Well, I have been debating about whether I would play this (for the 360) or The Show for my franchise fix. I have limited time, and can't really get into both, but have been auditioning the two for the past couple weeks.
This game wins, due almost entirely to what some have criticized as gimmicky features added this year.
First, here are the results from my last game. I have played games similar to this in terms of scoring/hits/etc., so this is not a one-time thing, but this one just blew me away, and it is the first time I have approached the game the way I did today (read below). I used a slightly modified version of Heelfan's sliders, adjusted from Pro.
Line Score:
Giants (me) 5 - 8 - 1
Padres 4 - 8 - 0
More details:
(1) Pitches thrown---Padres 121 (73 for strikes); Giants 114 (80 for strikes). Very nice.
(2) I walked 5 times, but also struck out 10 times. I walked them once, struck them out 10 times. Aces were on the hill (Schmidt versus Peavy), so I think these numbers are pretty good. I may have to adjust AI Pitcher Fatigue marginally, though, since Peavy only made it 5 innings, 75 pitches, and was down to about 15 percent strength. I was extremely pleased with my pitching numbers. Strikeouts probably were a bit high, but I am leaving things as is.
(3) From what I can remember, runs came in the form of home runs, singles plating runners from second and third, and a double that scored a runner from first.
(4) I was up 5-2 and the Padres mounted a comeback with a solo home run, and then a manufactured run where a pinch hitter (Termel Sledge) got on, stole second, and scored on a single. I was very pleased to see this.
How I approached the game:
(1) Inside Edge is awesome. I love having the tendencies, hot/cold zones, strengths and weaknesses, etc. I called my own game, though. On the 360, clicking down on the right thumbstick during the at bat "shakes off" the catcher and allows you to call your own game. You have to do it for every pitch, which sucks, but it isn't that time consuming.
So, I was able to locate pitches against the AI that took advantage of the weaknesses as diagnosed in the reports. But, even better, I used the reports for my own hitters to locate my strengths, and I waited on pitches accordingly. The cumulative effect of all of this is that the pitch counts ended up being very realistic.
Note: I used IE only for the hitters. And I know some have said that the information sometimes does not actually correspond to the player's tendencies, but I found it to work very well. When I hit my spots, I had success. When I missed, they crushed it.
(2) I figured I would turn on the "hitter's eye," just to see what it was like. Preliminary indications are that I love it. Combining that and the scouting information helped me to wait on pitches in my zone. Now, the AI also was using the scouting information, so there were not a ton of pitches thrown in my zone, but the pitches that were led to some hits, including a home run for my created player (me) and a double for "Joe Young" (Bonds). What I really liked, though, was that it wasn't a guaranteed hit when I locked on to one with the eye. I had a few grounders and flyouts based mostly on bad timing, due to the AI changing speeds on me.
It'll take some more experience with it I guess, but I think I really like this feature. The eye is very small for some, huge for others, and varies with the pitch count. I know some will think it is gimmicky, but it really helped me to work the count and lay off strikes that were in my cold zones. Didn't always work (see 10 strikeouts), but it helped tremendously. I like having that much more non-human element in the game---that is, hitting becomes easier or harder depending upon the player at bat and the corresponding size of his eye.
(3) I don't know if this question has been answered yet, but some have asked if you can view pitch locations for your prior at bats and whether you can track pitch location for a current at bat. Yes, you can. For the 360, when my guys were up, I hit the right directional pad a few times, and the hot/cold zones appeared over the plate (hitting the right d-pad shows a variety of information below your hitter's name at the top right of the screen, one piece of which is hot/cold zones). Once you do it one time, it shows up every time, for every hitter.
And once you get some pitches thrown, it tracks those pitches for the at bat, and before the first pitch of that hitter's next at bat, shows you the pitch sequence from his previous at bat. I used this to my advantage, most notably with Bonds. I saw that Bonds' previous at bat, the AI had pitched me down and outside. I looked for one there, locked in with the hitter's eye, and that led to the double mentioned above.
That's about all I can think of right now. I really like this game, and I would recommend that others try it out before totally dismissing it. I have lucked out with no freezes, though, so I consider myself lucky. Hopefully a patch comes for all of you in the near future.
This is not to say that all is wonderful, though. There are some things with this game that frustrate me. First, my fielders sometimes react as though they're 90 years old, and it seems to get worse as the game progresses. I wonder if this has something to do with the 360 cache, and whether a patch would address it.
Second, the baserunning controls suck, and I don't think I will ever figure them out. The score would have been 6-4 but for the completely counter-intuitive system. I think the major problem is that everything moves so fast that you just don't have time to think about everything and hit the right buttons.
And there are, obviously, some other problems with the game. It's not always as realistic as some would like. Sometimes runners don't take the extra base, I did see one single on a ball crushed to the wall, etc. But I can live with this, as it doesn't happen that often. (For instance, the single was on a ball absolutely laced by Piazza, and it ricocheted right to Bonds. In real life, this very well could wind up as a single as well.)
Overall, I really think the way I played today is the way the game was designed to be played. And it was a pleasure. I really had to think to win, and that never has happened before.
This game wins, due almost entirely to what some have criticized as gimmicky features added this year.
First, here are the results from my last game. I have played games similar to this in terms of scoring/hits/etc., so this is not a one-time thing, but this one just blew me away, and it is the first time I have approached the game the way I did today (read below). I used a slightly modified version of Heelfan's sliders, adjusted from Pro.
Line Score:
Giants (me) 5 - 8 - 1
Padres 4 - 8 - 0
More details:
(1) Pitches thrown---Padres 121 (73 for strikes); Giants 114 (80 for strikes). Very nice.
(2) I walked 5 times, but also struck out 10 times. I walked them once, struck them out 10 times. Aces were on the hill (Schmidt versus Peavy), so I think these numbers are pretty good. I may have to adjust AI Pitcher Fatigue marginally, though, since Peavy only made it 5 innings, 75 pitches, and was down to about 15 percent strength. I was extremely pleased with my pitching numbers. Strikeouts probably were a bit high, but I am leaving things as is.
(3) From what I can remember, runs came in the form of home runs, singles plating runners from second and third, and a double that scored a runner from first.
(4) I was up 5-2 and the Padres mounted a comeback with a solo home run, and then a manufactured run where a pinch hitter (Termel Sledge) got on, stole second, and scored on a single. I was very pleased to see this.
How I approached the game:
(1) Inside Edge is awesome. I love having the tendencies, hot/cold zones, strengths and weaknesses, etc. I called my own game, though. On the 360, clicking down on the right thumbstick during the at bat "shakes off" the catcher and allows you to call your own game. You have to do it for every pitch, which sucks, but it isn't that time consuming.
So, I was able to locate pitches against the AI that took advantage of the weaknesses as diagnosed in the reports. But, even better, I used the reports for my own hitters to locate my strengths, and I waited on pitches accordingly. The cumulative effect of all of this is that the pitch counts ended up being very realistic.
Note: I used IE only for the hitters. And I know some have said that the information sometimes does not actually correspond to the player's tendencies, but I found it to work very well. When I hit my spots, I had success. When I missed, they crushed it.
(2) I figured I would turn on the "hitter's eye," just to see what it was like. Preliminary indications are that I love it. Combining that and the scouting information helped me to wait on pitches in my zone. Now, the AI also was using the scouting information, so there were not a ton of pitches thrown in my zone, but the pitches that were led to some hits, including a home run for my created player (me) and a double for "Joe Young" (Bonds). What I really liked, though, was that it wasn't a guaranteed hit when I locked on to one with the eye. I had a few grounders and flyouts based mostly on bad timing, due to the AI changing speeds on me.
It'll take some more experience with it I guess, but I think I really like this feature. The eye is very small for some, huge for others, and varies with the pitch count. I know some will think it is gimmicky, but it really helped me to work the count and lay off strikes that were in my cold zones. Didn't always work (see 10 strikeouts), but it helped tremendously. I like having that much more non-human element in the game---that is, hitting becomes easier or harder depending upon the player at bat and the corresponding size of his eye.
(3) I don't know if this question has been answered yet, but some have asked if you can view pitch locations for your prior at bats and whether you can track pitch location for a current at bat. Yes, you can. For the 360, when my guys were up, I hit the right directional pad a few times, and the hot/cold zones appeared over the plate (hitting the right d-pad shows a variety of information below your hitter's name at the top right of the screen, one piece of which is hot/cold zones). Once you do it one time, it shows up every time, for every hitter.
And once you get some pitches thrown, it tracks those pitches for the at bat, and before the first pitch of that hitter's next at bat, shows you the pitch sequence from his previous at bat. I used this to my advantage, most notably with Bonds. I saw that Bonds' previous at bat, the AI had pitched me down and outside. I looked for one there, locked in with the hitter's eye, and that led to the double mentioned above.
That's about all I can think of right now. I really like this game, and I would recommend that others try it out before totally dismissing it. I have lucked out with no freezes, though, so I consider myself lucky. Hopefully a patch comes for all of you in the near future.
This is not to say that all is wonderful, though. There are some things with this game that frustrate me. First, my fielders sometimes react as though they're 90 years old, and it seems to get worse as the game progresses. I wonder if this has something to do with the 360 cache, and whether a patch would address it.
Second, the baserunning controls suck, and I don't think I will ever figure them out. The score would have been 6-4 but for the completely counter-intuitive system. I think the major problem is that everything moves so fast that you just don't have time to think about everything and hit the right buttons.
And there are, obviously, some other problems with the game. It's not always as realistic as some would like. Sometimes runners don't take the extra base, I did see one single on a ball crushed to the wall, etc. But I can live with this, as it doesn't happen that often. (For instance, the single was on a ball absolutely laced by Piazza, and it ricocheted right to Bonds. In real life, this very well could wind up as a single as well.)
Overall, I really think the way I played today is the way the game was designed to be played. And it was a pleasure. I really had to think to win, and that never has happened before.
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