A Need for Speed game that is more frustrating than fun. Handling is my biggest gripe with Hot Pursuit Remastered. Cars feel heavy and control like rocks. This comes off even more annoying considering it can be easy to crash into oncoming traffic. Cop time trials (referred to as Rapid Response) really don't work well with the under-steer handling physics. Hitting walls penalizes your time and adds 2-3 seconds, making earning a gold merit very challenging.

Gameplay is fine. Two parts exist. Cop Career and a Racer Career. The cop side has you participate in time trials and events centered around busting racers, while the Racer side has its own set of events like time trials and races (most of which throw cops at you mid-race and turn into a race-getaway pursuit to the finish). Winning events rewards bounty points, with more events and cars being unlocked at higher bounty point levels. Car customization is as basic as changing a car color and selecting from a few preset vinyls and wraps. A free roam mode also exists.

The Burnout comparisons are definitely true and present, seeing that this game was developed by Burnout team Criterion. Takedowns are a key gameplay aspect, working the same was as Burnout even down to the takedown camera that shows after one is successful. Essentially, this game can even be described as Burnout with cops, free roam and very heavy driving physics.

Another issue I have (which I am not sure is a Remastered issue, if it was present in the original, or because I was playing on the Switch version) is that after unpausing the game, the action resumes like normal, but there is a 2-3 second delay before control input registers again. This, of course, has caused me to crash into walls, traffic and lose speed in pursuits.

I can see why a lot of people like Hot Pursuit because it is a well made game. However, the handling and physics weren't enjoyable enough to draw me in.

This is Everybody’s Golf/Hot Shots Golf-lite version for Switch. While it doesn’t have all the polish and bells-and-whistles from the Playstation versions, Easy Come, Easy Golf is a very fun, pick-up-and-play golf game for the Switch.

The bones of HSG/EG is here and can be seen in the UI, menus, character design and gameplay. Biggest change is that on courses in the single player tour mode, different characters are used per hole. At the start, generic mini-golfers are used until more characters are unlocked. Tour mode features primarily 9-hole golf games along with boss battles (first to win 3 holes wins), matches to unlock character costume colors, etc. Characters can be leveled up, increasing their swing power, distance and other golfing attributes. Winning matches rewards stars, which unlock other courses and locations to play on.

Controls are very easy to grasp. Touch screen controls exist (seeing that this is a port of the mobile game). A 3-button press system from older HSG games is present. There is also a right thumbstick flick option for golfing as well. Backspin/impact of the ball can also be set pre-swing.

As I understand, this is a port of a mobile game called Clap Hanz Golf. Although no microtransactions are present in this Switch port, gameplay can come off as grindy and a bit repetitive with needing to play multiple matches to level up/unlock characters and having to play multiple matches on the same courses. On the plus side, a Score Attack mode does exist which makes unlocking character costumes and leveling up characters slightly less of a grind. That, and the fact that most matches are only 9-hole golf games with quick transitions between the action.

Training, Survival, Online (which I have not dived into) and Offline Multiplayer modes exist as well. Survival tasks you with selecting a course and having to sink the ball in a preset number of strokes. Fail, and it is game over. Perfect mode for an extra challenge.

Performance is fine, runs are a stable 30 fps. Very slight pauses between holes and loading screens to transition into a black screen do feel a bit dated.

Easy Come, Easy Golf is a very solid, casual arcade-like golf game for the Nintendo Switch. Overall, a fine golf game for $20. With the Golf update for Nintendo Switch Sports being delayed to release a few months from now, this golf game works as a fun replacement and extra option.

An indie "Virtua-Racing" inspired game that's nothing spectacular. Formula Retro Racing is as retro as it gets, hearkening back to the old days of a 90's arcade racer or even a Sega Saturn/Dreamcast racing game port. There are 8 tracks, one car with multiple selectable colors, a standard quick race mode, career mode and an eliminator race mode. Handling model is fine, though can be frustrating as running into an A.I. driver at the slightest can cause you to swerve uncontrollably.

Formula Retro Racing is hard to recommend with better options out there including Hotshot Racing and Horizon Chase turbo. The game does go on sale quite often for just a few dollars, so for those curious about trying it out, not a bad entry price.

Addicting pinball game that regularly stays in my "Currently/Now Playing Lineup Rotation." The table model isn't that bad at all. You get one free table, but table bundles go on sale for a few bucks occasionally across various platforms, making it pretty easy and relatively cheap to build up a good collection. While there are a lot of tables, once you start playing on a few of them, you'll quickly gain some favorite tables that become a mainstay to play on.

I won't speak for how accurate the ball physics are since I am no pinball purist (lack of modern day arcades means I cannot compare this to a real pinball machine), but physics feel spot on. Two sets of tables exist. Real life recreations based of the actual Williams tables, and FX pinball tables featuring properties such as Marvel, Portal, Family Guy, Bethesda (Doom, Skyrim, Fallout), and other popular media franchises. Williams tables are quite standard, while the fantasy ones created specifically for Pinball FX have more arcade-like elements. The Aliens, Portal and Family Guy tables are my go-to tables to play on.

Every table can either be played in a classic mode, a standard mode allowing for bonuses to be used (extra score when hitting bumpers, multi-ball bonus score, double score, slow down time for a few seconds, etc.), or in a score attack challenge mode. Tournaments, multiple camera views, online leaderboards, high-scores and local multiplayer options exist as well.

Other cool features include being able to mark tables as your favorite, a quick play to jump right into a game of pinball (great if you have a large table collection and don't know what to play), and a 3 second countdown before unpausing a game of pinball.

No negatives I can think of, except that some of the table packs seem to rarely go on sale much anymore. I also would have liked to see some other current games get table recreations (Tomb Raider, Overwatch, Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat, Devil May Cry, Street Fighter, Final Fantasy, etc.), but understand it may be down to licensing and various logistics.

Great on console or PC for the big screen, and just as great on Switch for handheld play. Perfect for a quick pick up and play session, or a lengthy solo, or party game. Highly entertaining and addicting pinball game for single player, online multiplayer and even offline local multiplayer!

Marble Madness meets Super Monkey Ball, but on a much, much smaller scale. Gameplay has you guide a metal ball on a series of circuit boards with the objective being to make sure the electric current reaches the fan in order to power it on.

It's Marble Madness in the sense that you are guiding a ball to a goal in a way, but Super Monkey Ball in the sense that you are controlling/tilting the circuit board (the stage itself) rather than the ball.

Fun, intuitive puzzle game with 3 stages each consisting of 18 levels, all increasing in challenge as you progress. It throws some small variation at you in some stages such as adding extra currents that have to be guided to multiple fans, but nothing too extravagant.

Short, but fun. One of those puzzle games that lacks longevity and ends up being a one and done. Run the Fan did leave me wanting more stages and levels (especially the two short looping background songs of relaxing, lo-fi upbeat elevator music really slap), but it is very worth the hour or two of fun.

Basic mechanics make this game a chore to play. Your outfielders get switched at random when the batter hits the ball, making fielding a challenge. It also doesn't help that fielders have a tendency to just stop and not respond for a second after picking up the ball, which makes it tough to get a runner out. I guess it kind of helps that random quick time events pop up rarely when fielding, which does kind of alleviate the issue but not entirely.

Batting is also not great as I found it difficult to hit the ball compared to the many other baseball games I have played, both arcade and simulation. The ball comes across the plate slowly, which makes it hard enough to figure out when to swing.

Commentary is there, but very repetitive. Power-ups exist in the way of stickers you equip to your team pre-game, but aren't entirely explained. The game also feels slow, even for an arcade baseball game. I do not know much about the real-life Little League Baseball World Series so maybe this is intentional, but have to admit it felt jarring. Options like number of innings and some other gameplay options exist, but the ball just moves slow whenever it is put into play.

I have not played any of the previous Little League Baseball games (which I have heard are much better), but I had a much more engaging time with series like MLB 2K, Backyard Baseball, Super Mega Baseball and The Bigs.

Most Wanted in name only. This game is more of a "Be The Racer" side from Need for Speed Hot Pursuit. It's interesting and not too bad (even has a decent open world city), but not one of the best Need for Speed games.

There's no story present. Just get in a car, do races, drive and outrun the cops. Biggest gimmick with Most Wanted 2012 are jackspots, which the tutorial describes as "If you can find it, you can drive it." Cars are parked throughout the city with a manufacturer logo hovering over them, meaning all you have to do is find the car and press a button to switch to it, thus adding it to your collection. No extras here. No car customization, paint decals or anything out of the ordinary.

Every car has their own set of races and upgrades. Upgrades are basic, from adding nitrous to taking less damage. I really wasn't a fan of how to change your car, set race destination or to pretty much do anything, you have to press left on the d-pad toggling a menu system in the top left corner.

Car handling felt okay. I found most vehicles controlled way too heavily which made turning around and navigating corners difficult. The cops are also super relentless. Escaping cops enters a brief cooldown period (length of cooldown depends on how high your Heat/Wanted level is), but I often found that cops would show up notfar off from my location and pick up the pursuit, making cops unavoidable. Most of my time with the game was spent trying to shake cops in an attempt to be able to start races.

Jackspots are the only cool aspect about Most Wanted 2012. Only recommend if you love the idea of outrunning cops.

Pretty much Tecmo Super Bowl in 3D and probably the best football game on PC/Steam. It has some similarities of a PS1 or N64 Madden or NFL Gameday title, meaning that it isn't in-depth or overly complicated compared to a current day Madden or sports simulation game, making it very easy to play. The graphics even have a polygonal, crisp clean HD look, making it feel almost like a Madden '99 HD Version.

There's no NFL license, but players and teams can be customized. Sunday Rivals keeps the action fast paced with no play clock, no commentary, quick animated screens after a first down, touchdown or a sack, a small play selection, an accelerated game clock, 1-5 minute quarters and sudden death rules for overtime. No audibles, play challenging, substitutions, spiking or kneeling the ball here. This is as arcade, simple and pick-up-and-play as it gets, just without any power-ups present.

All of the controls for passing, rushing and defense are basic as one would expect with single button commands. Along with 4 difficulty levels, player sliders even exist to set the frequency of gameplay aspects from pass success, to blocking, all the way to how frequent or rare fumbles and interceptions happen. Modes are basic - Single game, a Tournament style game mode, and a Season mode.

There isn't much in terms of negatives I can think of when it comes to Sunday Rivals. I would have liked a tutorial mode or tutorial boxes to have popped up when playing a game for the first time, rather than having to pause the game to remember commands. Super Mega Baseball 3 is a game which did the latter. The game is light on content compared to other sports games, but understandable as it was made by just one person.

Check this game out if you want an easy to play football game. Sunday Rivals is also coming to consoles sometime in the future as well.

Having not played the PS1 original, Pac-Man World Re-Pac is a very fun 3D platformer that does a good job of bringing Pac-Man into the realm of 3D. Note for Nintendo Switch players, I recommend going into the settings and changing the resolution setting to Performance mode for a smooth, 60 fps gameplay feature.

Game setup is similar to early 3D platformers like Crash Bandicoot. You have a hub area, each specializing in a theme (ruins, factory, funhouse, etc.) each consisting of 3 levels and a boss level. Levels take on a linear 3D format with changing camera perspectives as levels go on. Pac-Man can pickup power pellets to throw at enemies, perform a Sonic-like dash and butt bounce on enemies or reach higher platforms. Switches, increasingly tricky platforming and light puzzles are scattered throughout every level. The challenge comes from finding all of the PACMAN letter across every level, which grants access to a timed bonus stage at the end where Pac-Man has to collect all the fruit.

A good bit of collectibles exist from health pickups to extra lives to fruit to coins. After completing a level, any coins found are used in a slot machine mini-game that grants high score bonuses and even extra lives. Levels even have mazes that act as re-imagined homages to the O.G. Pac-Man game, but with some traps to make mazes harder. Bosses are unique, either requiring you to combine your use of Pac-Man abilities to defeat them like in an old school 3D platformer or involving the game utilizing a classic Namco Museum title to take on a boss (A Galaxian boss and Pac-Man Rally-like Race for instance.)

At times, platforming can be frustrating with early 3D platformer jank being present - depth perception issues, more difficult stages popping early on, not being able to tell if the area below is a pit, etc.

Difficulty aside, these did not detract much from my enjoyment as Pac-Man World Re-Pac is a fun remake with lots of charm and enjoyment that makes me hopeful for a possible World 2 and 3 remake in the future.

Blitz II is a step sideways and barely an improvement for a game released 3 years after its predecessor.



Campaign mode is a lot better with a slightly better (but not by much) story and some improved customization. Your star player is Franchise, a prodigy who plays both offense and defense. This means that Franchise will play on both offense and defense during your campaign mode games. After an intro cutscene, you answer questions in a press conference question format that determines Franchise's offensive/defensive positions and starting stat boosts.


Training players works the same, but development cycles go by faster and it is a lot easier to train them up to a B or A+ rank. Cheerleader photos are gone, but you can hook up with girlfriends that give you boosts like lower drug costs and higher stamina. During campaign mode games, landing dirty hits, scoring touchdowns and causing injuries increases your "Rep," which at higher levels, gives better training bonuses and rewards.


As a whole, the gameplay is barely any better and feels worse. The clash system is mostly the same, but defensive players now earn clash as the same rate as defensive players, which helps level the playing field. Defensive players can also be injured, which can occur from a ballcarier stiff arming them or performing a juke/spin, or if a defender recovers a loose ball and gets an injury triggering dirty/unleashed hit.


Speaking of injuries, they are brutal. When an injury is triggered, the game slows down and allows you to target an opponents' body part before mashing a button to fill up a circle. These are shown via a bloody, gory CGI, Mortal Kombat style rendering of spinal cords snapping out of alignment, ribs and backs being bruised, brains rattling, blood spurting from a fractured wrist, tendons tearing and even scrotoms rupturing. It can be assumed that this is where Mortal Kombat got the idea for X-Ray moves. Treating injuries safely is now gone as juicing is the only option, now involving bone snapping and shot juicing minigames where accuracy determines how long the player is out for and how much stamina he regains.


Brawls are removed, but you can initiate late hits during a small after play window, where success awards you a clash icon.


Unleashed works the same, except the cutscenes are more violent with some over the top wrestling move tackles like a dropkick, double team back suplex and such. What's cool is if you use your Unleashed tackle on a ballcarrier if you are near another defender or two, you'll perform a double team tackle that mostly injures the ballcarrier.


Aside from that, there isn't much new. A.I. is just as bad as the previous game, maybe even a worse. Getting sacks is more challenging since the A.I. quarterbacks are afraid of blitzing and the pass rush game. More plays exist, but just like its predecessor, Blitz II's A.I. can read more than half the plays you choose. The strategy of long bombing the ball can still be easily exploited. Campaign mode does add some twists like a fun prison ball game mode, the option to trade a player from a very limited pool at a few points, but really not much else. There are a lot less games during Campaign, which is a plus since Blitz 1's Campaign really dragged on at times. A few extra game modes exist, but no cheats are available this go around. There are a few new teams like an Atlanta team and such. No roster viewer though. Online was fun to dive into at the time before it was shut down, but my experience remembers it being very laggy with games that often disconnected.


For what it's worth, Blitz The League II (a game released in 2008) had a patch update shortly after its release that was noted to have improved gameplay stability, but still has a tendency to crash. Nonfrequent, but annoying issues like the game freezing after selecting a play and even locking itself into an endless looping cutscene after an injury happened made playing through a number of games frustrating.


Blitz The League II doesn't do much to improve upon the first game with its lack of depth, poor A.I., and bugs. The injuries and Unleashed wrestling XFL style hits are cool, but not enough to make the game worth it for the whole game season.

The Saints Row reboot provides some fun to be had. However, it feels last-gen and lacking in different ways.


Saint Ileso provides a great wild-west location with some diverse scenery and locations. Characters (the new Saints crew) never connected with me during my playthrough. Many people will be divided on this aspect of the game and while I wanted to give the story a chance, I didn’t find the characters that much likeable (I won’t say I hated them, more like a “meh” feeling) compared to Shaundi, Gat or Pierce. Mission variety is okay, but comes off unstructured. Three rival gangs exist, but only one gang seems to be the focus.


Combat is the weakest aspect of the game. Shooting works but has a clunky and wonky feel to it. It felt closer to a late PS2, early 360 era third-person game compared to something more modern or refined such as Ghost Recon Wildlands, the Survivor Tomb Raider Trilogy or the Mafia trilogy. Several settings do exist to change the aiming controls and sensitivity, and of course damage does increase when upgrading weapons, but it could have used more refinement. Dodge-rolling and crouching are nice, but I can’t help but feel that a cover system would have helped to alleviate these issues. Melee works as expected with the option to purchase different melee weapons from gun shops, but don’t expect any variation beyond pressing R2 to attack. Instead of health recovering overtime, takedowns must be performed to regain health (similar to 3D beat-em-ups) when a bar fills up to 100% from gaining kills in combat.


Driving vehicles and flying helicopters works and has your typical arcade-like handling model. There’s a new sideswipe smash mechanic where you can press square to slam into vehicles, like an arcade style racing game Vehicle selection is diverse, even including go karts, golf karts, a hoverboard and monster trucks. Car customization has a lot of detail and upgrades available.


Criminal Ventures/Side Hustles are the diversions and side activities of the Saints Row reboot. Early in the game, you’ll gain access to a Criminal Ventures map. This allows you to place a venture in an area on the city’s map region dictating where you want to partake in specific ventures. Some fan favorites like Paparazzi, Fuzz, Snatch, and ho'ing yourself out are gone, while Insurance Fraud, Jimrob’s Garage (Chop Shop from SR2) and Ridin’ Shotgun (a modified version of Guardian Angel from SR3) return along with new ventures consisting of a mix of shooting and driving (mostly driving).


Many accessibility options and sliders exist such as enemy toughness level, vehicle combat difficulty, wanted level difficulty, ammo scarcity, and timed objective difficulty among other options to tailor your play experience.


As far as areas that the reboot gets wrong, stores are basically the only buildings that can be entered. No access to malls, casinos, strip clubs, bars, etc. unless you're playing a story mission. Given that the city has a diverse, wild-west look and feel to it, this is quite disappointing seeing that Saints Row 2 allowed you to enter multiple buildings. This is also one of those games where you must be up close and in a specific spot in order to interact with an object. The city can feel lifeless at times, though I'm not sure if this is something exclusive to the last-gen versions. Robbing stores is nonexistent. Graphics are nothing special. Character customization is mostly robust, with the option to switch between created/downloaded custom characters on the fly like Watch Dogs Legion and GTA V being the best aspect. Unfortunately, some basic clothing options are missing and while there are several stores throughout the city, most clothing options are the same.


Crashes and major bugs were minimal during my playthrough, but annoyances like interact points not appearing and my vehicle disappearing and teleporting me outside were rare, but frustrating when they occurred. Framerate was mostly stable (hovering around 30 fps) as one would expect from a PS4 game.


Saints Row is just average. Not bad but not great. Good, but nothing special or extraordinary. Provides some fun and a customizable challenge, but doesn't do anything super special or standout. Worth playing if you want a fun open world game to mess around in. Not worth it if you are looking for something that will blow you away.

Phenom doesn't add anything new to the on-the-court gameplay, except for a 2-on-2 mode very much like NBA Jam. Story mode now has an open-ish town, free roam aspect where you walk around town with your custom baller (and use your basketball to hit objects and find areas and secrets), partake in mini-games, side quests and main quests (basketball games). Cool aspect for a sports game, but comes off more tedious. Character customization is a lot better, with a ton more clothing options added. Unfortunately, I found that Story mode suffered from difficult matches as it progressed. Majority of matches are played in an arcade Mortal Kombat-ladder like format, which is cool, but much harder since they not only have higher difficulties and often annoying rulesets, but only give you one or a few continues. You can make it to the final opponent on a 6-opponent ladder, but lose and have no continues left and you must start the ladder over again. Fun game, but basically NBA Ballers 1.5 rather than a true sequel.

A shallow football game that places shock and style over substance and gameplay. With EA buying exclusive rights to the NFL in 2005, this meant that Midway could not make an NFL Blitz game. Instead, we got a Blitz game with more traditional, slowed-down gameplay than NFL Blitz, which featured a more mature storyline and a completely fictional league.


The League keeps the 1st and 30 format from past Blitz games, but removes the on-fire element in favor of a new clash system. As you gain yards and make plays on offense, you gain clash which allows you to slow down time by holding the trigger button to perform matrix-like jukes, spins, and evasions that reward you with clash icons. Earning 6 icons charges your meter to "Unleashed," which once used, triggers a cinematic stiff arm or juke (similar to NFL Street's Gamebreaker) that pretty much lets you drive the ball home for an easy touchdown.


On defense, clash is only gained through sacking your opponent, making defense quite underpowered. Clash on defense can be used to land dirty hits, and enough dirty hits can injure an opposing player. Earn 6 clash icons on defense and your "Unleashed" meter fills, which when used to tackle, triggers a WWE-like wrestling move cinematic that causes your opponent to fumble just about 90% of the time.


Late hits are there, but take place in a brawl mini-game. After enough dirty hits, a helmet lights up on screen and if a dirty hit is landed before the drive summary is over, both teams take place in a 10-or-so second mini-game where whoever gets more late hits earns extra late hit icons or a full Unleashed meter.


Injuries and drugs are the last aspects setting the League apart. Injuries (which only happen to players on offense) are shown via a Mortal Kombat-style X-Ray and can either be treated or juiced. Treating an injury is the safer way which sits a player out for longer, but fully recovers their stamina. Juicing lets you bring the player back in sooner, with less stamina and a much higher risk for a several game/season ending injury if hit with another dirty hit.


Campaign mode is the story mode where all these factors come into play. You create a team through a decent team creator, pick an offensive and defensive coordinator, a few star players, a playbook specialty and are on your way. As with traditional sports modes, the goal is the win enough games (usually 7) to qualify for the Division Championship and rise from Division 3 to Division 2, and 1 to win the final Championship. Upgrading players is as simple as selecting an attribute to train them on that will randomly increase by a few points each game. Legal and illegal drugs can be given to players. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, and spending too much money on drugs will get you fined for money earned from winning games.


Best part about Campaign Mode are the team captain vignettes that play before facing a new team. They're pretty over the top as most captains are parodies and obviously supposed to be real life players. Story is told through cutscenes and occasional text and voice messages through your phone, but really comes off more like it's trying too hard. The gameplay really just falls flat. As cool as the clash system sounds, it leaves the overall aspect feeling shallow.


The AI is much worse than the notorious AI from the older NBA Jam and Blitz games to where once you get to Division 2, the CPU makes ridiculous plays that make games hard to win. This renders the mostly useless playbook you choose even more useless since your only choice is to pick a Hail Mary play a bomb is all game. Without having any clash on offense, plays feel on autopilot and random to where you have no control over your team. Running and Blitzing hardly work, so if you chose to specialize in those areas in Campaign Mode, you're better off restarting to a Pass/Coverage focused team. Your players run their routes correctly during plays, but the AI has a tendency to pretty much read every play you choose. Difficulty doesn't matter as the CPU cheats whether it is on Easy or Normal or Hard mode.


There are some cool unlockables available like extra game modes for Play Now (every hit is a fumble, large vs small players, no 1st downs, etc.), images of Blitz Cheerleader models, concept are, and even a playable version of the classic Cyberball arcade game. The in-game soundtrack is also great, with a ton of rap, hip-hop, rock and metal songs from what I would assume were indie and underground bands and artists.


Outside of that, Blitz The League doesn't offer much. Creating teams and editing players is exclusive to the team you create in Campaign mode, which of course can be used in Play Now modes. There's no Season or Franchise, no roster viewer or statistics page, no versus screen cheat codes and Campaign mode doesn't even have traditional management or franchise options.


As much as I wanted to like this game when it released, Blitz The League is just too shallow and frustrating with weird design choices (you have to put in a cheat code to have 2 players play on the same team), horrendous PS2 loading times and only slightly faster Xbox loading times, super repetitive commentary and occasional odd glitches (ball-carriers being tackled but teleporting and gaining extra yards, save file corruption if more than 2 Campaign mode teams are created, etc.)

Despite the fact that The Show was always the premier baseball franchise over 2K, I was always an MLB 2K fan from its technical World Series Baseball debut up until the final MLB 2K13 release.

MLB 2K's best parts were the presentation and pitching system introduced in MLB 2K9. Players select a pitch and use a fighting game like input with the right thumbstick to throw pitches. The speed and accuracy of the motion reflects how fast and accurate the pitch is thrown. Pitches even have a number rating next to them which can lower throughout the game if the pitcher repeatedly throws the same or causes the batter to get too many hits off of one.

Presentation was even great for the time with good commentary, detailed statistics and overlays in-game, ESPN-like presented menus and an MLB today feature which would update rosters and changes from real-life MLB.

Every other aspect was so-so. Graphics were not the best and players had very weird facial looks to them. Batting worked fine with a swing of the stick. Fielders would often make errors and the closest fielder wouldn't always be selected when the ball was hit infield or outfield. Even worse, fielders would sometimes throw to the wrong bases. Quite a few bugs and glitches existed that would strangely made the game play more arcade-like than an actual baseball sim, which made for some odd plays and sometimes lop-sided game scores.

MyPlayer mode was a fun RPG-like mode where you created a player and developed his skills throughout a career, but leveling up skills was annoying since it was based more on completing bonus objectives over how well you actually performed and played your position.

MLB 2K peaked with MLB 2K5, possibly the best baseball game in the series and fell downhill from there. 2K10 through 2K13 tried to step up to the competition, but were literally the same game with the only difference being the cover athlete, the soundtrack, rosters and uniforms, and the number year behind the 2K.

R.I.P. MLB 2K (1994/2005-2013)

NBA Live 19 is a good casual-sim. Gameplay isn't as simulation-like and realistic as NBA 2K, but good enough to play casually with a bit of depth and intuitiveness. A fair bit of control stick options and offensive/defensive moves exist, whether you want to play on a casual level or serious level. Like all sports titles, Game speed and sliders can be tailored for your preferred playing experience.


Live was once king in 05 and 10, then had a rough transition when it debuted on the Xbox One and PS4. 19 isn't nearly as good or feature rich as installments from past generations, but it's the best out of the current run of NBA Live titles.


Franchise Mode (formerly Dynasty) lacks some basic features. Considering how in depth and advanced other sports titles Franchise modes have gotten, Live 19's is certainly playable, but mostly forgettable. The One, which is the single player Career Mode, provides a lot of fun. You create a male or female baller and pick a position which gives you certain abilities and stats to specialize in. It's very RPG like in the sense that you only control your player during Career Mode games (can call for teammates to pass to you) and you are awarded a post-game score analysis based on how well you perform in game. Best part is this mode does not have any sort of microtransactions and leveling up your player is simple.


Online modes such as Live Run and Court Battles I can't comment on due to jumping into the game late in its life cycle (around 2020) and the online component likely being dead.


Ultimate Team, controversial as it may be and microtransactions aside, is actually a decent mode. I can't speak for Madden or FIFA or even NBA 2K's versions since I never dived into them. But NBA Live 19's seems fair. The way it works if you are given a few thousand single player challenges across different categories. Most consist of final 30 second to 3 minute, 4th quarter challenges where you have to either keep your team in the lead, or come back from a 4, 6 or 10 point trail. More difficult and involved challenges come later. Winning these awards coins (or sometimes bronze/silver/gold packs and players depending on the challenge and difficulty). Coins are used to buy packs or cards in the market, which is an auction house people can use to buy, sell and trade cards. Card prices for gold players was cheap, though this was largely due to the fact that I played this game around 2020, as most people probably put their player cards up for sale since they have quit the game and moved on. You can play online with your Ultimate Team player squad or take your UT into a custom exhibition mode. Even then, I still stand by my comment that this Ultimate Team mode was fun, fair and not predatory or pay-to-win.


The addition of WNBA players is a nice addition, even being able to create a WNBA player in The One Career Mode was something I enjoyed. Though, a WNBA Ultimate Team could have been interesting.


Yes, NBA Live 19 is fun. Not as great as favorites like say NBA Live 2005 and 2010 and whatever else is in between, but likely the best Live game to date. Worth it for the casual basketball fan that wants something simple, but not too arcade-like.