Early MLB 2K10 Impressions - rudyjuly2's Blog

rudyjuly2's Blog

Early MLB 2K10 Impressions

Posted on March 3, 2010 at 06:35 AM.

(7)

I am a rookie to the 2K10 series having bought the Show for the last four years. These early impressions will largely be about 2K10 but I will make a few comparisons throughout. I played three games last night on Pro with 2K10 and bought this game for the PS3 without having played the demo (I did play the 2K9 demo last year). Parts of this game are really good, parts are average and some are bad. Overall this game lacks the polish and fine-tuning of the Show but isn�t a bad product. It depends what you are looking for.

VISUALS

Visually I don�t really care for the player models. They just look off and the way they move reminds me clearly that I�m playing a video game. Some animations are nice but often they are jerky. Just watching a player round a base looks odd as they practically make right hand turns at the bags rather than a nice arc around them. The Show certainly does a better job of making it look like a real baseball game imo.

I think the stadiums look really nice and the colours are great. The fans in the upper deck are 2D but I only really noticed that once in three games. I played at Comerica, Target Field and AT & T (SF) and the stadiums all looked very nice to me. Again, the colours do stand out to me.

I do like the camera options for hitting and pitching. I haven�t played with the options much but they are nice. My biggest beef is with the fielding camera. What happened here? I thought the fielding camera in the 2K9 demo was great as it really zoomed out on fly balls so you could track them. This is much more of a zoomed in camera that doesn�t let you track them at all. It�s far more of a broadcast camera and there doesn�t appear to be any options. I�m definitely disappointed in that.

PRESENTATION/AUDIO

I think the commentary in this game is fantastic. The presentation is also excellent and that includes the organ music throughout the game. I�ve always been a sucker for organ music at a ball game and this is good. The atmosphere seemed great to me in all three games. When Kruk was talking about Morneau he mentioned that he was a Canadian and they don�t play many games in Canada. I thought that was cool and he�s right. The focus is on hockey up here and it gets colder sooner making baseball a summer sport only.

Can I say the menu system sucks? Why do I have to use an analog stick to move around? I did get used to it over the course of the night but I�m not a big fan. It would be nice to see what hand the batters are in the lineup somehow when I warm up my pitchers. Right now you just see the lineup and have to know them on your own. I don�t know the scrubs on most teams.

When you strike out someone the game often replays the pitch sequence for the entire at bat leading up to the strikeout. I thought that was pretty cool. The end of game stuff is really nice too. You can watch the Top 3 plays of the game along with selected highlights for certain players. As cool as that is, it would have been even better if you could record them! You can only record replays immediately after they happen and you can make highlight reels. I haven�t played around with this but it would be a lot better if you could save those highlights that they have available at the end of the game.

There is a slow motion camera that I left on. I think I only saw it twice in three games so it�s not overdone and I think it looks good.

Overall the presentation is excellent.

PITCHING

This is the biggest reason I decided to go with 2K10 this year. I needed a change of pace and the r-stick pitching does not disappoint. I�d say this is easily the strength of the game and it�s done better than I thought. Right now I�m not too good with the gestures and miss my spots quite a bit. I only walked one or two batters in three games because I was giving in. The hits and runs allowed reflected that. But I was certainly not pinpointing my pitches and my pitch counts were good. CPU hitters were working the count nicely. They would also chase good pitches out of the zone and I struck out at least two batters looking.

Furthermore, if I missed the gesture it wasn�t a meatball or a wild pitch. Most often it was simply a ball. You really have to blow a gesture for it to be a wild pitch which is good. In real MLB you should only see a wild pitch about every two or three games. This part of the game is a lot of fun. I love pitching with a zoomed out look behind the pitcher and I liked the way the catcher called the game although I often took my own advice.

I�m sure Pro will get easier for me and initially I thought pitching was too easy but I certainly ended up giving up quite a few runs. I gave up 5, 11 and 9 runs in three games. In my final game I was leading 4-3 until I gave up 6 runs in the bottom of the 7th. I put most of the blame on my weak stick skills at the moment but I do think the pitchers� composure affects them too much when rattled in this game. There is a slider for this and I really think I will reduce this affect. Other than that I�m pleasantly surprised by how well pitching is done and the strategy with setting up the hitters.

BATTING

This area is mediocre imo. 2K10 has a very different feel from the Show which isn�t necessarily bad but requires a big adjustment for me. Pitches come in much slower but your bat speed is also slower giving it a different feeling. With the Show I always dropped the pitch speed to 0 since I find it too fast (I don�t understand the Show�s weak slider system). With this game I find the default pitch speed good and I actually dropped it a touch in my last game so I could draw more pitches and pull more balls as well. The slider is VERY responsive so I�m sure people can find a speed they like. I found myself hitting most of my balls up the middle or pushing them initially. But once you get used to it you can pull balls down the line although I still find more balls go up the middle.

Hit variety is not that good. I�d say 95% of grounders are automatically scooped by the infield or super fielding pitcher and are out. I did see two or three balls sneak through the infield but it�s certainly rare. You need to hit it to the outfield if you want to get a hit. A lot of balls did go up the middle although that was early on. I would caution people to not boost the pitch speed too much as I think it may get worse that way. The timing window shrinks and it may hurt this. I did see a nice variety of foul balls while playing. I don�t have any issues with that. I had read about the lack of doubles and triples so I had reduced fielder speed to 25 for all my games and I saw a triple and a number of doubles so I think that does fix that part of it.

I think there may be too much opposite field power but I�m not so sure. I hit four home runs in the game and one was a pull, one to dead center and two to opposite field. I used the power r-swing every time. I do like the r-stick system and I�m not sure how often you will hit a HR with a contact swing. I have a feeling I would like it to be more often but I did hit a couple strong doubles in the gaps with contact. I usually tried to power swing with my bigger hitters until I got two strikes. I�ve always been a timing only hitter so this system works fine for me.

One complaint I have though is that hitting a HR is a dead giveaway. There is no suspense since an arrow sits on the wall and the announcers comment on it usually. Some home runs were barely over the wall and I didn�t like the spoilers. I also felt that some of my home runs were too much like line drives and didn�t have as much arc to them as they should.

I was looking forward to trying out the hitter�s eye but it only works with the strike zone turned on. I had it off most of the time I was playing since I prefer a more natural look and that removes this option. I did see a green ball flash one time on my screen. Is that a meatball indicator? I have no clue.

Overall hitting was fun but increased hit variety and an infield that doesn�t suck up everything is needed imo.

FIELDING

This is easily the worst part of the game and the most disappointing to me. First I am disappointed in the fielding camera and that there are no options for something else. I�d like it to zoom out more on hits to the outfield, especially pop flies. Although it probably doesn�t matter what camera angle you use since this game is pretty much an auto fielding game. This is very annoying. I feel I have little to no control over my players when making plays. Other than trying to make the occasional dive with an infielder, they are sucking up balls before I do anything. Pitchers suck up almost any ball around them too although I did have one ball get by the pitcher and infielders on a ball up the middle. The outfielders have super suction that does all the work on routine pop flies. I don�t want auto fielding with a manual throwing system. I just don�t like the way the game does this at all.

Furthermore, in three games I have yet to see a single error by either team. No throwing or fielding errors. I haven�t touched the sliders here but I will certainly have to as the default settings on pro are not good in this area.

Maybe this is a 360 issue as I don�t have a problem with the strength of the player�s arms. With the speed of the base runners I think it�s been fine. They might be too accurate but I saw plenty of players score from second to home on singles including slow ones with nobody thrown out. I know I had read complaints about fast players being gunned down at home on bloop singles but I didn�t see this at all. I did have Magglio get thrown out at first on a hard one hopper to right. It was annoying seeing the cpu even attempt the throw to first from the outfield as this is extremely rare in baseball. However, I don�t see that as an outfield arm strength problem as much as a defensive positioning problem. It seems to me that both the infield and especially the outfield play way too shallow. In MLB most outfielders play near the wall and try to guard against extra base hits. In 2K10 the right fielder seems to want to play shallow to have that quick throw to first.

GLITCHES

I have to say that I saw two bad base running errors including a glitch and both happened in one game. On a gap shot to left center the cpu had a runner on first. He was way too timid in running as though he was worried it would be caught but it wasn�t even close. The runner only ended up on third but the batter stayed at first. This was a ball that was up against the wall in left center and he could have had a cup of coffee on second. That was odd. Worse was soon after when the cpu had a runner on second and the batter also ran to second and just stopped about 15 feet short of the bag. My third basemen had the ball so I simply ran over and tagged him out. He never even moved.

OVERALL

This game is a pretty decent game. I think the player models and animations could be better but the presentation is top notch. I think the selling point of this game is the pitching system. It�s a lot of fun AND I think produces great results. Hitting is a mixed bag as the hitting variety could be better. It is hurt by the super suction infield. The fielding needs a lot of work. I�m not sure how much of that I can take after playing 50 or more games. It definitely needs to be patched to allow more user control and I would love more camera options on defence as well. So far the game has probably been about what I expected and that�s decent. Not great but not bad either. I will keep on playing this game as I had fun in the 3 � hours I played last night. I�ll see how much fun I will be having in a couple weeks.

Comments

# 1 ExtremeGamer @ Mar 3

Good write up!

# 2 Steve_OS @ Mar 3

Gotta agree, love the 2K pitching interface, but other things need work. LOT better than last years debacle.

# 3 DJ @ Mar 3

Rudy, I'd say that was a very accurate assessment. I'm with you, the main selling point of this game is the pitching. The R-stick controls are just so much fun to use and it really intensifies that pitcher-batter dynamic.

I don't have the retail but even from the demo, I am with you 100% on the hitting and fielding. I think the hitting can be fixed with sliders but fielding, I'm not sure. I was playing The Show 09 on my PS2 last night and then went back to the 2K10 demo and man, it was so frustrating in 2K to feel like I had zero control over my guys in the field. Like you said, that could be a long-term issue.

2K has certainly made a lot of strides in the right direction. I think someone hit the nail on the head when they compared this game to NBA Live 10. Good games with lots of potential that still have issues that prevent them from being No. 1 in their respective sport.

# 4 rudyjuly2 @ Mar 3

I don't want people to get the wrong message. I had fun playing last night. I stayed up until 12:30 before I went to bed and anyone who knows me will know I'm not a night person. I'm usually passed out on the couch around 10 pm or sooner. I was up at 5 am too.

The game IS fun but it has problems. It could have been fantastic with a few more fixes. Maybe with sliders and patches it can still get there. Right now I'll just have to wait for someone to create the Tiger rookies so I can play with them.

# 5 GrandMaster B @ Mar 3

Great impressions. I agree with pretty much everything, but they did improve so much from last year.

# 6 econoodle @ Mar 4

damn good impressions for ''early' ones lol
good job.

# 7 rudyjuly2 @ Mar 4

I think cpu base running is really bad - just way too tentative on balls that are clearly going to fall for a base hit.

And the cpu pinch hit for the pitcher in the 3rd inning of a 3-0 game today. I hope that logic is exhibition only or people might get pissed for NL games.

Pitching is still done extremely well and a lot of fun. My gestures still need a lot of work lol.