Major League Baseball 2K10 Hands On

[bigfnjoe96]

Sounds encouraging. Couple of things. The NEW Mound Visits sound very interesting.

Quote:

When there is a meeting on the mound, now you can select confidence or stamina and a small bit of either one of those qualities will return to your pitcher. Confidence ties into your ball cursor -- the cursor will begin to move around on the screen more violently as you get into bigger jams. Stamina will really tie into your accuracy and ability to pinpoint pitches.

Though I am encouraged that a lot of new Hitting & Pitching Mechanic is really tied into Ratings. 1 thing VC always get's hammered about is the way they rate players in their titles.

Also looks like people's worrying about having pinpoint accuracy when Pitching has been addressed.

Quote:

Pinpointing will not be very easy to do either way since ratings also play a bigger role when pitching. Your outfielder will not be able to come into the game and paint the corners anymore. In addition to that, even when your normally wild pitchers are nailing their pitching motions, there is an inherent amount of wildness that will still show up. By default, Joel Pineiro is just going to be more accurate than Oliver Perez.

And lastly for me ANIMATIONS, ANIMATIONS, ANIMATIONS..... It looks like Fielding got a major over-haul in the Animation Dept.

Quote:

Preloading throws, new animations and a removal of turbo seem to be the biggest changes this year (beyond the fact that outfielders should catch balls hit right at them). Preloading a throw seems to work just fine, and I was able to watch the CPU turn an easy double play on me while rocking a preloaded throw. These preloaded throws should really help to remove a lot of those “quick” throws that you would try to pull off last year. (The quick throws really looked unnatural last year because the fielder went through a throwing animation way too fast.)

Quote:

As for new animations, obviously a lot of the preloaded throws tie into new animations. At one point, I moved to my right to field a grounder as the shortstop, and all in one motion (and animation) the shortstop picked up the ball and fired it off balance towards first base for an out.

but from watching the "SIZZLE" trailer it doesn't seem like Batter/Pitcher Animations got much love, as I still saw animations still look awkward. I wonder if Chase felt the same way?

Again it was an encouraging preview & looks like VC just might have this puppy headed in the right direction after all

[magoo1967]

Thanks Chase, this game is looking more & more promising but as we all know, we've been down this road before with this series. Because of those past "relationship troubles", there's no way this is a first day purchase for me. I will definitely wait to see what the general reaction is in the days & weeks following it's release. It would be nice to finally have a good quality baseball title to play on my 360, so I got my fingers crossed (I know this is a PS3 preview, but I'm just sayin').

[500Feet]

I liked the article, Chase. It was well written, entertaining, and easy to read. Some things you wrote interested me very much. They interested me more than any of the Insights and trailers have.

Quote: Originally Posted by Chase

And since the “swing influence” has also been minimized this year, hitting is all about timing. No longer simply using the “swing influence” to hit the ball wherever you want is the way to go. So if you want to hit the ball to the opposite field, you have to wait for the ball to get deeper into the zone before taking a whack.

The above means a lot to me. It speaks so much louder than that trailer I just watched.

Quote: Originally Posted by Chase

This also ties into how the AI performs. During my time with the game, I walked two CPU batters, but I also drew two or three walks against my CPU counterpart...

I doubt I have to explain to most people why I find that interesting.

[baseball66]

Quote: Originally Posted by backbreaker

I thought Chase said he didn't get to play the PS3 version.

Thta's what he said, i think this was 360 review unless he did two of them. Here is my question i asked him:

Originally Posted by baseball66
...i'm mostly interested in how smooth or choppy the game plays, esp. on PS3. Thanks.

Played the 360 version so didn't get to see PS3 (forgot to ask about comparison as well, my bad -- might be able to remedy that though).

[PVarck31]

Quote: Originally Posted by 500Feet

I liked the article, Chase. It was well written, entertaining, and easy to read. Some things you wrote interested me very much. They interested me more than any of the Insights and trailers have. The above means a lot to me. It speaks so much louder than that trailer I just watched. I doubt I have to explain to most people why I find that interesting.

Yes, these are significant improvements. If the game plays like real baseball, then we will certainly be happy here at OS.

[dorismary]

Thanks Chase , seems like you enjoyed it which is a good sign

[Blitzburgh]

Thanks for your Preview. I get a feeling from reading your previews that there wasn't really anything in particular that gave you that WOW factor. I kind of get a feeling like the game is improved but almost like what 2k8 or 9 for that matter should have been. The stadiums seemed to be updated and offer more detail but the player models still look like something is just not right. Did anyone feel like the were watching a clay animation sequence? It's strange but that came to my mind a few times. Hopefully they will have an early demo to check out because I have learned my lesson for the past few years.

[miamimarlins1]

I think I might pick this one up this year, just as a fun alternative to the show. I love baseball, so having 2 games will keep me occupied for the season. Though, I do question this preview, as I can't possibly see how anyone could write an unbiased preview for a game in which the company pays the writer to fly out their and pays for the hotel. Nothing against Chase, I'm sure he's an ethical guy, but if this game sucked, and he hated it, I just don't think he would be able to pan it after this type of treatment. These are very smart tactics many company's use