MLB 2K13 Reviews Reveal 2K’s Sad Excuse for Baseball Sim

March 19, 2013 Patrick Hickey Jr. Video Games 0

The reviews are in MLB 2K13 and boy, it is bad.

Citing zero innovation on developer Take-Two Interactive’s part, a plethora of prominent video game websites have bashed the game, calling it everything from “shameless,  and “an embarrassment,” to “the same as last year.”

In the case of Gamespot.com, they went a step further by saying the game felt eerily similar to 2K12. Even though the site applauded the analog pitching mechanics, they were left unimpressed overall.

“When we say that MLB 2K13 is the same game as MLB 2K12, we mean it,” Gamespot’s Bret Todd said in his review. “The feature set has been fully carried forward with the one noteworthy exception being the removal of online league support. Perhaps it wasn’t being used that much, or perhaps it was removed for budgetary reasons. Either way, it’s a loss, since online leagues are a staple of sports games. The only significant changes are to the schedule and the team setup; the game does move the Houston Astros over to the AL West and out of the National League, where they comfortably resided for the past half-century.”

Joytiq as well pulled no punches in their review. Critic Mike Suszek felt bored with the overall product.

“There’s simply nothing new here, no glaring bullet points that shout, ‘This is what everyone will be talking about,’” Suszek said in his review on Joystiq. “

Kotaku’s Owen Good, who in several preview pieces to the title was already skeptical of the final product, was perhaps the harshest of all, using profanities to make his points.

“MLB 2K13 shows so little effort as to be unworthy of the basic dignity of a full review,” Good said in his review. The Xbox 360’s baseball fans, however, do deserve to have a condemnation put on the record, in their name, because MLB 2K13 is nothing but a fuck-you to that constituency. For the past four years, Take-Two Interactive has peddled its poor-me bullshit over this license—recklessly negotiated by a corrupt regime preceding the current one—rather than taking ownership of its responsibilities and giving the MLB series the leadership and resources it so badly needed.”

So what are your thoughts on MLB 2K13? Have you played it? Are the critics wrong here? Sound off in the comments section below and let us know what you think of the game.

 

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14316 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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