I have what you might call a hate-love-hate relationship with Take-Two Interactive. Their catalog makes it clear that they don't have much use for Wii. There's been a good port (Bully: Scholarship Edition), an excellent hockey game (NHL 2K10 and 2K11), and a gutsy if flawed survival horror game (Manhunt 2). Aside from that, Wii doesn't get much love from them.

It's been really difficult to get information on the Wii's version of MLB 2K11. If you go to GameTrailers, into their Wii section, you'll see an MLB 2K11 preview featured. It's not for you. None of the stuff that the game designer in the video, Sean Bailey, talks about is in your version. That's only for the XBox 360 and PS3 versions, but nowhere on GameTrailers, or in the video, is this indicated.

What I found when, against my better judgment, I bought MLB 2K11 from Best Buy today, was pretty much MLB 2K7. That's right, since 2K outsourced it to China, the Wii version of the game has barely progressed at all. There have been some minor bug fixes, and the balance of the game has been improved a bit, and the rosters have been updated, but it's still basically the same decent-playing, horrible-looking game it has been for the last four years.

It starts off looking promising, but once you get past the splash screen, your opinions of the game get ground down little by little. The IR pointing is serviceable, but oddly quantized. The pointer does not move smoothly. The text used in most of the game looks bad, is difficult to read, has poor leading and kerning, and what you have to click on can be pretty small at times. The main menu system features larger, round, easy-to-hit icons for navigating the main areas of the game, as well as the in-game pause menu. Some graphics look okay, while others look heavily aliased. Button usage in the menus are a bit inconsistent. It's a long-time Wii convention that the "A" button moves you forward, and the "B" button moves you back. Most, but not all, of 2K11 follows that. Every so often they decide to use the plus button instead, such as for launching the Home Run Derby.

Honestly, I really can't complain much about the controls. The original scheme from 2K7 works pretty well, and has been carried on mostly unchanged. There is still no MotionPlus support, which would really have improved batting, and throwing to bases on defense still uses the d-pad, which isn't ideal considering its flakiness. I found myself throwing to the wrong base when I could have sworn I pushed the right d-pad direction, but I attribute this to the Wii remote and not the game. (Which, as a side thought, I often wonder, why is the Wii d-pad so imprecise? A question for another time I suppose.) Sprinting during baserunning requires drumming, which you may or may not care for, and siding into bases uses motion, as well as diving or jumping for fly balls. I do wish they would have evolved the motion controls more, but I suppose I should be grateful that, unlike Madden NFL 10 and de Blob 2, they at least didn't strip out the motion controls. Unfortunately, the baserunning controls appear to be completely unimplemented, in spite of being described in the manual.

The graphics.....well, the graphics still look like a PS2 having a bad day. Some of the uglier glitches, such as off-center names on uniforms, have been fixed, but nobody is going to mistake 2K11 for a high-budget production. The colors are bland, the face models are still mediocre, and parts of the field are heavily aliased. I still have to say, MVP Baseball 2005 on the GameCube still looks better. heck, 2K's own game The Bigs looks better. The Wii can do much better, if 2K would put even just a little effort into it.

As with most baseball games, the default gameplay settings aren't terribly accurate, but you can improve the realism dramatically by tweaking a set of sliders governing the speed and accuracy of in-game AI. Several web sites have lists of "slider settings", and honestly you could probably use any of the settings listed for the Wii versions of 2K8, 2K9, or 2K10 and they would work because the game engine hasn't changed. Most of the real game has been covered in the rules, but I still managed to confuse it in one instance: When playing as the Cardinals, I used pitcher Kyle Lohse, a pretty good hitter, as a pinch hitter, but the game then insisted that he take the mound for one batter the next inning. Fortunately, I was playing the Rays and was able to strike out David Price (who, as an AL pitcher, never bats) coming in cold, so it didn't get in the way. But I'm not sure the game's designers have all the possible Tony LaRussa weirdness that could come into play.

The audio is competent. The play-by-play and color commentary, while it gets repetitive rather quickly, at least fits the game and it's not actively obnoxious. Sound effects are appropriate. Some of the extras I can take or leave. Gone is the silly baseball card system from previous versions, replaced with a Mini-Diamond game, which is also silly and looks hideous -- we're talking Nintendo 64 bad -- but at least it's interesting and playable. Sorry, still no on-line anything. Not even roster updates. There's a fair two-player mode, but it's strictly in-person.

Honestly, the value for the game is poor if you buy the game every year. While I rented previous versions for reviews, I hadn't bought the game since 2K7, so there was just enough progress over the last four years to keep me from feeling too cheated. Taken on its own, it's perhaps just worth the stock $50 price tag, but if you buy the franchise every year, you will feel let down.

I've kinda given up hope for baseball on Wii. The Wii has never been a priority for 2K, and the NHL franchise is looking increasingly like an aberration. The booklet for MLB 2K11 does have an ad for Top Spin 4 on the back of it, so maybe there's some hope. But the horizon isn't looking promising. I've found myself hoping that EA can get the MLB license back, or maybe just shelving my baseball expectations until the Wii's successor arrives in 2012.

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