Major League Baseball 2K10 Demo Available, Post Impressions Here (360)

[michaeldu]

The Show has spoiled me. Just can't get into this demo.

[Wavebird99]

The difference between pitchers is staggering. Halladay will dominate me, (well, still give up 4 hits, but no runs) and Bastardo will get destroyed BY me. I knocked him out of the game with a 4 run 2nd inning. Ended up winning 4-0.

I like how we can really see the difference between pitchers now.

Btw, I still dont think the presentation is that great, it feels the same from last year in between at bats, but I love the new "pitch track" or whatever it is, similar to MVP 05.

[bukktown]

I think the gameplay is respectable. The pitchspeed is pretty slow. I would play the game if the A.I. was good. Still don't know if it is or isn't though.

[Bahnzo]

Since I don't have the demo yet, I've been reading this whole thread and watched the video that was posted. Some impressions on those...

I really like the presentation. There are some really nice camera angles and the revamped overlays look very nice.

I also like that meatballs are finally gone. I know..they said they were last year, but they really just took the "Meatball" graphic out. They still threw the ball right down the middle to be hammered when you screwed up. It looks like this year's pitching has been improved nicely.

Overall, it looks like they are taking positive steps towards improving the game.

That said, there are some still some disturbing things. For starters, guys aren't taking walks. I know they are looking at more pitches, but reading that the majority of guys still have D walk ratings is not good. Especially when this was given to us as the reason for the problem last year.

The decision to run to third on the comebacker to the pitcher is bad. I know guys make these mistakes, but it doesn't look good to see this right off the bat. Also, Jeter's muffed double play in that same inning smells of the problem we had last year with the first baseman constantly being pulled of the base (even on perfect throws).

I'm also still skeptical that pitching is too easy. It's hard to tell from the video because the person playing was missing a lot of gestures. But other's have said that if you nail them, it pretty much goes where you aim it...which is terrible news. Realize that after pitching a few games, you'll have had 100's of times to make those gestures and in time they will become second nature and you'll have them near perfect constantly. I don't think difficulty will fix this much..it might cut down on the amount you can miss a gesture by, but once you have them down it's not going to matter. There needs to be a certain randomness to all pitches that still doesn't seem to be in this game.

Overall, it looks like an improved effort, but they still have a lot of work to do.

[kcxiv]

Quote: Originally Posted by Wavebird99

The difference between pitchers is staggering. Halladay will dominate me, (well, still give up 4 hits, but no runs) and Bastardo will get destroyed BY me. I knocked him out of the game with a 4 run 2nd inning. Ended up winning 4-0. I like how we can really see the difference between pitchers now. Btw, I still dont think the presentation is that great, it feels the same from last year in between at bats, but I love the new "pitch track" or whatever it is, similar to MVP 05.

Yep, pitching with Bastardo is a heck of alot harder then with someone like Hamels. Its not even close anymore. Bastardo gets rattled easy. Its alot harder to throw pitches. THere is a huge difference between a great pitcher and a average to below average pitcher.

Quote: Originally Posted by Pro Bowler

Has anyone made a manual diving catch or a manual slide in the demo? I know manual slides use to be mapped to the R stick and maybe i'm missing the timing window, but i'm totally lost on how to make a manual diving catch. I've played about 4 games and i've had about 2 opprotunities in the IF and 2 in the OF and i've got nothing. I tried hitting X and got a throw to 3rd and i've tried moving the R stick and nothing. I seen a diving catch by the SS in the IF on a sharp hit ball, but it happened automatically. Again, maybe i'm not timing things correctly.

Lol, the pause menu, controller layout is your friend.

At any rate, to dive while fielding, press the right trigger, to climb the wall, press X, and to manual slide while baserunning, select your runner with A, then press the left stick in the direction you want to slide.

[Pro Bowler]

Quote: Originally Posted by DickDalewood

Lol, the pause menu, controller layout is your friend. At any rate, to dive while fielding, press the right trigger, to climb the wall, press X, and to manual slide while baserunning, select your runner with A, then press the left stick in the direction you want to slide.

Yea, i'm a complete dumbazz. I just checked that out. RT is for diving catches if there's anyone else to lazy to look. Now i'm having trouble stealing i hold either the L trigger or LB like it says and i don't go. I can lead off but not steal.

[SoxFan01605]

Well, well, well...

First, forgive me for repeating things that may have already been discussed. I know I'm late...and I only skimmed through all 25 pages.

I must say, I was left very unimpressed after seeing the game play video. I was holding out hope that the demo would show me some things to be happy about...and it certainly did.

First, to get this out of the way, no...it's not perfect or anywhere close. There are some lingering issues that anyone who's played 2K baseball will recognize right away. Also it's important to clarify that I'm making these impressions SOLELY on my experience with the demo. There are no profound insights into what the final game with slider adjustments might yield or issue that could crop up over time. That should be obvious, but I figure it bears mentioning for all of our over-analyzers here.

That aside, on with the impressions...

The Cons:

-The basic animations are still a bit jerky (though they are somewhat improved). That overall robotic look still shows up quite a bit. Running in particular looks really rough at times (still ).

-Uniform and texture issues are still there (clean helmets still look a bit rubbery and the numbers, etc have already been beat to death, but yeah...they're bad).

-While certainly very-much toned down, there are still some issues with physics in terms of hits. I swung late on an outside pitch (tailing away, at that) and pulled it. This only happened a couple times though and both while fooling with the classic hitting. The swing stick seemed right on.

-VERY minor, but the constant cuts to the dugout and all my teammates doing synchronized cheering went from mildly comical to annoying pretty fast.

-Throwing still feels a bit loose. Responsive is one thing, but it feels like hair-trigger response for the meter (this is more a preference thing, I guess...some others might like that).

-There were several instances were the AI had a clean chance for a DP and didn't take it. I've never seen them go the short way for an out either. There were also a couple of weird hitches in their throws (like collect, stop, **** arm, fire)...not sure if that was a frame-rate hiccup or an animation glitch. I only saw that a couple times though.

The Pros:

-Overall, animations look WAY better and pitching, batting, and fielding obviously all got some love. Pitching in particular looks very smooth.

-Speaking of very smooth, the game is night and day compared to 2K9 in terms of feel. EVERYTHING feels much smoother and more responsive. The hit stick (something I've not been a fan of) feels very responsive, but not in a jerky way. It just feels "right". Hard to explain, but I like it.

-Pitching has been good in terms of feel for a while IMO, but now the results seem to add up too. I actually missed some gestures (something that never happened in 2K9 unless I was WAY off) and the result was appropriate (a ball, a hanger-not a meatball though!). I actually walked a guy with Halladay trying to get the batter to chase. It seems the game is as advertised in terms of their focus here. The AI took pitches, I had some good battles, and my strikeouts felt rewarding and even earned. Good stuff!

-Fielding has improved too. No longer is the user control all over the place. Players in general seem to have more weight to how they feel and move. Players seem to gather or perform some type of realistic slow down in tracking the ball. Much improved here.

Lighting. The lighting is 100% better and really looks nice in HD. The colors pop a bit more and everything just looks less washed out than 2K9.

-Stadium looked great and they finally seem to be getting away from that more cartoony feel. I have yet to see a stadium I haven't thought looked good in the previews. On your own TV, it looks all the better!


Misc.:

-Visuals are hit and miss. The faces range from quite good (many of the big name Yankees looked good) to bad. I fear the long-standing 2K blank faces for lesser knowns will still be the norm.

-On my HDTV, the game looked much better than anything we've seen to this point. The game is hit or miss graphically, but it's not ugly by any means. On the PC, if I can get those numbers and color palette issues fixed, I'd say it's a solid 7 visually, maybe more.


anyway, long I know...lol..but there are far more positives than negatives for me. I went from sitting on the fence to seriously considering purchase. I rarely purchase anything day 1 (only a few games/developers have earned my trust in that regard) but it would honestly take a horrible rental experience for me to not pick this up for the PC. I'm all but sold!

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I really like the pitch and swing tracker. I liked how you could blow up the video too. Cool feature. Also, Joe Girardi looked like himself on the mound visits.