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

[Giants4Natic]

Damm this demo has major issues.

First of all the PS3 demo is downright ugly. I have no idea why it is not even close to being like the 360

Two times I have seen my hitter hit a soft comebacker to the cpu pitcher and it hits him and he just stands there looking at the ball and the cather not once leaves his position.

Other times when I hit the ball and I am thrown out at first the pitcher is frozen in his pitching wind up

And once again the fielding feels like there is zero weight to it and the throwing to bases after fielding is the worst. No weight and it feels like you are throwing a wiffle ball

And I read some where that the soft liners to infielders was removed or at least lowered big time. I have seen that a bunch of times on both versions of the demo PS3 and 360

[Yeah...THAT Guy]

Quote: Originally Posted by SeerMagicX

After a few hours I came away mostly unimpressed. PROS -Pitching is still fun, and no longer is the strike zone super huge. -Fielders move and throw much more realistically. CONS -Batting is maybe the most boring batting in the history of video games. Why they ever decided to destory the complex hit stick is beyond me. -Presentation is pretty dull, and tons of weird hiccups (common of 2k the last few years.) -Cameras. Unlike other people on here, I was unimpressed with the cameras. Hitting is to zoomed out and wide, you have to squint to see the ball come out of the pitchers hand. Fielding is ok, but it's been alot better in older 2k games. After hitting the ball it's pretty poor too. -Fielding meter. I guess people are happy just to have this game have decent fielding, but that doesn't make it a pro. The meter is no where near as good as MVP or 2k's own 2k8. It's not a con really, but isn't any where near as special as people are making it out to be. I guess I wont be getting either game. 2k has the pitching, but the hitting is so so bad. Show has fun hitting, but the pitching is so boring.

Completely serious, do you need glasses or play on a small TV or something? If you seriously have to squint to see the ball come out of the pitcher's hand then I'm pretty sure that's on you, not 2K. This is the first batting camera I've ever had where I could legitimately read the pitch and draw walks.

And fielding isn't great, but it's still a vast improvement from the 3 or 4 games I played before I got the E74 error on my Xbox. I saw a lot of throws that were pretty inaccurate, especially from the outfielders. I successfully stole 2nd with Andrus and was pleasantly surprised at how smooth the animations were for the slide into 2nd and the tag.

One gripe I have is that it's been like 3+ years that there's been absolutely no reason to slide into 1st. It honestly shouldn't even be in the game because you can beat the throw by a solid 3+ seconds and still get called out if you slide because the runner touches 1B with his left hand and then switches to his right hand like he's avoiding a tag or something.

Something else that I thought should be noted is that in my 3 or 4 games, I only saw 2 HR's. One by the AI Josh Hamilton, and one by me using Aubrey Huff. Both were opposite field home runs (although Huff's was more to left center than straightaway left), and Huff's was a no doubter that almost cleared the stadium. I also noticed that the HR by Hamilton and the crushing RBI double by Nelson Cruz were both hit on fastballs out of the zone (Hamiltons low and away for a ball and Cruz's on a fastball up out of the zone).

[RussShooter]

Anybody on 360 and wants to play the game on a higher difficulty, Guide button, settings blade, go into your profile, select "Game Defaults", then under General and change it to hard, then reboot the demo from the dashboard.

[Blzer]

Got to pitch to one batter before I had to rush to the airport to drop off my friend. In three pitches, I noticed quite a bit:


- The four-seam fastball seemed "floaty," almost as if it was even increasing in height. It could be just because slowing down the pitch speed only brings it to slow motion as opposed to acting like a slower pitch, so I'm sure a sped up one looks natural.

- The two-seam fastball (and probably the cutter as well), like last year, uses pinpoint control as opposed to breakpoint control. It might be because they're fastballs so we should assume the pitchers know how to pinpoint what they're going to do with it, but I always seem to forget that when I'm actually selecting the pitch. I think they should all be breakpoint pitches (where the four-seamer is just straight anyway so there is no effect). I forget how the sinker reacts to this.

- Fly balls look to be a sweet challenge this year, the third pitch was a sky-high fly ball to Burrell and I almost wasn't sure what to do for a while. Thankfully he locked onto the ball landing area before the cursor popped up (which was in the center). I wonder how line drives are going to appear for this, or how tough they will be to catch.

- The meter popped up rather instantly for me when I wanted to pre-load a throw, so it gave me a nice surprise. I think it would be nice if we could recalibrate our throw if we have time to do so before we catch the ball though.

- Love that RTP is integrated back into the game! I'm sure there will be some staleness to the actual camera cuts but it allows for nice presentation flow overall. I love the commentary in the game so playing retail would be nice with RTP like in 2K9. Hopefully it has been a little more smoothed out this time around.

- All the pitching cameras are supposed to be broadcast cams, so it irked me when the Giants cam had so much grass behind the mound. Everything seemed higher than it should have been (as in, the camera felt too low position-wise). It probably doesn't help that the score overlay sticks so far down. Why not just have it fill out the top border of the screen? It would be better for hitting as well since, as some of you know I hate the default hitting camera, that doesn't feel too "low" as well and I can actually see the batter a little bit.

- The game looks smoother and cleaner for PS3 than 2K10 did, plain and simple. I'm going to have to play it more to be sure, but that's how it appears.


So that was in three pitches of gameplay. I'll need to obviously reserve judgment and play more, but it looks like some things were definitely worked on this year. I'm sure the 2K head scratchers will pop up sooner or later though (like the one hop throws to first base mentioned earlier).

[samuri26]

Does nobody see the huge jagged edges on EVERY player and shadow model???????
It's ridiculous, they are obvious to anyone using a large plasma or any HDTV

This along with the framerate inconsistency and the jarring animations make this a no buy for me....This is ESPECIALLY frustrating considering I haven't bought a baseball game since 2k7 ARGHHHHHH

[mrsalsays]

Someone tell me how cody ross has NO beard and brian wilson has one...

[BA2929]

Quote: Originally Posted by mrsalsays

Someone tell me how cody ross has NO beard and brian wilson has one...

Haven't seen Brian Wilson's beard yet?



Cody Ross didn't grow a beard until the playoffs last year. Usually he's very clean shaven.

[chris68pj]

Quote: Originally Posted by samuri26

Does nobody see the huge jagged edges on EVERY player and shadow model??????? It's ridiculous, they are obvious to anyone using a large plasma or any HDTV This along with the framerate inconsistency and the jarring animations make this a no buy for me....This is ESPECIALLY frustrating considering I haven't bought a baseball game since 2k7 ARGHHHHHH

I'm on a 61" HDTV and not really noticing it. Since jaggie shadows have nothing to do with the actual gameplay it hasn't stood out for me, but I could imagine if that's all you look at it could be a problem. The framerate issue is only on fouls and popups for me but doesn't affect how the game plays at all, so again, for me it's not an issue but everyone is different. But it has been reported that those that have played a later build did not notice the issues the demo has.