Major League Baseball 2K6 (Xbox 360)
Manufacturer: Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. Part number: 29940
- More product information:
- Editors' review
- User reviews
- Specifications
- Manufacturer info
- Description:
- Major League Baseball 2K6 brings you the definitive baseball simulation. With a truly immersive pitcher-batter showdown featuring the most accurate pitching and batting A.I. ever created, Major League Baseball 2K6 delivers the true Big League experience like never before.
Where to buy
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| eBay |  | In stock | Enter zip code to get total price: Price +Tax +Shipping =Total price | as of 12/04/2009 |
Gamespot editors' review
Major League Baseball 2K6 (Xbox 360) price range: $14.95
- Reviewed by: Frank Provo
- Reviewed on: 04/14/2006
- Updated on:05/17/2006
- Released on: 04/10/2006
As expected, the Xbox 360 version of Major League Baseball 2K6 flaunts nicer visuals and livelier audio than either of the versions of the game that are available for the PlayStation 2 and the older Xbox. It also benefits from a slightly better variety of play animations and cutaways. That's the good news. The bad news is that the jump to the 360 hasn't done much overall to spice up the game's halfhearted presentation. Many player faces are still inaccurate, the same replays and play animations still recur frequently, and, although the animation is more fluid in this version, the players still look a little jittery while they're running. To further complicate matters, the Xbox 360 game also suffers from a greater frequency of minor bugs and AI quirks than its so-called "last-generation" counterparts do. None of these rough edges are deal breakers on their own, but, taken together, they conspire to severely drag down what is otherwise a deep and feature-rich baseball sim.
Although the visuals are crisp, the presentation lacks personality.
Without a doubt, the graphics put the high-resolution capabilities of the 360 hardware to good use, at least in the technical sense. The player and stadium models are heavily detailed and everything has a sharp, vibrant look. Scoreboards and signs behind the outfield, which automatically update with line scores and dynamic advertisements, are perfectly legible from behind the plate. Finer details--such as skin tones, facial features, clothing, dirt, and turf--look more textured in the Xbox 360 version, as contrasted with the comparatively muted details found in the versions available for the PS2 and the original Xbox. Player faces look disturbingly human, although, for every face that actually matches a real player's, there's another that's completely wrong. On the one hand, Pedro Martinez and Alex Rodriguez look like the guys you see on TV every couple of days. On the other hand, Manny Ramirez doesn't have his knotty dreds and Ichiro Suzuki looks like he's an Italian-American.
The crowd in the 360 game is especially impressive. Every last spectator, from the fans behind the plate to those in the upper deck, is a complete 3D model, which is quite the improvement over the cardboard cutouts and low-poly people normally found in the seats in most sports video games. Individual spectators stand up, wave, and fidget in their seats. In certain views, you'll notice pizza and beverage vendors walking the concourses. After a home run, the cutaway viewpoint will show the person who caught the ball celebrating their catch. It's also very cute how spectators fight over foul balls that are hit into the stands.
When compared side by side with the PS2 and original Xbox versions, the Xbox 360 version looks smoother in motion and has a wider variety of play animations and cutaways. Players still look a little jittery when they run, but individual plays are silky smooth. On the whole, the variety of different plays is good. Routine throws from the infield to first all look the same, but there are plenty of different animations for double plays, outfield catches, and non-routine plays. It really is like the difference between night and day when you see how many different shoestring catches and athletic grabs happen in this version of the game compared to the others. There are also more instant replays, crowd cutaways, and player-reaction shots to see in the Xbox 360 game.
Some player faces are exact, some are downright bogus.
That's not to say that replays, cutaways, and reaction shots are a frequent occurrence. They're not. After most plays, the viewpoint simply switches right back to the hitting or pitching view. When a snappy catch or a tide-turning play happens, the odds of the game celebrating it with an instant replay or a camera cutaway are fairly low. Perhaps one out of every three plays gets the broadcast treatment. That's ultimately the biggest problem with Major League Baseball 2K6. While the game flexes the system's technical might, it doesn't do a good job of celebrating all of the subtle nuances that make the game of baseball so much fun to watch at the ballpark or on television. Batter walk-ups and post-strikeout reactions are the exception rather than the norm. Players walk off the field when the inning is over, but they don't walk back to their positions or pass the ball around after an out is made. In terms of visual atmosphere, local sports channels do a better job of making baseball seem exciting than this game does.
Thankfully, the audio portion of the presentation fares much better. ESPN's Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, arguably the best commentator team in baseball today, have the in-game play-calling duties. Some of their calls don't convey the proper level of emotional response, but they make up for it by keeping up with the action and having a lot to say. Additional comments and dialogue were recorded specifically for the Xbox 360 version of the game, allowing the pair to offer commentary and insight into offbeat situations and plays that they generally gloss over in the other versions. The crowd and the stadium public address system do a bang-up job of ratcheting up the volume in response to close plays and home-team highlights. Additional atmospheric audio was also recorded for the Xbox 360 game, adding more pep to the already lively stadium environments. There's a satisfying range of miscellaneous baseball-related sound effects, but all of the different musical snippets, crowd comments, umpire calls, and stadium announcements are what ultimately give each ballpark an authentic and exciting auditory atmosphere. It's just too bad that the visuals can't convey the same degree of personality as the audio does.
User reviews
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horrible game, don't waste your money
by PhishDK on July 24, 2006
Pros: good player graphics, abilitiy to switch to classic mode for easier swinging
Cons: absolute horrible game play, too many controls, still don't understand half of the actions
Summary: Yes the graphics have advanced since last years mlb2k6 however 2k6 does not know how to make baseball games. What ever happened to MVP baseball? Anyways, they tried to make ...
Summary: Yes the graphics have advanced since last years mlb2k6 however 2k6 does not know how to make baseball games. What ever happened to MVP baseball? Anyways, they tried to make this game so realistic that it sucks. The controls are hard to learn and the players run too slow in the field. I'm not even gonna go on and list the other problems with this game. What it comes down to is that if you're a hard core Derek Jeter fan than you'll love this game because it makes him better than everyone else and you would only be buying it for nostalgic purposes. Every sim'd season puts the yankees with Jeter on top and the controls suck. Online and regular gameplay suck and I would not suggest this game to anyone, not even a hardcore yankees fan or Derek Jeter himself.
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This game is an absolute atrocity
by hytegd on July 6, 2006
Pros: Graphics, The fact that Derek Jeter is on the cover
Cons: Gameplay, Lineups, Menu's, Presentation
Summary: This is an absolutely horrible baseball game. I don't even know where to start. First of all the intro music sounds like some 16 bit mono track pulled out ...
Summary: This is an absolutely horrible baseball game. I don't even know where to start. First of all the intro music sounds like some 16 bit mono track pulled out of the original nintendo machine. I don't know how you are supposed to get excited for a game that has such garbage for an opening tune. Another problem with the game is how to play with your preferred settings. If you change the default settings and save it as a franchise, you have to ALSO reload the settings as well as the franchise EVERY SINGLE time you start up the game, which becomes a royal pain. It is also extremely hard to navigate through the sub-menu's for all the minor league teams and managerial pages, rendering that aspect of the game totally worthless. And for all the baseball purists out there, the default lineups are absolutely ridiculous. When would you ever have miguel tejada leading off for the orioles? What about david ortiz hitting 6th for the red sox? or perhaps paul konerko in the #2 spot for the chicago white sox. Why is there a box that slides across, up, over and down for a runner on each base? Could the screen get any more cluttered? There are there no mini games or spring training games to improve players. It really makes me angry that 2k sports has the license for major league baseball. EA did such an outstanding job with MVP and that game isn't even backwards compatible. It's safe to say that it will be a while before we see another good baseball video game. Until then don't bother buying this trash or any other game from 2k sports for that matter, because the hockey game is just as pitiful.
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Best Player graphics ever... whats up with the field though
by bpizle on May 12, 2006
Pros: Great player graphics (face) and jersey..... good season and gm mode
Cons: fans are very unrealistic and the fields look like fake dirt on the warning track
Summary: Good game overall. unbelievable player graphics. Jerseys and player closeups look just like NBA Live 06 and Madden. I was kind of surprised with 2k sports though. They really hit ...
Summary: Good game overall. unbelievable player graphics. Jerseys and player closeups look just like NBA Live 06 and Madden. I was kind of surprised with 2k sports though. They really hit the target here with the only baseball game for a 360. Some things bad about it though is that Wrigley Fields ivey on the fence is really fake looking, at least EA made it move and look like Ivey... Overall:::Great!!!
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Very last-gen
by sarfdawg on May 4, 2006
Pros: decent graphics, good announcing
Cons: bascially a good Xbox game - not a 360 game.
Summary: Well, for starters it took 2 weeks to get the game rolling because of the dreaded 'cache crash' (if you haven't heard about that, go to www.2ksports.com ...
Summary: Well, for starters it took 2 weeks to get the game rolling because of the dreaded 'cache crash' (if you haven't heard about that, go to www.2ksports.com and click on forums). Once the patch came down through Live, you could then play a complete game without crashing.
Graphically, the game is good, not great. There are some improvements, but I would think this would have been a good look for Xbox, but I expected more for Xbox 360.
Gameplay is solid.
Announcers are good (Miller and Morgan), but the crowd and their individual taunts at opposing players are exactly the same as the previous versions (e.g. to Marcus Giles, "Hey, Giles, you'll always be Brian's brother.")
This is exactly what we were afraid of as baseball video game fans - with 2ksports being the only show in town for Xbox 360, they would not push to make this game great since there were no other options.
In sum, I play it because I have no other choices, but I do play... -
Amazing Potential with Some Sloppy Bugs
by PhillyBoy919 on April 19, 2006
Pros: incredible hi-def graphics, hitting and pitching controls, smart AI, very very deep feature set
Cons: baserunning and fielding bugs, baserunning and fielding controls, game lock-up issue (on 360 only), occasional graphics bug
Summary: In general I have found this first generation of sports games for the Xbox 360 to be extremely disappointing. EA's incomplete games have been a disgrace at best and ...
Summary: In general I have found this first generation of sports games for the Xbox 360 to be extremely disappointing. EA's incomplete games have been a disgrace at best and the 2K6 games have been more "finished", but still very buggy. That said, 2K6 baseball seems to have ironed out a lot, but not all, of these issues.
The first thing I noticed when I started a game was that the graphics are very sharp, detailed, and smooth. This is one good-looking game. The 360 will naturally look better than current generation systems but, especially at 1080i (or 720p I would think), it's a sight to see.
The batting and pitching interfaces are outstanding, the best I've seen in a video baseball game to date. The controls are intuitive and the motions are silky smooth. The same cannot be said about the fielding and base running where, as the CNET reviewer put it, the players get a mind of their own. Seriously, they will just take off, stop running, slam into the wall, stand there and look at the ball, it's frustrating when it happens. Thankfully it happens infrequently enough that it doesn't wreck the whole game (although it may cost you a win). I think the fielding and base running controls themselves could be tighter as well. I miss the fielder throw meter in MVP 05.
<rant>
On a side note, these "exclusive licenses" (NFL, MLB) demonstrate an appalling lack of respect to the fans on the part of the leagues and the game makers. Where's the competition to drive innovation, to offer more features, to create a better gaming experience?
</rant>
Contrary to the CNET review, however, I found the atmosphere, cut scenes and replays to be very similar to a broadcast of a baseball game. Granted, one of the first things I do with any sports game is to turn the replays to minimal and totally disable the cut scenes. They only add fluff to the game and while they can be a novelty at first, and they really do show off the systems graphics, they slow game play overall and add little to the game for me.
As amazing as the graphics are, there are still some glitches as the programmers get used to the 360 hardware. They really have nothing to do with the game play, like when the camera zooms in on a player or player/manager conversation sometimes the jersey can appear to have a bubble under it around the player's neck and shoulders. Another is when sweeping across the stadium from a certain angle there can be an occasional hitch. Like I said, it?s nothing crazy, but things that have no place in a released game.
The other issue involves a known bug that is exclusive to the 360; The game will lock up from time to time (no, this isn't the 1st gen 360 hardware overheating issue, it is a game-specific known bug.) 2K sports has a statement on it's web site promising a patch shortly. Perhaps the patch will fix the irritating fielding and base running issues as well, who knows. I have played about 15 games thus far and it has only locked once, so it appears to be the exception rather than the rule.
Overall I have to say that I am happy with the game. If you take the graphics, audio, pitching, hitting, and game play features/options from this game and combined it with MVP 05's fielding and base running you would undoubtedly have a 10. As it stands, the game is about a 7...very good but not great. If this upcoming patch fixes the glitches along with the lock-up problem, I will update and re-rate.
Even sans patch, if you own a 360 and you are a baseball fan you do need to pick up this game.
Specifications
- Manufacturer: Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.
- Part number: 29940
- Description: Major League Baseball 2K6 brings you the definitive baseball simulation. With a truly immersive pitcher-batter showdown featuring the most accurate pitching and batting A.I. ever created, Major League Baseball 2K6 delivers the true Big League experience like never before.
Product Basic Spec
- Platform Xbox 360
- ESRB rating Everyone -
- Genre Sports
- Elements Sports - baseball simulation
- Number of players 1-2 Players
- Connectivity Broadband Only
- Difficulty Variable
- Learning curve About 1 hour
- Customization Downloadable Content,Editing Tools,Custom Soundtracks
- Offline modes Competitive
- Online modes Competitive
Game
- Developer Kush Games
- ESRB Everyone
- Release date 04/10/2006
Manufacturer info
- Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.
- Manufacturer profile
- Browse Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. products on Shopper.com
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- Website: http://www.take2games.com/
- Address:
575 Broadway, New York, NY 10012
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