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MLB 2K8 Franchise Mode Review (8/10).
Overall:
8 out of 10. It's better than last year but the menu/interface took a step backward, minors management may leave some feeling over-whelmed, and there's still no owner mode. Even so, still a great experience.
What's good:
- The addition of minor league teams. You now have total management control over your franchise's A, AA and AAA teams. You can sign players, move them between the tiers, watch their progression, set each individual team's lineups, pitching rotation, defensive alignments, etc. What's more is that you can even play their games, if you choose to do so.
- Top 100 prospects. Under the GM tab there's now a selection that brings up a list of the top 100 prospects in baseball. So now it's easy to find that young rookie with loads of potential who will be the right acquisition for the future of your fantasy franchise. No more scouring other teams rosters for players with high potential ratings or using the player finder tool to look up young players with high overall ratings and low salaries.
- Contract warnings. This year when you release a player or a member of the coaching staff, a warning will pop up telling you how much it's going to cost you to break the contract. Last year there was no warning so players might have assumed that it would cost them nothing to break a contract. Now they tell you up front- one of my favorite improvements.
- Baseball cards. You can win baseball cards for completing certain tasks with a player. For example, you can win the Bobby Abreu card if you draw a walk with Bobby Abreu. Then you can create a card team and play online, trade the cards to other players, or trade in your duplicates for new packs of cards. The card system is a lot of fun and can add a lot of dimension to the game for anyone who enjoys team management and/or collecting.
- Soundtrack. Anyone who's played a lot of franchise knows that the soundtrack definitely makes a difference. I know if my girlfriend heard Nerf Heder's "High Five Anxiety" from 2K7's sound track one more time she was going to stomp on my game disk while I was sleeping. This year the music seems to be an upgrade in that, strangely enough, it's a downgrade. What I mean is that most of the songs, with the exception of "Cleveland Rocks!" (the Drew Carey theme song) you probably haven't heard before, so they don't get played out quickly. It also seems like the soundtrack is not as loud as last year, so it fades into the background better.
What's so-so:
- The main menu/interface It's not horrible but it's a step backward from last year. It's still a drop down menu but instead of the menu being fixed each heading has a tab. The heading names, most of them anyway, are partially obscured when you're not on that tab. It's not really a hinderance but it's kind of annoying until you get used to it.
What's bad:
- Minors management. When you choose to run a team in franchise mode you, by default, are choosing to run 4 teams. There is no way to toggle on CPU minors management (although you can choose to allow the CPU to fix a bad lineup/pitching rotation if you mess it up). Running all 4 teams provides a level of depth that some (most?) probably will enjoy, but it can also be a major pain in the rear if you don't care about the minors.
- Still no owner mode. There's no stadium builder/upgrade feature, no concession sales, no moving your team to a new city, no advertising, selling stadium naming rights, changing names/uniforms, etc. Hopefully this will be in "Part 3" of 2K's 3 year plan to rebuild the title.
- Can't set more than one MLB team to human control. This won't be a problem for most people but there are some people who like to play multiple teams (or all teams). You can, however, edit a team's lineup, starting rotation, etc., and you can toggle on forced trades.
Last edited by Extreme Content; 03-08-2008 at 03:36 AM.
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Linear Mode
