Kombo's Review Policy: Our reviews are written for you. Our goal is to write honest, to-the-point reviews that don't waste your time. This is why we've split our reviews into four sections: What the Game's About, What's Hot, What's Not and Final Word, so that you can easily find the information you want from our reviews.



What the Game's About
The weather is beginning to warm up and the crisp feeling of spring is in the air. Is there a better time of year than spring? The best part of spring is that baseball season is once again ready to start off. Old rivalries like the Red Sox vs Yankees are about to be born anew. The historical Yankee Stadium will no longer be witnessed this year, and a new era will begin down the road at the new Yankee Stadium. To commemorate the new 2009 baseball season, we have MLB 2K9.

What's Hot
When you put the game into your system, you'll be glad to know the game will actually start up. You'll see a title screen and all the nice little options we have come to expect out of our sport titles. You can play Season, Homerun Derby, Exhibition, and even hop online and play against some friends or whoever else happens to be playing. The online mode works very well.

2K made a major improvement in the visuals for the stadiums. The stadiums have a lot more vibrant colors and it really gives off the sense of being in the stadium during a crisp spring or summer day enjoying a game of baseball. The character animations have also been reworked and have a more fluid motion to them. No longer do pitchers look like jerky messes when delivering a pitch. Turning a double-play looks as smooth as butter and that's what baseball is all about.

What's Not
Just about everything else about the game isn't hot. The game is a complete mess. It has glitches, bugs, and so many problems with it that it's unplayable. Have you ever watched, or, hell, even played a baseball game where the player runs through the wall and makes a catch in the grandstands? Well, I sure have in MLB 2K9. My players have actually fallen through the ground while running to first base and never came back up and as a result, got thrown out on a ball hit off the wall. I guess you call that an unlucky break. If only the ball had gone over the fence, maybe the game would have locked up because my player would have never rounded the bases. Then again, maybe the opposing player would have just fused with wall and caught the ball, too.

To make matters even more humorous, you'll be able to throw out anyone at second base during a pick off throw. For some reason, once the player gets to second base, they forget that the pitcher can throw back. It's guaranteed to work 100% of the time. You are probably thinking to yourself that these kinds of bugs and problems only come around once in a while. Wrong. They are frequent. Falling baseballs will hit outfielders in the back of the head when they ricochet off the wall, and then the player won't pick the ball up and randomly just roll around the outfield grass. It's like watching a group of diseased Neanderthals playing the game for the first time.



There are a lot more problems I could share with you, but I don't want to waste your time naming all of them. While the stadiums and character animations are fluid and vibrant, the facial features of the characters are not.

Final Word
Want to play baseball this year? Buy a glove and ball and play with your friends. Even if you have no athletic ability in your genes, you'll have more fun playing it for real. If you have a PS3, buy MLB: 09 The Show. Just don't buy, rent, or play this game unless you want a good laugh. 2K needs to give this game some steroids, because it needs an edge on the competition.