Official MLB 2k11 - Impressions Thread

[Artman22]

Re: Official MLB 2k11 - Impressions Thread

One game officially in the books and I am really happy with my purchase. I'll get to the negatives in a bit, but let me mention the positives of what I saw in my game, which was a 3-1 win by my New York Mets over the Tampa Bay Rays at Citi Field. This was on default PRO, by the way.

Pros
-Commentary. My gosh, this is such a breath of fresh air compared to MLB The Show (I have both games, so I feel it is OK to bring up both games in my impression). John Kruk is just off the charts good, he may be the best in ANY sports game. Phillips is pretty good and I've always been a big Gary Thorne fan, so always good to hear his voice.

-Soundtrack. 2K always does a great job with these and I'm loving the selection this year.

-Batting camera. Whoever came up with this angle deserves a raise. I love that I can read pitches but it doesn't feel cheap that I'll never strikeout. In my game, I had 2 walks and 6 strikeouts, very fair numbers there.

-Hit variety is real nice. I saw a couple of bloopers, a hard liner to the gap for a double and a towering HR by Jason Bay.

-Again, this is on default PRO, but the CPU ball/strike ratio is really good. TB threw 117 pitches against me, 75 strikes and 42 balls for a .641 strike percentage. I was at 98 total pitches with 35 balls and 63 strikes for a .642 strike percentage.

-Gesture commands are great. I like The Show's Analog pitching mechanic, but I have to give the edge to 2K. You can't pinpoint spots like in 2K10, and the variable strike zone (again, much needed) really helps you and the CPU work counts.

-I'm not sure how to explain it but 2K, I've felt, always has done a good job of making the stadiums feel "big". The outfield just looks and feels expansive and that there's a ton of room to cover, just as it should be.

-Swing stick is real nice. I only use Power Swing in 2-0, 2-1, 3-1 counts or 0-0 if I see a pitch down the middle. Otherwise I use Contact and then Defensive in pitchers' counts.

-Inside edge is full of good info.

-Stat overlays are GREAT!

-The crowd is lively, and I like the player-specific chants.

Cons
-No pitch history for prior at-bats. It'd be nice to see where the CPU pitched Jose Reyes in his last AB.

-There's some definite framerate issues. I noticed it on a lot of flyballs and there were also just some general hiccups during the real-time presentation cuts.

-Fielding in the infield still feels too much on auto-pilot for me.

-CPU has NO power on the default settings. Not a single ball ever made it even close to the warning track. Good thing for sliders

-Games take a long time to play. I like the RTP, but I don't want to be playing 2 baseball games that each take over an hour to play. I may have to look at the hurry-up option.

-Colorado's uniforms are a mess. The purple alternate hasn't been worn in years, and the black alternate that they do wear (see my avatar), DOES NOT have purple sleeves. I don't get how they mess up things like that, but then nail some of the other teams' classic uniforms.

So, again this is just after one game but I do see the potential in this game and think it will be a great compliment to MLB The Show, especially once MLB Today gets going.

Question for you guys, if I set the Pitcher cam to Broadcast, does it adjust to whatever the home team's camera is? Or will I have to adjust the settings to get the camera to match what I see on TV?

Well, I'm going to adjust some sliders (Rudy, I'll be using your set) and keep playing. Good work so far, 2K.

Good impression.

[DJ]

Re: Official MLB 2k11 - Impressions Thread

I think the broadcast cam adjusts for every stadium but I don't use broadcast so I'm not completely sure. I love the Minnesota type of camera.

Nice thoughts DJ. The cpu power is definitely neutered on default pro. The cpu offense is tuned poorly out of the box imo.

The stadiums do feel big but a little too big with how slow the outfielders are on default. The stadiums do look and feel good imo.

The Minnesota-style camera is nice. I like Fenway's, too. I should be able to answer my own question the more games I play.

Looking forward to trying out your sliders, Rudy. I used yours last year and had real good results.

[rudyjuly2]

Re: Official MLB 2k11 - Impressions Thread

The Minnesota-style camera is nice. I like Fenway's, too. I should be able to answer my own question the more games I play.

Looking forward to trying out your sliders, Rudy. I used yours last year and had real good results.

Hope they work for you although I've got around 25 games under my belt so some things may take some adjusting to. I do think the fielding, arm power, and speed sliders should be good. Batting and pitching may require individual fine-tuning. Have fun!

[JayhawkerStL]

Re: Official MLB 2k11 - Impressions Thread

-Fielding in the infield still feels too much on auto-pilot for me.

It sounds like you played it on Pro, a the fielding really is closer to how it was in 2K10. Try moving to All-Star, or at least reduce the fielder speed for both OF and IF. Most of us found All-Star to be too far in the opposite direction.

I think 25 for both OF and IF is a good place to start. But there is some argument to increase OF becasue they take way too long to get to balls rolling to the wall.

[DJ]

Re: Official MLB 2k11 - Impressions Thread

I noticed in the options that you could choose Real Time, 2K10 and Hurry-Up. What's the difference between 2K10 and Real-Time?

I like RT, but man, it takes forever unless you hit A to skip a bunch of stuff.

Jayhawker, I have since moved off of PRO and did notice that with the reduced fielder speed, the fielders have a bit more life to them. I still think balls get on the player too quick, but that's somewhat true for both games.

[econoodle]

Re: Official MLB 2k11 - Impressions Thread

I noticed in the options that you could choose Real Time, 2K10 and Hurry-Up. What's the difference between 2K10 and Real-Time?

I like RT, but man, it takes forever unless you hit A to skip a bunch of stuff.

Jayhawker, I have since moved off of PRO and did notice that with the reduced fielder speed, the fielders have a bit more life to them. I still think balls get on the player too quick, but that's somewhat true for both games.

DJ,

in 2k9 they introduced Real Time, which is exactly what we know it as.
But in 2k10, it was nerfed.

A blue flash happened while at bat and on the mound which skipped past batter and pitcher rituals.
People complained and now its back.
So 2k10 setting will:

- eliminate all batter/pitcher rituals between pitches
- eliminates real time ation between batters [i.e. pitcher walking around scratching himself, batter staring into space for 10 seconds] lol


also love ur impressions.

aint the stats great? just wait until you get to year two.


agreed, no pitch history is odd, seeing as how in depth the Inside Edge is. lol weird.

[rudyjuly2]

Re: Official MLB 2k11 - Impressions Thread

DJ,

in 2k9 they introduced Real Time, which is exactly what we know it as.
But in 2k10, it was nerfed.

A blue flash happened while at bat and on the mound which skipped past batter and pitcher rituals.
People complained and now its back.
So 2k10 setting will:

- eliminate all batter/pitcher rituals between pitches
- eliminates real time ation between batters [i.e. pitcher walking around scratching himself, batter staring into space for 10 seconds] lol

I'm going to go back to 2K10 presentation then. Have you gotten any freezes with presentation set to 2K10? I had read that it was best to use hurry up to avoid the freezing.

[econoodle]

Re: Official MLB 2k11 - Impressions Thread

I'm going to go back to 2K10 presentation then. Have you gotten any freezes with presentation set to 2K10? I had read that it was best to use hurry up to avoid the freezing.

I didnt get a freeze but i only played it for an inning to see what the setting did.
You don't like the real-time setting Rudy?

[BlackBetty15]

Re: Official MLB 2k11 - Impressions Thread

I actually heard froma bird that if you turn off the analog control for everything and jsut use classic settings the framerate disappears. Can anyone confirm this?

[rudyjuly2]

Re: Official MLB 2k11 - Impressions Thread

I didnt get a freeze but i only played it for an inning to see what the setting did.
You don't like the real-time setting Rudy?

I normally love presentation and especially real time but the game just takes too long for me. Games were taking well over an hour for me to play so I just switched to hurry up and now I finish games in 45 minutes. I found I was hitting X to skip a lot of the cut scenes to speed it up so I just made the permanent switch. It sucks in some ways as you don't get the stat overlays for the players when they come to the plate nor do you get any commentary on leaders and stuff like that. But I needed the games to be shorter.

[Cardot]

Re: Official MLB 2k11 - Impressions Thread

I normally love presentation and especially real time but the game just takes too long for me. Games were taking well over an hour for me to play so I just switched to hurry up and now I finish games in 45 minutes. I found I was hitting X to skip a lot of the cut scenes to speed it up so I just made the permanent switch. It sucks in some ways as you don't get the stat overlays for the players when they come to the plate nor do you get any commentary on leaders and stuff like that. But I needed the games to be shorter.

I tend to be in this boat as well.....for all sports games. The between play animations really add to the immersion factor. But I don't necessarily need them between EVERY play. It would be nice if there was an option to make the animations appears periodically. But the game would need the intelligence to show them at the critical times....like bottom of the 9th with 2 outs etc.

[JayhawkerStL]

Re: Official MLB 2k11 - Impressions Thread

So I just finished a game online with a friend. Our goal was to see if dropping pitch speed might make online play more realistic. We started with it set a zero. That was hilarious, but way to slow.

We worked our way up to 50 and found it to be frickin' perfect. Balls and strikes were as easy to read as offline. I had nine hits to his seven. Strikeouts were minimal. It was pretty much a revelation.

I had set it up as just Pro, but dropped the pitch speed, which was 60.
Others can try 40 or 45. But there is no doubt that the game is going to be great online.

I mean that. Great. We will be boosting power, dropping composure to 5, and dropping Pitch Control to make it even better. But it was the best nine innings I had ever played of an online baseball game.

Th caveat, is that it will be friends only. You have to invite someone to a custom match, or set up a league with custom sliders. this is definitely not for ranked play, which has the default pitch speed too high to be fun.

[KleShreen]

Re: Official MLB 2k11 - Impressions Thread

I hate. No, despise that in my player as a pitcher, the middle infielders never do things right. Two outs and a guy on first, if a ball is hit up the middle that a fielder gets to, he tries to make a stupid throw to first that usually is an error when he could just step on second base easily or toss it to whoever is covering second.

In addition to that, I can't even recall how many double plays I've been screwed out of because the fielder ALWAYS shovels it to whoever is covering first rather than stepping on the bag himself and then throwing.

[KleShreen]

Re: Official MLB 2k11 - Impressions Thread

It would also be great if my pitcher would actually be allowed to run off the mound on plays to the right side of the infield so I could cover first. Instead, it picks and chooses when I'm allowed to run to cover first, resulting in about one single a game that should be an easy out.

[swaldo]

Re: Official MLB 2k11 - Impressions Thread

So I'm playing against the Mets down 5-4 in the 9th inning and hanging in there against K-Rod. I've got men on 1st & 2nd with 2 outs and intensity fills the room. Then, before my last batter comes to the plate......FREEEEEZE!!!

WTF? Uh, the million dollar challenge is a couple days away and all the news we get is Ronnie asking people to keep sending in their list of bugs?

Unless a miracle patch come out of nowhere I smell a huge PR nightmare looming.