Bigs 2: The modern NBA JAM of baseball

RATING: 8/ 10
PLATFORM: PS3, XBOX 360, Wii
GENRE: Arcade Baseball
RATED: Everyone
PURCHASE RECOMMENDATION: Buy / Rent

SUMMARY: Bigs 2 is a fun Arcade style baseball game that focus on gameplay fun more then realism. Bigs 2 has a fun engaging Career mode and fun multiplayer quick play. Bigs 2 only has a few balance and feature holes that hopefully will get filled with Bigs 3 and for now can be over looked. In short Bigs 2 keeps the game simple and fun. Definitely recommend buying or renting this game.

Bigs 2 is the first ever sports video game I have enjoyed because Bigs 2 finally did a baseball game right. So most sports games try to recreate a perfectly realistic simulation of the actual sports. This is not fun with I want to play a sports for real I will go outside with my friends and play. Also for the sport of Baseball (my favorite sport) the realistic complexity makes for clunky/sloppy game mechanics that lead to crappy game play. Bigs 2 rights this ship by being an Arcade style Baseball game aka its a game not reality. All the rules and normal baseball gameplay is there but it is wrapped in action pack power ups and quick time events.

Bigs 2 has two major game modes the career mode and the exhibition game mode. The career mode you get to create your own customize player and play as him from rookie year to the hall of fame. The customization of your player is well put together and you get to choose cool things like your batting stance and your victory posse. The biggest downfall of this feature is you can only be a position player which is a major downfall. I really wanted to play as a pitcher and not being able to took a lot away from the game. Your player would also grow stronger through out the game making it really feel like your creating a star. Exhibition game mode is just like it sounds it a way to quickly play a game with your favorite players against a friend or AI opponent. The only downfall of this is that Bis 2 failed to provide up to date rosters which was annoying as many players where missing or inaccurately rated.

Like the classic NBA JAM Bigs 2 rewards players with unnatural power up abilities to make the game more action pack and entertaining. Bigs 2 could use some more player vs player quick time competition but that's just the nature of baseball vs basketball. Bigs 2 also only reward these power ups to characters that have high stats in that category. So don't expect to make a magnificent catch with a character that has low fielding stats. The two major batting power ups in the game are the Big Slam and the Grand Slam. Both or deadly power ups that can evaporate what felt like a decent lead. Pitching has a similar power ups pitch mode which I rarely used cause when it cam down to it is was almost always a better move to save power ups for hitting.

When Batting the player has two type of swings a contact swing and a power swing which is all you really need. You can also angle your swing to aim where you would like to hit the ball. Batting is all about timing and the better your timing the better the hit. Also like the real sport players have power areas in which they can hit the ball better from. So if your batter is an inside powerhouse balls on the inside of the plate will be hit harder. Players will also be able to use their power up meter to get focus hits.

Pitching has a little more you can do with it. Based on your pitcher you will have a collection of up to four pitches they can pitch. The best strategy is to mix up the type of pitches plus location to keep the hitters off balanced. Throwing pitches on the corners is normally your best bet but it dose come at the risk of giving the batter a power up for throwing a ball. Their is no complex process to pitching an accurate pitch you simply have one meter that fills up and you try to stop it right at the top. If your perfect you throw a perfect pitch if you screw up your pitch will miss its target. Also pitchers will lose pitches and get tired if batter gets lots of hit off them.

Fielding is where most of the quick time arcade style of game play comes in. A normal hit require you to simply get your player to the ball to make a play. For hard hits or skilled attempts at the ball the player will be prompt with a quick time event that will test your reflexive skills. These events are self explanatory and effective in keeping the game interesting.

Prototype: Unstable Fun

RATING: 7.5/ 10
PLATFORM: Xbox 360 / PS3
GENRE: Action Adventure
RATED: MATURE
PURCHASE RECOMMENDATION: Rent

So Prototype is hyper active ADHD brother of Infamous. Where Infamous had its steadily paced combat and storyline Prototype is simply about ripping the city apart in high speed combat. Prototype though similar to Infamous in many ways takes a completely different style of gameplay. Infamous is like a latin jazz piece where Prototype is your heavy metal rock, it comes down to your gameing style. In Prototype you play as a super human/mutant that can be describe as a Superman vampire zombie. Your not necessarily a villain but then you do kill countless people to regain health and steal identities. Combat in Prototype is mass chaos where you get to use your massively overpowered abilities to take on countless enemies. When things get to crazy you flee for your life regaining life and then return to the battle fresh. The mass chaos works for this type of game because of its ADHD flow but the mass chaos does take away any depth in gameplay. Also your power ups can make the game one sided. When you have a super powerful long range weapon that makes u pretty much invincible game balance is destroyed and the challenge is gone. Overall though I scored this game well because my little bro simply loved it and prove the point that prototype is a 10 out of 10 for the right audience. For me however I give it 7.5 out of 10 and I suggest you at least renting it.