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

[JayhawkerStL]

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

You steal by by holding the left LT in until you feel a vibration. When you release, the runner takes off. I will click twice to get a two-step a lead, then a hold the third, which makes it a three-step lead.

Personally, I like to go contact most of the time. But I'm pretty sure mot of the people here go with power swing most of the time.

Once we get the full game, you can probably set up sliders to do a you please.

[dodgerblue]

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

It's been brought up that this game reminds some people of MVP 2005 and I couldn't agree more. Not in the sense that it plays the same or anything like that. But in the fun factor. I find The Show is a sim game of baseball with some fun elements behind it, whereas I find this series to be a fun game with some sim elements behind it (not unlike MVP). For the first time in a while though, and this is assuming the final build comes together like the demo seems to show it will, you can talk about both The Show and the 2K baseball game in the same sentence without sounding silly. I very much enjoyed the demo and look forward to the 8th

Couldn't agree more. There is a lot to be said for the fun factor.

[Yeah...THAT Guy]

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

Not feeling this demo. 3 games in and I get a E74 on my xbox

[sroz39]

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

Gameplay wise, this is the only two setbacks I've seen in one 3 inning game.

1. A pinch runner in the second inning of the game for the CPU.

2. Josh Hamilton laid down a bunt with no outs and a runner on 1st. Weird AI on that one I thought.

I might be wrong here, but I've seen some weird subs in the demo as well and I can only attribute it being a 3 inning game and the A.I. takes this as the 7th, 8th and 9th innings of a game.

[jeffy777]

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

Rocket arms are definitely a thing of the past. Cody Ross just two-hopped a rainbow from the wall to 2nd

There does seem to be a fair amount of infield assist right after the ball is put in play, but nowhere near as bad as last year.

[Redemption]

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

- for you veterans of the series, what is your contact/power swing ratio? I ask because I used Classic swing in last year's game but would like to use the analog in this year's. Is it a case of using power swing until 2 strikes then doing contact? Or is more like The Show where you mainly use contact until you get a hitter's count like 2-0 or 3-1 and then using power swing? Is it possible to hit homeruns with contact swing?

with the sliders last year, you could set it up either way. For me personally, I prefer contact unless I get ahead in the count. On default settings, playing that way would probably result in too few HR's, but some slider tweaks and you can get it right (turn up power, turn down contact).

So really, there is no "right" way, it just comes down to personal preference, and then setting the game up accordingly

[jeffy777]

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

I might be wrong here, but I've seen some weird subs in the demo as well and I can only attribute it being a 3 inning game and the A.I. takes this as the 7th, 8th and 9th innings of a game.

Yes, the AI is managing as if the entire game is ending after 3. It does the same thing in 2K10 if you set your franchise to 3 innings (I've done this before as a test).

[sroz39]

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

Awesome, thanks for the responses Jayhawker and Redemption

[Ltrain44]

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

Rocket arms are definitely a thing of the past. Cody Ross just two-hopped a rainbow from the wall to 2nd

There does seem to be a fair amount of infield assist right after the ball is put in play, but nowhere near as bad as last year.

Totally agree Jeffy, I wrote this too. Feels great that rocket arms are no more

[DirtyJerz32]

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

1. A pinch runner in the second inning of the game for the CPU.

I might be wrong here, but I've seen some weird subs in the demo as well and I can only attribute it being a 3 inning game and the A.I. takes this as the 7th, 8th and 9th innings of a game.

The cpu knows the game is over soon. (7,8 & 9 innings) so it's doing all it can to win. I think this is a good thing IMO.

[DJ]

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

After spending a bit of time with the Demo, here's my impressions:

Positives
-Pitching. I just love the gesture controls. It was still fairly easy to throw the pitch where I wanted to, but that's b/c the Demo is on default PRO. If you give up a couple of hits, you do lose accuracy and once we have the retail version and can tune the Pitch Accuracy slider, I can see that making a big difference.

-A.I. I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but the CPU will pitch guys in your lineup differently, depending on the situation. I had runners on 2nd and 3rd with 2 outs and Lewis (I was the Giants) pitched around my No. 8 hitter to get to Cain. Smart move by the CPU, as I grounded out to 2B. I also noticed that my own catcher will call for more pitches out of the zone with the No. 8 hitter up, knowing that the pitcher is on-deck. I like the implementation of sound baseball strategy.

-Batting camera. Man, I love this view! Couple that with an appropriate pitch speed (you'll still get fastballs blown by you if you are looking off-speed but you have time to react if you do guess fastball) and you can realistically work the count. I drew 2 walks in my first game and got Lewis to throw over 40 pitches in 3 innings.

-Fielding. Definitely less robotic than last year. I need to go back and look at the controls to figure out how to dive, though. I really like the new mechanic of catching flyballs in the outfield. It's not gimmicky, at least to me, and I think it will again make you bring more strategy into the game, which is a great thing. I like the throw meter as well. Very clean and easy to see where you need to let go of the R-stick to have a good throw. Rocket arms are definitely gone. Yay!

-Hit variety. This looks to be improved from last year. I've seen a couple of hot shots down the 1B line and a nice bloop single so far.

-New defensive strategy window. This will pop up at various times during the game, telling you how the defense is playing you, or how you are aligned to play a CPU batter. Nice addition.

-Variable strike zone. Very, very happy this is in. I saw close to 10 pitches that in 2K10 would've been a strike 100% of the time that were called either a ball or strike in the Demo.

-Graphics. I thought this last year, too, but I really like the look of day games in 2K. The player models are good (I'm not a huge graphics guy) and the faces are hit and miss. Some look spot-on, others not so much. Again, not a huge deal for me.

-CPU batters swinging at pitches out of the strike zone. Nice to see they will chase. They also don't swing at every pitch, which was an issue back in 2K9, so again, nice to see them mix in patience and aggressiveness.

Negatives
-Real-time presentation is cut way short. I would guess that is due to 2K cutting stuff out for the Demo.

-No audio. Again, this was for Demo purposes but I think it's a mistake not to put the commentary in there because that is a strong suit for 2K.

-No extra innings if the game ends tied. Not a huge deal since it's only a Demo, but still, it would be nice to play things out until there is a winner.

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I have to say I came away with a better feeling about 2K11 after playing the Demo and I will definitely be picking the game up Day 1. Good job, 2K, I think you've got a winner on your hands this year.

[nils005]

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

The hurry up function is no good in baseball games. Baseball is the one sport where patience is a virtue and in order to get cemented in the novelty of the sport you have to go through the little things that make it great.

What's important to me, even more than the spectacle of the game are the stats. And I can't rack 'em up if a single game takes an hour.

[ChaseB]

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

DJ press RT to dive.

[JayhawkerStL]

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

The lack of commentary is a size issue. The demo run 726 MB, as opposed to 3 gigs for the game that shall not be named. And size is a huge issue on the PS3, as it can take forever to download a game. So to be fair, the 360 also gets a small size demo.

Audio is huge because you have to send so much more tan is needed a game. And it is probably a risk for al kinds of crashes if they try to pick and choose what is really necessary.

That's almost all sports games ship without commentary.

[BlackBetty15]

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

Can someone confirm if adrian beltre battign stance is back in the game after it was mysteriously missing in 2k10. (its not a big deal, just want to know if 2K at least shored up this small mishap with beltre, soriano, and cantu among others that were missing from last year.)