the audio, actually. The soundtrack is very generic rock with very few ground-breaking tracks, or good tracks at that. The commentary is pretty lackluster. The announcer starts off with clever remarks, but becomes repetitive before your first game is done. The sound effects on the field are fine, but they didn't blow me away in any way. Overall, it would be better to mute your TV when playing The Bigs 2.
0/1
AI
The AI players all seem to have real issues with playing a balanced game. On certain occasions, I can't seem to get a break; they're catching everything I hit, or striking me out with ease. Other times, I can throw 3 pitches across the same spot on the plate at the same speed, and they still miss. These issues balance out to an AI system that is so unbalanced that it balances itself out, which is good in a pathetic kind of way. All the MLB stars are rendered in the game, so you can play as or against your favourite player, and watch them make amazing catches against you only to strike out while on plate.
0.5/1
Variety
The Bigs 2 loves its minigames. The main career mode, Become a Legend, intersperses minigames and standard baseball games throughout the career. The minigames are all kind of useless, but still a bit of fun. You, as your created player, have to play through minigames to improve your skills. There are obstacle courses to improve foot speed, batting practice for your swing, and catching practice for your fielding. There are a few more position-centric minigames for particular players to work on, as well. The highlight of the game is Homerun Pinball. Immortalized in The Bigs, the famous minigame is back in the sequel. The game works exactly as it sounds: you play pinball with homeruns. It seems a bit stupid, but after you get into it, the game becomes very addictive. There are maps, clothes, tattoos, and other bonus goodies to unlock as you play the variety of modes.
1/1
Value
The game gives the deceptive feeling of length. The Bigs 2 now has a more fleshed-out season mode, a better player-focused career mode, and more minigames than you can shake a bat at. So why does it not last? Answer: it wears out its welcome to soon. The issue with the Become a Legend mode is the guidelines for it. Aside from the minigames, you play through the usual games of baseball as your pro player. Each game needs to be won, but there are also special objectives you need to complete to advance. For instance, you need to throw a player out with your created player, or hit a certain amount of balls, or perform a Legendary catch. These coupled with the fact that each game must be won is unique at first, but becomes frustrating before long. Because you also don't know how the AI will play, some of these objectives rely on blind luck most of the time. Trying forever to perform a double play with your created player over and over again can cause major piss-offary. While the modes are built to last, there's no telling if your going to even want to finish them.
0.5/1
Innovation
The main new ideas in The Bigs 2 were to deliver a fuller experience. In that sense, Blue Castle succeeded. The season mode is here and the Become a Legend mode is better than the previous version (despite my gripes with it). A few new gameplay mechanics have been added to make the gameplay more unpredictable. The wheelhouse mechanic is new idea that gives a bigger risk/reward idea to the gameplay. There is also a Big Blast mechanic that can cause serious destruction to the outcome of any game. The issue I have with what's new is not what they added; it's what they didn't add. The fundamentals of baseball are still completely wrong in The Bigs 2, and aside from the revamped season mode, nothing else seems to come close to the importance that the basics are still not quite there.
0.5/1
Presentation
The Bigs 2 being a sports game, there is no real story to the career mode. The game gives a bit of background: your player was injured, became washed up, and is now ready to make a comeback. You start off in Mexico and work your way up to and through the Majors. It's simple but effective backing for the career, and the menus keep the game working. There is always lots to do or look at between games, but it can make things look too busy. The interface has some issues as well. There are always lots of meters on the screen at one time, and trying to watch these and the actual gameplay can become very cumbersome. There are pitching meters, batting meters, a mini-diamond to control your runners, and quicktime events that will pop up out of thin air. It becomes a bit much to watch.
0.5/1
Difficulty
As I mentioned before, the AI is so unbalanced that gameplay seems stupidly functional because of it. That was only half-true. The game is actually very much on the hard side. For hours, I would be stuck on a particular event either because the objectives were too tricky, or the AI was so lopsided that the actual game was too hard to beat. The easy moments are nice, but they are few and far between to all that can go wrong. I was constantly left kicking myself, wondering why this game was so cheap, and cursing this creation which has somehow become the bane of my existence. That is not a good sign at all.
0/1
Gameplay
The game itself is very flawed. It can be overly hard, or cheap most points in the game. The basic mechanics of baseball are often nowhere to be found here. Things will often occur in the game with no warning, and end without you knowing what's going on. There are pointless "training" missions, idiotic objectives, and overall a very stripped down feel. Yet, the exciting aspects of the game almost make up for it. Almost. The risk/reward system used in this game works particularly well. Throw a pitch in the batter's wheelhouse and you risk a harder hit. But get a strike in the zone and the wheelhouse shrinks and you get some turbo. The constant need for turbo and the thrill of using it makes the game almost fun to play. But if you take a closer look, you can see all the flaws.
0.5/1
Fun
Here's what was fun:
+ Variety of minigames
+ Exciting gameplay
Here's what was awful:
- Retarded AI
- Cheap gameplay
- Objective system is a failure
- Crap audio
The Bigs 2 was not fun for me. This seemed odd considering how I thought the first game was fun. Maybe I'm over it, but the arcade aspect did not work in the sequel. It's actually kind of ironic: how a game that strips everything out to make room for a fun arcade baseball game, loses the fun when the basics are lost. That's The Bigs 2's biggest failure, it's just not fun. It's got attitude, it's got style, but it has no substance and a very limited time-limit of enjoyment.
0/1
I think I'm done with this series. The Bigs was fun in the arcade-style gameplay that was in 2 years ago. That style is out now, and The Bigs 2 feels dated because of it. It reeks of no innovation, flawed gameplay, and irritating difficulty. There was a lot of potential to make this a super fun game, but the game is so flawed now, I don't see the series getting back on track. Though my complaints are certainly not going to stop 2K from making more The Bigs games, I suppose I'll do what I can to stop you from wasting your money. Don't buy this game. It is awful.
4/10
Topic: [Video Game] The Bigs 2 (Read 6565 times)
