Major League Baseball 2K8

New features

Ben Brinkman, in a January 18, 2008 KOXM podcast, revealed the following new features to debut in 2K8:

The official site also included these additional new and updated features:

Cover athlete

Then-New York Mets shortstop José Reyes was announced as the cover athlete on December 6, 2007, taking over for New York Yankees counterpart Derek Jeter.

Announcers

For the 4th straight year, announcers Jon Miller and Joe Morgan once again resume game announcing duties, while Steve Physioc and Jeanne Zelasko continue reporting duties.

Downloadable content

Licensing issues

Barry Bonds is once again not placed in the game due to his not being a part of the MLBPA licensing agreement, and once again is represented by left-fielder Joe Young. By this time, some people have thought that Randy Carter is representing Roger Clemens on the free agents list.

The game is also notably missing some regular every day MLB players like Kevin Millar and Brendan Donnelly. This is due to the players' involvement in crossing picket lines as replacement players during the 1994 work stoppage, which prevents them from becoming members of the MLB Players Association. These players do, however, have aliases within the game. For example, Kevin Millar goes by the name Kyle Morgan as evidenced by their identical profiles including number, height, weight and attributes. Higher profile prospects like Jay Bruce (replaced with James Bale) of the Reds, Evan Longoria (replaced with Eric Lincoln) of the Rays, Colby Rasmus (replaced with Clint Rents) of the Cardinals or Fernando Martínez (replaced with Felipe Marrero) of the Mets are also under aliases in the game until they have major league experience while players like Geovany Soto of the Cubs are in the game. These aliases use the same first initials of the player's first and last names, and mirror the players actual profiles and attributes as well. New rookies from the Japan Leagues, Kosuke Fukudome of the Chicago Cubs and Hiroki Kuroda of the Los Angeles Dodgers do not have their names in the game and are instead replaced with Kazuhito Fortunato and Hideo Kajita. Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Kyle Drabek, is replaced with the name Kirk Darby, although at the time, he was on the Philadelphia Phillies.

DS spinoff

A more "baseball-lite" version of MLB 2K8 was released for the Nintendo DS called Major League Baseball 2K8 Fantasy All-Stars, which extensively utilizes the DS touchscreen, and features fantasy elements such as power ups and fantasy stadiums.

Development and history

MLB 2K8 represents the third seventh generation console baseball game of the 2K Sports Major League Baseball series, and the second lead developed by Ben Brinkman for Kush. In Brinkman's 1UP.com log, he revealed that MLB 2K8 represents the middle act of a planned three year development cycle for 2K's baseball series for next gen systems, with MLB 2K7 being the first stage. According to Brinkman, "At the same time we set out a three year plan for the MLB franchise so that once 2K7 ended we could get right to work on 2K8 and have a set of goals and features to accomplish." From an interview in an IGN article, "MLB 2K7 was the first step in a long process of reinventing the 2K Sports baseball brand and the MLB franchise. 2K7 was year one of that, and a lot of that was just getting back onto stable ground -- getting back with the people who play our game and putting something out there that they're happy with, they have a blast playing and that they can play for an extended period of time. I think we delivered upon that, especially given the short timeline with which we had to create that game."

Reception

Critical response to MLB 2K8 has been somewhat mixed. Both the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions have been cited as lacking fluidity and thus seem to lag. Critics have been quick to point out that the new Swing Stick is difficult to grasp and time. While the new pitching system has been touted as very realistic, it has also been criticized as being too difficult. The Batter's Eye has also not been functioning properly in many of the copies. IGN scored the Xbox 360 version 7.4, while the PS3 version received a score of 7.2. On the other end, Game Informer gave it an 8.5 on both the Xbox 360 and the PS3, while EGM gave it a B. The reaction to the Wii version has also been somewhat mediocre. While the pitching control has been highly praised, the graphics and overall gameplay have been criticized. The game tends to crash frequently and rained out games that contain at least 5 innings are often not considered to be completed. The Wii version was the only version that did not have online play and the critics criticized that as well.

Soundtrack

The following songs appear in the soundtrack: