Major League Baseball 2K8 360 Impressions

[Skyboxer]

Well it would be nice to know: Are HR's still easy to hit, are there more camera angles and lastly how is the presentation.

[born_bad]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K8 Impressions

Thanks for the impressions. In-game saves and the Yankees roll call were in 2k7, though, so I was hoping for a few more points about new things in the game since we only got a few bullet-points for now.

Great to hear about the smoother animations! I was getting a little worried about the fielding being just like last year.

[davewins]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K8 Impressions

Thanks for the info. Graphics has improvedWell that takes care for the some who said it looked like the graphics to a step back
Animations are smooth no herky jerky movement
Lineups and rotations can't be edited

The some were me LOL. I will be first to admit it. It looked and still looked to me from screenshots that the player models took a step back but I will take Steve's word for it.

Thanx for the early info Steve that's really cool.

The only small concern I have is the HR camera and how often it happens when you hit a HR. I know Ben said in the conference call that it's only on long shots but I have seen it on what I would call routine HR's as well. Just curious what you think about this or I guess this question could go to Matt.

[ExtremeGamer]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K8 Impressions

Doesn't sound like too much improved, just about everything on that list was in 2K7 sans the trading cards.

[ac11367]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K8 Impressions

Thanks Steve. Very encouraging news especially with animation, analog pitching, and check swings.

When you're batting, is there some sort of pitch recognition being featured? I heard that the trajectory of a curve would be (rightfully) different than a fastball.

[TJdaSportsGuy]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K8 Impressions

Hey guys,

Just to let you know, it wasn't Steve who wrote these impressions, it was Matt (aka TheLetterZ). I'm sure it was a lot of work for Steve to post these but any thanks should go out to Matt for making the drive from Philly to DC yesterday to preview the game for you guys. :wink:

[davewins]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K8 Impressions

Hey guys,

Just to let you know, it wasn't Steve who wrote these impressions, it was Matt (aka TheLetterZ). I'm sure it was a lot of work for Steve to post these but any thanks should go out to Matt for making the drive from Philly to DC yesterday to preview the game for you guys. :wink:

And it is MUCH appreciated. Seriously not bein a kiss-___ or anything but I really appreciate everything you guys do for us. If it wasn't for this site I honestly don't know what I'd be doing before baseball games came out.

[Artman22]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K8 Impressions

Doesn't sound like too much improved, just about everything on that list was in 2K7 sans the trading cards.

yeah 60fps, smooth animations, no herky jerkey movements. Yeah your right it sounds like no improvements

[markprior22]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K8 Impressions

With the concerns over not being able to edit CPU lineups, did you look at some lineups and see if they look reasonable?

[bsbllstr876]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K8 Impressions

No spring training...

What's baseball without spring training?

[TheLetterZ]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K8 Impressions

Let me try to answer a few of those quickly.

- Hit variety: We didn't spend much time actually playing the game. We played maybe one full inning, so I don't have real observations of my own here. But we discussed it in-depth and it should be better this year for reasons I will discuss in my writeup.

- I'll get to online stuff in the writeup but I'll say now that I'm pleased that they have added button press controls-only and strikes-only lobbies. Hopefully the latter will weed out some of the unrealistic players from random online games.

- I played the 360 version.

- Presentation: I'm told there's a greater variety of commentary this year. Not sure about camera angles but fielding seemed easier than last year. It's been awhile since I've played 2K7 but maybe the camera not as zoomed as last year?

- You can't save replays.

- Fielding controls have been tweaked this year. Spectacular plays will be more difficult and rare. This includes wall climbs.

[bigfnjoe96]

Thanks for the quick write-up Matt. Here's hoping KUSH/Blue Castle fixed the problem with the Line-ups, since we can't manually edit them ourselves. I'm really encouraged by your remarks about how fluid the animations look & feel. Matt would you say the bumping-up of the frame rate is what is helping the animations look so fluid & did you notice frame rate drops during your time with the game...

[Blitzburgh]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K8 Impressions

Thanks for the quick write-up Matt. Here's hoping KUSH/Blue Castle fixed the problem with the Line-ups, since we can't manually edit them ourselves. I'm really encouraged by your remarks about how fluid the animations look & feel. Matt would you say the bumping-up of the frame rate is what is helping the animations look so fluid & did you notice frame rate drops during your time with the game...

It seems we are getting a bit of contradicting info...I thought I remember from the BB phone intereview or something that he said we can edit the lineups and rotation of the CPU contolled teams? Also, one person said there is in game saves and the other said there wasn't? Now I am confused! haha

[TheLetterZ]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K8 Impressions

- Frame rate looked good.

- Oh, and about the lineups. I was told they worked hard on improving the AI logic for the roster management. We hear that often but hopefully there will be noticeable improvements this year.

[ExtremeGamer]

Re: Major League Baseball 2K8 Impressions

yeah 60fps, smooth animations, no herky jerkey movements. Yeah your right it sounds like no improvements

We'll see on the actual game when it's in our hands. Sounds like he only played one inning and the rest was discussed.

This happens every year, everyone gets all hyped for MLB 2K, and it's a huge disappointment. I hope I'm wrong, but it sounds like the team worked more on the playing card system than actually improving the gameplay.