MLB 2K11 Demo Available Now, Post Your Impressions Here (PS3/360)

[noda11]

After not buying a baseball video game in the past 3 or 4 years I must say that I am pleased with 2k's game. I played the show demo yesterday and after playing 2k's today i would say that 2k isnt far away from being on the same level as the show. That said here are a few pluses and minuses with 2k11

Pluses
+ball coming off the bat felt good
+fielding feels very organic, no weird sliding motions
+sky and field look great

Negatives
-after the ball is hit I found it hard to see where the ball was. Especially pop ups and fly balls.
-shadows are too dark pixely. I know that's a minor gripe but I expected better.

After seriously considering selling all of my 360 stuff to get a ps3 and the show I will now be reconsidering. 2k has closed the gap, thats for sure.

[jeffy777]

Man, I can't get over how good this variable strike zone feels. So much better for working the count, and it certainly makes pitching more challenging as well.

Just beat out a chopper with Andrus. That felt great as well

[Tully]

Only have one thing to say after playing this. Its hard to understand how a company who made arguably one of if not the best sports game ever in NBA2k11 can put this out. I know it is another development team but I don't see how they get away with it every season for baseball.

[DirtyJerz32]

I'm really liking all the negative comments from some people. Not giving an impression of what you thought of the game, but just having negative comments.

Anyway, I can't wait to get home tonight and play again. Hopefully the PS3 demo will be out by that time so I can play both. Either way I'll be picking this up. Can't wait to play MLB Today again. I loved that feature last year even though the gameplay had some issues.

[Eski33]

Not a fan. Nothing has changed. The pitching mechanic is ludicrous, the hitting is terrible (what is the point of using the RS when you can just hold back then push forward as the ball comes in?). I saw instances where the OF would field a routine single then hold the ball. While attempting to take another base to see if the OF would throw the ball into the IF, the screen goes black and my next hitter walks to the plate?

Not to mention that my base runners run on fly balls with less than two outs. Just basic baseball logic is not implemented properly. I understand it is only a demo but 2K should realize the demo is a tool to try and sell the game. All it did was ruin any chance that I would make a purchase.

All of the items I have read with improved visuals. Yeah, not seeing it. The lighting is still way off and why is the scenery outside the stadium so blurry? I understand it is to create depth perception but wow.

The presentation was decent but why use the same music as NBA 2K11? How about something original? MLB 2K7 was the best 2K game for the current generation of consoles. Not sure what happened....

[pdawg17]

Is there a way to change difficulty or something? I've seen a handful of posts saying it is tougher to pitch yet with Sanchez (who has below average control at best) I had 19 out of 19 pitches for strikes...and this was trying to paint the edges - not just throwing down the middle...and the few pitches that were slightly outside the zone were swung at by the CPU - no patience at all...

Those of you that have walked people: Do you follow the catcher's choice 100% of the time? If so I could see a walk or two occurring only because they ask for pitches outside of the zone sometimes...otherwise I don't see how it happens...

[emath]

Quote: Originally Posted by noda11

After seriously considering selling all of my 360 stuff to get a ps3 and the show I will now be reconsidering. 2k has closed the gap, thats for sure.

Well, I will be playing the demo later tonight (PS3) when it is released. My feeling on your comment is, get the PS3, and you can have both as an option.

I already have the Show on pre order (it's a forgone conclusion for me), but if the demo of 2k11 is as good as everyone is saying (okay, as I read more, I see the demo isn't THAT great, but I will still give it a spin tonight), and the first couple of weeks reviews (of the actual game) don't expose all the BS that a 2k game usually has, I may end up going out and getting it by the end of March as well.

[SoxFan01605]

Quote: Originally Posted by jeffy777

Anyone who thinks the pitching is still to accurate, try pitching with Barry Zito...wow....I'm all over the place with him and did walk one guy so far. I also thought it was nice how it told me that Torrealba is a bad matchup vs. Zito, so that was a confidence booster

Ha...I was just going to post that in my little review (almost word for word). I didn't notice it my first couple of games, but with Zito I was a mess.

As for my early thoughts (kinda long-go figure):

Spoiler

Good:

-The lighting and color depth have added enough on their own to boost the graphics considerably for me. Also, when playing the game on an HDTV (rather than just watching youtube videos) I can notice the difference in the models. The stocky leg thing is kind of still there, but seems to be more an issue with how the uniforms fit. Skinny guys have smaller builds, etc. Looks much better .

-Pitching was always a strong point control-scheme wise and that's still great. The variable calls hit me a few times and that, coupled with a bigger gap between the control of a Tim Lincecum and Barry Zito make the overall experience more rewarding. It still felt a bit easy, but I'm not worried about that (changed difficulty and sliders in full game can easily solve that).

-Hitting felt better and FINALLY has a better sense of feel for the hit types. It's something that had bothered me with 2K all along-that the hitting felt kind of weightless-like you were playing with a broomstick rather than a bat. This has been greatly improved IMO. It still has moments where it all feels too "light" but it's more infrequent and not as distracting for me.

-Fielding just looked and felt better overall. More weight to the movements and smoother animation. I haven't seen errors yet, but I've only played a handful of games (and given that they aren't full games to boot, it's not unreasonable).

-Animations in general seemed smoother (though some of the same culprits from previous iterations still exist). -The reactionary animations add a lot to the flow and immersion of the game as do some of the little things like seeing the bat drop after a hit, etc. 2K is starting to do a much better job on some of the details and it's nice to see.

Not so Good:

Pitches still have a floating sensation for the user. The FB doesn't arc as much, but it doesn't have the right pop to it.

-Too much going on on-screen-I agree with Swaldo on the flashing pop-ups. Not a huge deal, but it's a lot going on and distracts from the baseball aspect and screams "ARCADE!!!" at me. I'm hoping that the PC version will be able to resolve some of this via mods.

-Some of the same animation problems still exist. The walking still gets robotic and weird. It looks like they did something to it (it's less frequent), but it now shifts from a normal looking animation to that old robotic one...it's just odd.

In fact, I've noticed it's doing this in a few circumstances (odd transition from older look to smoother look) It's like an overlay of sorts. Like the newer, smoother, animations are resting atop the old, herky-jerky ones rather than the old ones simply being gone. I don't know if I'm explaining that well, but it's just odd.

-Also there is some odd transitions in the animations still. Sometimes they look silky smooth and others it's like they skipped a frame. It might be a small framerate thing people have already mentioned or might be a goof with the animation. This is the type of visual thing that might simply be demo build related though, so we'll see.

There are some other issues I've run into, but I feel comfortable in chalking those up to either it being a demo or it being difficulty level related and easily solvable (adjustable difficulty, sliders, etc) in the full game.

Other observations:

-Have yet to see a single miscue in the field, but given that some are saying they've seen quite a bit, I'm not concerned. If anything, I'm impressed that they aren't forcing it to show off the additions.

-I love the concept of different fielders getting the indicator at different times based on ratings, but I'm hoping it's better in the full build. There is still occurrence of "suction" when you're close to making the catch.

That's no biggie (it smooths out animations) but for a guy like Pat Burrell who gets his indicator at the last possible second, it seems to render the new system somewhat moot at times. I've had several instances where I couldn't see a fielding circle but found where I needed to be as I got sucked into the early stages of a catch animation.


Overall, I liked it. It's a bit arcadey, but that's the style, I guess. MVP had that going on too, but it still played well, so that's not a knock. It's not far and away different than 2K10, but it seems my issues with that game have largely been addressed. I'll need some time with the full game so I can make adjustments, but 2K11 is off to a good start for me. The good news is, that my issues with the demo were mostly minor and the good far outweighs the bad thus far.

Let me also add this to summarize (and add a bit of a disclaimer...lol): I came away from the 2K9 and 2K10 demo mostly positive as well as I could notice the improvements in each game (and I'm willing to bet I was feeling pretty good after playing 2K10's demo-if it weren't for bugs and nagging issues, that game would have been pretty darn good IMO), but problems crept up over time and made it hard to enjoy them. So, we'll see how that plays out over time with 2K11, but after the first run-through with this demo, I stopped critiquing and simply lost track just playing the game.

During that time, I didn't get distracted by the flaws because I was simply having fun. With the other two, I found more issues as I kept playing. So far, with 2K11, I got more into it as I kept playing (which I would imagine would only increase with more options to be able to tune). I know for fans of the series that might not be new, but for me, that's the first time in years I've been able to say that about a 2K baseball game and, while it's too early to say for sure, that's a very good sign IMO.