We are proud to present our interview with Ben Brinkman, Associate Producer of MVP Baseball 2005.

Operation Sports: What mini-games are there going to be and will they play a role in your dynasty like in Madden?

Ben Brinkman: There are two different mini games. When we built the mini games we had three things in mind: teach people how to hit and pitch, have a fun stand alone mini game and have them affect player progression. Both the batting and pitching mini games meet these goals.

The Batting Mini Game is like Simon Sez: you start with 10 pitches. We tell you where to hit the ball and you are scored based upon following directions as well as how far you hit it. Also, everything in the environment is interactive. So if you hit a car or bus beyond the outfield wall you’ll score bonus points. The Pitching Mini Game is like MVP mixed with Tetris. Each pitch is has a color on the pitch selector that corresponds to blocks in the strike zone. The goal is to throw proper pitches at like colored blocks in the strike zone. The more you fill the pitch meter and the more connected blocks you hit, the more points you score. Both mini-games are very fun and good ways to master pitching and batting in MVP Baseball 2005

As I mentioned earlier they also have impact on player progression. For starters we addressed some issues with player progression from MVP 2004. In MVP 2005 it functions as it’s supposed to. With the mini games you can supplement your normal player progression by reaching different point goals, though if you choose not to there will be no penalty. So if you’d rather use normal player progression you can. Reaching these goals give the user attributes points to assign to that player in a few selected areas.

Operation Sports: There were frame rate complaints on the PC and Xbox last year, has this been improved? Will we see 720p for the Xbox again this year?

Ben Brinkman: One of our goals at the beginning of this project was to have a game that ran consistently at 60 frames per second. We met this goal on all platforms. I don’t know too many games that can say that. In doing so we had to make some sacrifices such as cutting base coaches. I know this is a “game killer” to some people but as a long time gamer I would take 60fps any day of the week over base coaches who are there to be nothing more than eye candy. A smooth playing game is the ultimate to me, but I could be wrong. 

Operation Sports: Is there custom soundtrack support for batter walk-ups, intros, etc.? Will weather conditions be a part of the game and will we see rain delays or rain outs?

Ben Brinkman: We don’t have custom soundtracks. In Dynasty and Owner mode there are rain outs and rain delays. Additionally there is rain in game. I love in MVP 2005 when it starts raining at Safeco and the roof closes. We had wind in last year’s game and its back this year, tweaked and better than ever. It really has more of an effect on the game.

Operation Sports: Could you tell us more about the improved dynasty mode? Will there be more stat keeping? ). Are there more end of game stats, more in line with what you would see in a newspaper and can we see stats from previous seasons and track records?

Ben Brinkman: A few things right off the bat are the inclusion of Single-A teams and a more robust Spring Training, as well as improved trade AI and player progression. As stats go, we’ll track year-by-year MLB and minor league stats. Minor league stats start from 2005 season, while MLB stats start at the beginning of a player’s career.

Operation Sports: Are there night playoff games and are there any new additions to legends. More ballparks? (Old school and future?)

Ben Brinkman: Yes there are night playoff games this year as well as new legends, including Mickey Mantle and Johnny Bench as well as 60 new classic uniforms. We have also added a handful of classic ballparks. In addition to these ballparks we’ve added a visual treatment to older stadiums so it feels more like you are playing a game in a bygone era, instead of playing a game in 2005 in an old park.

Operation Sports: Will there be manager retirement/coaching changes? Can retired players become coaches/managers?

Ben Brinkman: Yes to the first question and no to the second.

Operation Sports: Will injuries play a larger role? Will there be day-to-day injuries that players can play through?

Ben Brinkman: Yes and no. With the addition of player fatigue resting your players becomes a factor in MVP 2005. If you don’t rest tired players, their ratings will suffer and they have a greater chance of in-game injury.

Operation Sports: Has optimizing the rosters by the CPU been tweaked? In MVP 2004 the CPU would carry too many pitchers. Could you also give us some more detail on the improvements of player progression?

Ben Brinkman: Roster optimization has been fixed. As I mentioned earlier, player progression is much better in MVP 2005. Several years into your Dynasty, there will be a much healthier mix of stars and average players than in MVP 2004.

Operation Sports: Does the CPU attempt steals, are there more walks both by the player and the CPU and are there less diving catches?

Ben Brinkman: The CPU does attempt to steal. This was a bug that was fixed. Additionally they will hit and run and run and hit in appropriate counts.

There are also much fewer diving catches as well as a slider that allows players to set a dive frequency that is too their liking. So if you want as many dives as last year, tune it up. Want less, tune it down.

Finally, the more walks question is an interesting one. If you want to know about more CPU walks taken guess the answer depends on how you pitch. If you throw a lot of strikes then no the CPU will not walk more. If you mix some balls in there, then yes, he will walk more. As far as users being better able to take walks, we have increased the number of balls thrown by the CPU pitcher. This is another thing that can be adjusted to your liking in the slider menu. One hiccup by us last year was not adding this slider. We tuned the game to make it too accessible to new users (i.e. CPU throws more strikes) and in doing so inadvertently penalized veterans of MVP. With the addition of the Hitter’s Eye we believe that all users will have a better chance of success against pitchers who spend time out of the zone so MVP 2005 will feature more CPU balls.

Finally, despite assertions to the contrary all our sliders work and have an affect on gameplay. I know this because I tuned the game using our sliders.

Operation Sports: Has CPU AI logic been improved? (Roster management, late game handling, late season management?)

Ben Brinkman: The AI has improved in many ways. Another favorite topic of discussion on the OS MVP forum, and might I add I’m impressed it’s continued for almost a year, is the “left handed home run bug.” I stake my job on the fact that left handed and right handed batters are created equal in MVP 2005. We spent a lot of time working on the ball physics this year and those of you who played MVP 2004 will immediately notice a difference with regards to hit results. Those of you who didn’t play MVP 2004 will notice the most realistic baseball physics to date.

We spent a lot of time fine tuning substitution logic. Pitcher warm ups are more timely as well as pitcher subs. Pinch hitting and pinch runner are also two areas we went back to the drawing board on. The results of all our work are more realistic subs by the CPU manager.

Unintentional/Intentional walks were another bit of AI we added this year. Sometimes, if the situation is correct, you will see guys pitched around in order to get to the next batter. In addition we revised a bunch of our intentional walk code to make it more “situation specific”.

MVP 2005 saw us spending a lot of time polishing the game. CPU throw decisions, running decisions (including the aforementioned stealing), pitcher intelligence are but a few other areas worth mentioning, but there is so much more. We wanted MVP 2005 to be the most complete and polished game of baseball to date and we believe we got there.

Operation Sports: We would like to thank you for your time with this interview, is there anything else you would like to add?

Ben Brinkman: We on the MVP team really enjoy the conversations that go on in the OS forums. They are quite entertaining and informative. It’s great to read all the speculation and prognostication that goes on based upon seeing a movie here or a screen shot there. I hope I settled some of these threads (and probably started a bunch of others as well) and more than anything we can’t wait to answer all your questions in March when MVP Baseball 2005 arrives in stores. Rest assured we are listening to what you are saying and the proof is in MVP 2005.