MacHouse game rating: 9.0/10
Major League Baseball 2K9 (hereby, MLB2K9) is a real-time baseball simulation game that was published by 2K Games in March 3. This game is available for such platforms as Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 2 and PC. The game was developed by 2K Sports (Visual Concepts). I can tell you at the beginning that this isn’t an ordinary baseball game.
As the title suggests, MLB2K9 covers all 30 Major League Baseball teams. Well, that’s not it. The game even covers all Triple-A teams. I’m not a big fan of MLB myself. I lived in Norman, Oklahoma for several years. So I know that there is one Triple-A team in Oklahoma City. That’s the Oklahoma City Redhawks. This team is the Triple-A affiliate of the Texas Rangers. As shown in Screenshot 01, MLB2K9 is set up in such a way that I’m ready to play a game where the Redhawks is my team that will compete against Las Vegas 21S.
 Screenshot 01 – Source: MacHouse |
So MLB2K9 lets you pick a favorite team of your own and play against others. Actually, this game is much more complex than just offering non-competitive, freelance game plays. It allows players to pick a team or more and to start a season tournament. Suppose that you have picked one MLB team. And if your team plays well during the 2009 season, then there’s a good chance that it can proceed to post-season games. And the final goal is of course to win the World Series. This competitive mode is called Franchise.
 Screenshot 02 – Source: MacHouse |
 Screenshot 03 – Source: MacHouse |
 Screenshot 04 – Source: MacHouse |
In order to start the 2009 tournament, you need to select Franchise under Game Modes at first. (See Screenshots 02-3.) Then create an account with a team or more to choose. (See Screenshot 04.) What I mean by ‘a team or more’ is that you can control more than one team during the season.
Anyway, if you have already created an account, then you just need to load it. If you have chosen to create a new account, then the next screen that you will see is Franchise Setup. (See Screenshot 05.) One of the settings that you can control is the number of games during the season. The maximum number of games is 162. The least number is 52. You will get to choose the number of innings, too. That means you don’t necessarily have to play for all 9 innings in each game. If you want to shorten each game, you can set the number of innings to 3, 4 or whatever. (Choose the number of innings between 3 and 9.) Next, you will get to choose a team over your control. The first team appearing in the team profile screen is always Los Angeles Angels. (See Screenshot 06.) If that’s not the team that you want to control, then you need to use the [ and ] keys to toggle and choose a different team. Shown in Screenshot 07 is the 2009 game schedule for Boston Red Sox, which I have chosen as my team. The very first game of the season is scheduled in April 6 against Tampa Bay Rays. Continue reading
