A solid upgrade from 2K6.
I have to give a thumbs up to 2K Sports for removing the "hustle baserunning" system. It was absolutely atrocious. This years baserunning, while still frustrating at times, is much more fluid. I have committed far less baserunning blunders in this years game than last years. This is very important to me, because I absolutely hate to make baserunning mistakes. It is one of the most frustrating things to let happen, although there were a couple of glitches from 2K6 that left you with no control over what your baserunner was doing. The Baseburner Mode is still a cool feature, but it takes a lot of practice to master. It's pretty difficult to exact the timing of the pitcher's delivery. It also seems if you don't get your initial jump at the exact moment the pitcher begins his delivery, then you will most likely be caught stealing. I have not tested this against weaker armed catchers though. I was testing the feature against catchers like Yadier Molina and Jorge Posada... needless to say, it was a bad idea. 2K is still not the king of hitting. Their swing stick just doesn't feel like you are really hitting, unlike MVP's swing stick. So, I prefer the classic style of hitting in 2K7 -- and it's okay. I like to use the swing stick since MVP introduced it, but I'm just not a fan of the 2K Swing Stick. Homeruns are still easy to come by, unless you get robbed, but it's not as bad as last year. The main beef I have with hitting is how unrealistic it can be. I've pulled outside pitches quite a few times for monster home runs. This just doesn't happen. They weren't all on fastballs either... a couple of sliders as well. There are very few players who can pull an outside pitch for a homerun - namely Vlad Guerrero and Andruw Jones. Not Jeff Cirillo. Maybe working with the game tuners could affect the power, I'm not sure though.
Fielding is much improved. The animations are very fluid and they don't waste as much time in this years game. There have been a couple of occasions where the fielder has been lazy to get rid of the ball -- but it is not as rampant as 2K6. Much, much improved. A few quirks include the annoying running-into-the-wall-while-trying-to-field-the-ball, the frequent wall climb catches, and the seemingly frequent "Web Gems" that aren't robbing someone of a homerun. There have been a few occasions where I was running after a ball that was planted right up against the fence, and my player just collided with the wall. I wasn't running full speed - it was more of my guy reaching down to get the ball and then just bouncing off of the wall like he had ran full speed into it. Fix that please ... Most of you are already aware of all the gold glovers that litter the field each game, so I won't elaborate here. There was one fielding instance, and this has only happened once -- nevertheless -- when I was playing at Cleveland. The ball was hit to left field where there is a heightened wall with a scoreboard. It bounced once and then hit off the wall; however, instead of bouncing back off of the wall -- it stuck at the base of the scoreboard . In other words it was basically sitting on top of a "normal" wall. It was still in the field of play, since there was a scoreboard there... but I couldn't get to the ball! I tried to get close to the wall in an attempt to swipe it, but the crazy wall physics of the game knocked me to the ground...My CPU opponent collected an inside-the-park homerun. Some of the errors are not calculated correctly as well. This is a much improved game over last year, and it is certainly more playable. Glitches still exist, but they can be overlooked -- unless you have to have a perfect game. A couple of other minor problems with the game I have ... The lineups are still not set realistically when you have a fantasy draft. They are better -- still I've seen Vernon Wells hitting 7th in some lineups -- or Jason Giambi leading off. There are some statistical glitches as well. I had runners on 2nd and 3rd, and hit a sac fly to dept right-center. I tagged up with both runners -- the guy from 3rd scored easily, but my guy advancing from 2nd to 3rd was thrown out on a ridiculous throw. There were 2 outs, so that ended the inning. I got credit for the run, but my batter was not credited with a sac fly or an RBI. Oops. My roommate also pitched an old-school "3 Inning Save", but was not credited with a save. Oh well. This game is well worth the purchase if you are a hardcore baseball fan... if not, maybe you should rent it first.