Major League Baseball 2K9 Preview (Teamxbox)

[Motown]

A few things changed, & it's a purchase for me:

Gameplay...Damn happy the meatball BS is gone!
GFX on par w/ the 360
Field dimensions have ALWAYS been too damn small. They need to be accurately proportioned w/ the players imo.

VC hopefully gettin' it done fellaz

[bodhiball]

wow, I give you guys a TON of credit for being able to dissect the review as much as you have. Honestly, if you put all 4 reviews that have been written in front of me I dont think I could possibly tell the difference in them. They all mentioned the exact same things, and were just paragraphs of the features list...things we already know.

Supposedly these reviewers played the game? Why no comments on how it played? What pitching felt like? What happens instead of a meatball? How did the hitting feel? Did you notice good hit variety? How was fielding? How did the stadiums look? How about the player models? Was there day-night transition? Weather? How was the crowd? Was the Living World in yet and if so how did it look? How was the commentary? etc etc.....you get the point

All they told us is what 2k told them...not their experiences of what they saw. I am new to the world of game reviews, but these just seemed silly

[baa7]

Quote: Originally Posted by bodhiball

wow, I give you guys a TON of credit for being able to dissect the review as much as you have. Honestly, if you put all 4 reviews that have been written in front of me I dont think I could possibly tell the difference in them. They all mentioned the exact same things, and were just paragraphs of the features list...things we already know. Supposedly these reviewers played the game? Why no comments on how it played? What pitching felt like? What happens instead of a meatball? How did the hitting feel? Did you notice good hit variety? How was fielding? How did the stadiums look? How about the player models? Was there day-night transition? Weather? How was the crowd? Was the Living World in yet and if so how did it look? How was the commentary? etc etc.....you get the point All they told us is what 2k told them...not their experiences of what they saw. I am new to the world of game reviews, but these just seemed silly

Excellent post.

[brendanrfoley]

My understanding of the preview process is this:

Visual Concepts arrived, let people play the game for about an inning and followed up with their own presentation. There is probably little mention of how the game actually played because, truthfully, writers barely got their hands on it.

[jeffy777]

Quote: Originally Posted by dickdalewood

I'll just say this: I find it very interesting that three previews mentioned the subpar framerate, yet the magazine exclusive to the system that only has one baseball game to choose from somehow has a copy that is fine? ...........

It's not like TeamXbox is owned by Microsoft or anything, so they don't hype up Xbox exclusive games just for the sake of them being Xbox only. On the contrary, they have very good and unbiased reviews. They are actually owned by IGN.

The article pointed out that they gave MLB 2K8 a hard time last year because of it's framerate, so that was certainly on their mind when looking at this preview builld of 2K9, yet they said the framerate looked solid even at this early stage, so that is a really good sign.

Quote: Originally Posted by brendanrfoley

Finally, this review does a good job explaining the framerate. It does not say the framerate is silky smooth. It does say, however, that it is more "solid" than many games at this point in development. Given what SimBaller said, I don't think we have anything to worry about.

Good summary, I feel the same way

[DaveDQ]

Quote: Originally Posted by Shakedowncapo

Meh...Peter Moore was a bigger part of the NBA2k/NFL2k franchises taking off.

Greg and Jeff Thomas are Visual Concepts, they are behind putting out two very well made franchises in NFL and NBA 2K. Peter Moore, while I think he's got his act together, was merely behind the Dreamcast. He wanted EA on board but couldn't get it done.

I read an article with Greg Thomas about 8 years ago. He mentioned much of what we are seeing in games now. I give credit to his leadership. While 2K has sort of lost itself in this generation of consoles, they have given us some great games.

[bigfnjoe96]

Quote: Originally Posted by DaveDQ

Greg and Jeff Thomas are Visual Concepts, they are behind putting out two very well made franchises in NFL and NBA 2K. Peter Moore, while I think he's got his act together, was merely behind the Dreamcast. He wanted EA on board but couldn't get it done. I read an article with Greg Thomas about 8 years ago. He mentioned much of what we are seeing in games now. I give credit to his leadership. While 2K has sort of lost itself in this generation of consoles, they have given us some great games.

Not to mention Greg & Jeff worked for EA before he decided to create Visual Concepts. They both worked on the Madden Series in it's early years

[mdiggitydawg]

so for the lemmings like me who purchase right away (eventhough we say we'll wait) what's the real release date..more importantly when it comes out how quickly can bigfnjoe get his sliders tuned and up?