Major League Baseball 2K8 360 Impressions

[Flaxseed Oil]

Hey man, what about bat sounds? thanks for taking the time to do this.

[Flaxseed Oil]

Hey man, what about bat sounds? thanks for taking the time to do this.

[ehh]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheLetterZ

- We tried editing the lineups and rotations for CPU-controlled teams and it was impossible.

I'm not too concerned yet since this is the demo. Didn't BB say in the conference-call that you can do this in the final build?

Plus it will only be used in franchise mode so I don't see how or why it'd be in the demo. No need to panic yet, IMO.

[driz14]

Curious about the bat sounds as well

[Trevytrev11]

Quote: Originally Posted by Steve_OS

Matt Blumenthal had an opportunity to demo Major League Baseball 2K8 this afternoon. His official writeup of the event will be up later this week, but we wanted to get some quick thoughts up here for you guys. This game looks beautiful, the player models have improved but the real leap is in the animations. The animations move silky smooth and there is no need to worry about herky jerky animations of the past anymore. I'm impressed with how intuitive and fresh the analog controls are. The pitching takes a little time to get the hang of but the new mechanics add a whole new dimension to the pitching model.

That might be enough for me. Last year, defense just wasn't consistant and so many of the animations were canned it felt like you only had control some of the time. If you wanted to get behind a fly ball to make a strong throw, it seemed like it was a crap shoot for the computer to be on the same page. I'm still waiting for a game to come up with some sort of "catch" button...maybe that will be the new thing next year...swing stick last year, analog pitching this year, catch button next year.

I think I'm most excited about the pitching. Besides having a bit of a learning curve, I haven't heard one person who has seen or used it have a bad thing to say about it. While I thought payoff pitching was too easy, I thought zone pitching pitching was challenging last year. Once I made the switch, the game changed for me. But. as a former pitcher, I'm excited tha button pressing is gone. Locating a fastball perfectly is challenging to even Greg Maddux and the fact that you can Make Barry Zito hit his spot 80% of the time in the past is a bit of a joke.

I think these two things are enough for me. I won't pre-order and will rent to make sure these things are as good as described, but if they are...it might be enough to make the game feel fresh.

Don't get me wrong, the presentation will get old and stale fast and I'll probably end up turning it down and turning my music up like I do with most games. I'm definitely not thrilled about the "idea" for the hitting system, but will give it a try and if the results seem realistic and there is a bigger variety in the hits, then I can live with that. Baseball has always been three things to me (pitching, fielding and hitting) and if they can nail 2 out of 3, I'll be happy.

I know we all want the complete game now, even though we know it is a "3-year process", but as long as the game feels new and improved to 2K7 in these area's, I can handle it. I don't want to sound like it's OK to settle because the last thing 2K needs to be is complacent, but it's a start.

[Artman22]

Quote: Originally Posted by driz14

Curious about the bat sounds as well

Same here. I would like to know about the bat sounds.

[sask3m]

1st off thanks for answering these ?'s , i have to wonder though by some of the comments as to whether or not you played 2k7, in- game saves were available last yr. as was the yankee roll call thing?

[bigfnjoe96]

Quote: Originally Posted by sask3m

In- game saves were available last yr.

In-Game save as in starting a game then stopping in the 4th inning. Saving, then being able to pick-up that same game where you saved from. I have play 2k7 a helluva lot & unless I'm blind or was doing something wrong, this wasn't available last year.