VC is back on baseball.

For the first time in years, the annual release of 2K Sports Major League Baseball has been developed by Visual Concepts, a group with lots of practice making sports games. They've taken over a game that has looked great and created new ideas for fundamental baseball game controls. But at the same time, the series has stumbled trying to get many of the little and not so little things right.

Well, 2K9 looks great, just like it did last year. The crowds and stadiums are gorgeous, and players look a little better every year. It wouldn't even be a surprise to see CC Sabathia appear more and more pregnant as the season wears on. (It's ok, we poked fun at CC before he was a Yankee.) The dynamic camera angles that crop up during plays on the field are actually even better than last year. Many plays develop and are displayed exactly as you'd see them during a broadcast. And the horrible stuttering issues that brought down last year's game are gone. All in all, we're off to a good start.

All is not perfect in the field, however. fielding the ball is tough because it takes a fair amount of practice to pace your player so he moves toward the ball at just the right time to play it. Before you figure that out, you'll misplay many a ground ball because the right animation didn't kick in. It's very frustrating, but at least over time it becomes less and less of an issue. On top of that, oddities crop up. First basemen pull their foot of the bag on good throws far too often and runners are tagged out on plays that aren't close enough to be chalked up to bad calls. These things happen, not all the time, but a little too often.

The pitcher and batter duel is the bedrock of baseball, and 2K9 gets only half of it right. Thankfully, the brutal pitching system from last year that required perfect analog stick control to throw even the most basic pitches is now only an option. The downside is that standard controls let you, and the computer, paint the strike zone like Bob Ross. Pitchers don't have a bad day unless you just plain miss. On the other side, computer batters don't swing at junk and they sure shootin' don't watch pitches go by. There are sliders to force pitchers to throw more balls, but ultimately the whole pitcher and batter exchange needs work no matter how much you fiddle with sliders. It can still be fun, it's just too different from what you'd see in real baseball.

Online, the game is much improved. Hitting still requires different timing than it does offline, but it's very playable. The fielding issues are a little worse online, too. It's an improvement, but it simply has to play more smoothly.

At release, the franchise mode had a major problem - high-priced free agents couldn't agree on deals so they often lingered in unsigned limbo indefinitely. A patch, which was delivered over Xbox Live right after release, fixed the problem. But don't start a season or franchise without the patch or you're stuck.

Overall, there's no doubt 2K Sports MLB 2K9 belongs in the 'fun' category. It looks great, and most of the time the gameplays great. But it's not kind online, and pitch counts and tendencies, and hitters that act like the real thing, aren't there. There are some quirks in every game, but for a game that clearly strives for realism - and achieves it graphically - getting the battle at the plate right should be a higher priority.