Review: The BIGS

by
Charlie George and Jim Ness

Do you get confused with the words RBI, ERA, or IP? Well fear not baseball onlookers, The BIGS is here to help. This is 2K Sports first foray into adrenaline/arcade baseball that, believe it or not, does not take away the excitement and realism you would expect from a baseball game.

I decided to take a look at a couple of the game modes and chalked up the good and the bad.

The 360 version is by all accounts for the "Armchair Athlete". Here is how I rated it and why. On the 360 I started things off in Rookie Mode(Probably one of the most addicting aspects of the game). Essentially "Rookie Mode" sets you up as an up and coming Minor League player who has been called up to the team of your choice. You do some training, and assign skill stars as you progress. During this mode you will be put in 3-5 inning games where conditions, such as stealing a base and winning the game is mandatory. If you fail, its back up to the plate for you. Throughout the Rookies season you play other teams where you get opportunities to "Steal" players from them and such, The end result is you go in the Worlds Series(Naturally I chose the Cubs, yeah, the Cubs in the Worlds Series, definitely fiction). This was by far my favorite mode in the game.

Other modes are Exhibition, Home Run Derby, and Home Run Pinball, which puts you in Times Square where it's pretty much a Home Run Derby. The more you smash up with the balls the higher the score.

Now with all the good there was some bad. The pitching, batting, throwing, and in-field mechanics are great. However the outfield is very glitchy in the area of player response. The ball would be hit right to them and they wouldn't do much. I though maybe it was just my copy or I was playing badly, I played a few games on XBox Live and asked if they were experiencing the same thing so I was not the only one.

Now speaking of XBox Live, it's great to see the rosters updated, and the game play for the most part is REALLY smooth, so props for that.

If you want the info on the Wii edition, then it's time to get out of the La-Z-Boy and get physical with the Wii, so to put it short; you will be moving a lot. The game is requires you "to get physical". The Wii version does make a good showing though there is a pretty steep learning curve as you are going to be getting physical as we have mentioned. The Wii version gets a 7 for innovation, however graphics do take a little beating, nonetheless, this is an improvement on Wii Sports baseball, and sure to be a good time.

So when it comes down to it in the end, this game really does a great job of bringing that baseball experience to you. So my rating is a solid 8. It would have been a 9 if it wasn't for the outfield issues. But all in all, its a great title and hope next years edition comes out next spring!