Game Review: Nicktoons MLB

Billy O'Keefe - Mclatchy -Tribune News Service

Reviewed for: Xbox 360

Also available for: Wii and Nintendo DS

From: High Voltage/2K Play

ESRB rating: Everyone (comic mischief)

Price: $40

If you've been wondering what the awesome arcade baseball game "The Bigs" has been up to since 2009, here's your answer. "Nicktoons MLB" isn't as feature-complete as "The Bigs" was, but simply by borrowing its engine and keeping it intact, it leapfrogs most kids' baseball games in terms of presenting a great game of baseball.

It also, by mixing semi-realistic major league players and stadiums with the likes of Spongebob Squarepants and Stimpy, is kind of hilarious without even trying.

Perhaps the best thing about "Nicktoons" is that if you want to play a straight-faced game of baseball, you mostly can. Full rosters aren't available, but all 30 MLB teams' starting lineups (and two pitchers each) are available. And while the arcade-style flavor and players' exaggerated physiques make towering home runs and spectacular catches the headliners, everything you need for manufactured runs and pitchers' duels is here. The pitching controls allow you to paint corners and toy with hitters' sweet spots for extra turbo. That turbo - earned through plate discipline as well as pitching - can be applied to base running and fielding as well as pitching and hitting, allowing you to beat teams with defense and the hit-and-run as well as the long ball.

Though "Nicktoons" softens the difficulty curve - if you play "The Bigs" on medium difficulty, you'll want to set this one to hard - it makes no concession with regard to how it plays.

The twist, instead, is the ability for Nickelodeon characters to share the same field and uniforms as the Major Leaguers. "Nicktoons" offers a pickup game-style format where you pick an MLB or fantasy team and take turns (either with the computer or a friend via local multiplayer) picking Nick characters to fill half the roster. A Showdown mode allows similar roster management, only with one team solely comprised of Nick characters taking on an all-MLB squad.

"Nicktoons" provides six Nick-themed fantasy stadiums, but the game is never more amusing than when it presents, with a reasonably straight face, the likes of Invader Zim belting a double off Yankee Stadium's wall and sliding safely under a Derek Jeter tag. "Nicktoons'" visual presentation of this impossible mixture is a wonderfully seamless compromise between realism and cartoon, and while the game's commentary is a bit repetitive, it's hard not to laugh when GIR interrupts Perch Perkins' play-by-play with some seriously nonsensical color commentary.

(Naturally, while "Nicktoons" includes a nice array of popular and obscure Nick characters, there's bound to be an omission that bothers you. Your mileage, of course, will vary.)

More conclusively bothersome is the drop in content from "The Bigs" to "Nicktoons." Though all 30 teams have representation, only six MLB stadiums are available - a puzzling omission considering they've all been modeled for "The Bigs." Offline multiplayer is limited to two players, down from four, and online multiplayer is non-existent. The game's tournament mode - a ladder-style gauntlet in which you must take down every MLB and fantasy team to be crowned champion - is excellent, but it's not as deep as the season/story mode hybrid that is "The Bigs'" centerpiece. The amazing Home Run Pinball is reincarnated as a fun but more subdued target challenge, and the skill challenge games are gone.

For its part, 2K Play at least prices "Nicktoons" $20 cheaper, so the feature downgrade stings less than it normally would.

A note about "Nicktoons'" optional Kinect controls: They aren't very good. Pitch selection and placement is way too difficult, and some lag means competent contact hitting comes down to guesswork as well as timing.

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