Major League Baseball 2K9 Hands-On Preview (IGN)

[bodhiball]

think about this guys....the biggest complaint about 2k8 was the frame rate, and in some cases it made the game unplayable.

How and why on earth would they produce a demo for these companies to review that STILL had a frame rate issue, knowing that it would be reported on and drastically reduce the confidence (if thats even possible) even more for the consumer??

I dont know enough about programming to know how possible it is to fix the frame rate of a game thats only 90% done, but it seems like a dangerous thing to hope for. Remember, last year the way they tried to make it playable was to slowly reduce the crowd, take out the grass texture, and downgrade the stadium and player graphics...all in hopes that the frame rate could then keep up. And it still didnt.

So if its already chugging, we may see a reduction in graphic quality by launch.

[EnigmaNemesis]

Quote: Originally Posted by bodhiball

think about this guys....the biggest complaint about 2k8 was the frame rate, and in some cases it made the game unplayable. How and why on earth would they produce a demo for these companies to review that STILL had a frame rate issue, knowing that it would be reported on and drastically reduce the confidence (if thats even possible) even more for the consumer?? I dont know enough about programming to know how possible it is to fix the frame rate of a game thats only 90% done, but it seems like a dangerous thing to hope for. Remember, last year the way they tried to make it playable was to slowly reduce the crowd, take out the grass texture, and downgrade the stadium and player graphics...all in hopes that the frame rate could then keep up. And it still didnt. So if its already chugging, we may see a reduction in graphic quality by launch.

Very good point. As we did with 2K8. I would not be shocked if they went with 30FPS like they did with 2K7, if they are not able to achieve 60 smoothly.

[NumberOneRB]

I hate to sound like a pessimist, but it seems as though the more previews I read, the more I feel that gameplay mechanics weren't necessarily improved as much as they were "cleaned up" or dumbed down. They have removed a lot of mechanics to certain parts of the game (namely step influence and pitching timing) that made the game more challenging.

Sure, the default settings can be reverted back to those used in last year's version, but doing so (in combination with the knowledge that this year's framerate is still having stability issues) gives the impression that this is just 2k8 with freshened up graphics and dumbed down gameplay mechanics. I know they've included options such as 2K Share and Living Rosters, but it appears from a gameplay perspective nothing has really been dramatically improved per se.

[jeffy777]

Quote: Originally Posted by NumberOneRB

I hate to sound like a pessimist, but it seems as though the more preveiws I read, the more I feel that gameplay mechanics weren't necessarily improved as much as they were "cleaned up" or dummed down. They have removed a lot of mechanics to certain parts of the game (namely step influence and pitching timing) that made the game more challenging. Sure, the default settings can be reverted back to those used in last year's version, but doing so (in combination with the knowledge that this year's framerate is still having stability issues) gives the impression that this is just 2k8 with freshened up graphics and dummed down gameplay mechanics I know they've included options such as 2K Share and Living Rosters, but it appears from a gameplay perspective nothing has really been dramatically improved per se.

Even if it were just 2K8 with better graphics and some gameplay refinements (and AI improvements), I'd be happy, because with the right sliders, 2K8 actually played a pretty decent game of baseball, and the framerate was much better once they finally patched it.

However, I'm pretty confident that this is going to be more than that......I have a feeling it's going to be a vast improvement over 2K8 is just about every way. Plus Jon and Joe are finally gone, and that's definitely a reason to rejoice

Gamespot and IGN both seemed quite positive when talking about the gameplay this year, so that's a good sign. So If VC can just get the framerate up to snuff (the build was only 90% complete, so let's see what happens), then I think we're in for a good game from 2K this year.

[Artman22]

IDK but after reading this preview i lost some hope for this game. I'm getting the show without a doubt but i was expecting this game to be very smooth. It's really sad honestly if VC can't get this game to be 60fps. This game just went from a first day purchase to wait and see now

[NumberOneRB]

"Only 90%" is pretty far along. I'm kind of confused when people on this forum have said the game is "Only 90% done" as if they were saying its "Only 50% done." Having a game that is that far along, I dont' think its conducive to any dramatic changes besides some bug fixes, so I'll be interested to know just how much of the framerate they can actually clean up when they've gone through 90% of the development cycle already and still are having relatively major stuttering issues.

[lived]

It's kinda funny how the framerate is plunging even though 70% of last year's complaints were on the framerate. And then you get comments like these

For starters, the team on-hand for our demo said that 60 frames per second was very important to this year's game;

Will just have to wait and see.

[Motown]

Quote: Originally Posted by Art1bk

IDK but after reading this preview i lost some hope for this game. I'm getting the show without a doubt but i was expecting this game to be very smooth. It's really sad honestly if VC can't get this game to be 60fps. This game just went from a first day purchase to wait and see now

Keep the faith Art