<font color="silver">Anybody else have this fun of an experience on WSB 2K3? This game totally and completely rocks the boat on realism. I haven't tried MVP and ASB yet, don't really plan on it, since I don't want too many games and forget to keep playing the one I have. Therefore, no wasted money, lol.</font>
<font color="lightblue">By the way, for those people who want to know how realistic of a baseball game WSB 2K3 is, just ask me. Right now, I am the Rangers. I am 8-12 right now, and have just beaten the Oakland A's in a 3 game series, 2 games to 1. All games I have played have been extremely close. You can't hit homeruns just anytime you want to. Most people are turned off by the idea of having the "Power Swing". That's all it is. It puts more power into the swing, but only batters that have a good eye at batting, have power to hit homeruns, will hit homeruns. Of course, some people think they can hit a homerun everyday. If you want to break the 73 Homeruns In A Season Record set by Barry Bonds, you are going to struggle doing that. This game really requires strategy in order for you to gain the lead. It also really requires some decent pitchers, unless you can pitch yourself. Myself, I struggle with the batting at times, because I tend to want to swing at everything. So I strike out quite a bit. You can really tell the difference between a Curveball, slider, fastball, and a definate difference between the Fastball and Changeup. The Speeds of the ball vary so much, it's that realistic. In games in the past, there was no difference in how fast the ball actually came at you when you were batting. You could easily time the Fastball, Curveball, Changeup, Knuckleball. They ball actually came at you at the same frame rate as every pitch thrown. Well, in this game, the frame rate drops realistically enough, so if you happen to be thinking Fastball and he throws a changeup, you will end up swinging way to early. On the other hand, if you were thinking changeup, and the pitcher throws a changeup, depending on how good the batter actually is, and where the ball is placed in the strikezone, will depend on how well you make contact with the ball, or if you even make contact. You might ask about the pitcher pitching around a certain batter. Believe me, they will do it, because the CPU AI actually thinks about the next batter they face. Picture this scene: I'm up against the A's. I'm down 3-1 in the top of the 5th. Alex Rodriguez comes up to bat. He has two runners on base, one on 1st, and another on 3rd. ARod has struck out twice that day against Barry Zito due to my inability to control my patience at the plate. So the pitcher is thinking he is in a slump, and won't be able to do much right now with the mentality he's coming to the plate with. Even though the CPU Pitcher knows your cold zones, he knows that if he keeps pitching just in the cold zones, you will make contact and they will regret it. So the pitcher will actually try to make you go for those corner pitches, the ones so close, it looks like a ball, but hits just right for a strike. Well, they actually try to make you swing. They even throw down the middle, so as not to make you find a pattern. They vary the pitches realistically. You can scout the team to find out what kind of throws they throw more often. That helps only a litte bit though. So ARod is up at the plate. He lets the first two go by that were close on the outside corner, the first a ball, the second a strike. The third pitch happens to be in his hot zone (from my perception). Primarly, I use the power swing with ARod, though I do use the normal swing because he does have power, believe me. On this third pitch, it was a fastball, cutting down inside. Timing it just perfectly, I swung the ball, and hit one over the right field wall, knocking in two runs. Well, needless to say, at the next at bat ARod participated in, Palmeiro was on base, we are still leading 7-3 in the top of the 7th. Ruben Sierra, subbing in for a tired DH Jason Hart, is the next batter. There are two outs already. Do you know what happened next? They pitched 4 straight balls to intentionally pitch around ARod, and get to Sierra, who has not had a good season so far, only decent, and only 1 RBI. Well, being as impatient as I am at the plate, the pitch on in his hot zone, fastball in the inside-middle of the strike zone. Well, at least I thought it was a fastball, but turned out to be a sinker. Swinging at what I thought was correct timing, I hit the ball, but only got the top part of the ball. The ball had actually dropped into his cold zone. The second baseman picked up the normal speed line drive, and just through Sierra out at first, inning over. I did end up holding the A's to their only 3 points,winning 7-3.
The first game against the Red Sox at home. Tom Davey (blazing fastball, and a wicked changeup mixed in will kill batters) vs Pedro Martinez. In this game, there are pitcher-batter duels, and there are Pitcher-Pitcher duels. This game started out a Pitcher-Pitcher dual. Going into the top of the 6th, the score was 0-0, with the Rangers owning the only hit of the day, a single by Kevin Mench off a slow dribbler towards the 3rd baseman. Tom Davey was owning Pedro in strikeouts (I told you, I know how to pitch, lol, I just do for some reason). Pedro was owning my batters. I never got the ball past the infield. His sliders were off that game though, always turned out to be a ball. But his Fastball was hitting 98 MPH, and just when I thought he would throw another (finding a pattern in their pitching will never work, trust me), he hits me with a changeup, and my batter ends up whiffing the ball before it even gets within 5 feet of the plate, lol. He struck out ARod twice that game, lol. Tom Davey's fastball started out hitting at 99 MPH, with two of them hitting 100 MPH, and his changeups were hitting at 80, 83 max. Ending the 6th inning, the score was still 0-0, the Rangers owning the only two hits of the game. However, going into the bottom of the 7th, the Rangers were up 1-0, due to a Home Run off Pedro thanks to Ruben Sierra, who now owned two RBI's this season, lol. We ended up getting a rally going after they switched out Pedro (season ERA before the homerun was 3.99 already). We ended up winning the game 6-0, Tom Davey earning his second win of the season. He's only pitched in two games, in which both of them he started. I wish he could start more, but his stamina is not good at all.</font>
<font color="lightblue">By the way, for those people who want to know how realistic of a baseball game WSB 2K3 is, just ask me. Right now, I am the Rangers. I am 8-12 right now, and have just beaten the Oakland A's in a 3 game series, 2 games to 1. All games I have played have been extremely close. You can't hit homeruns just anytime you want to. Most people are turned off by the idea of having the "Power Swing". That's all it is. It puts more power into the swing, but only batters that have a good eye at batting, have power to hit homeruns, will hit homeruns. Of course, some people think they can hit a homerun everyday. If you want to break the 73 Homeruns In A Season Record set by Barry Bonds, you are going to struggle doing that. This game really requires strategy in order for you to gain the lead. It also really requires some decent pitchers, unless you can pitch yourself. Myself, I struggle with the batting at times, because I tend to want to swing at everything. So I strike out quite a bit. You can really tell the difference between a Curveball, slider, fastball, and a definate difference between the Fastball and Changeup. The Speeds of the ball vary so much, it's that realistic. In games in the past, there was no difference in how fast the ball actually came at you when you were batting. You could easily time the Fastball, Curveball, Changeup, Knuckleball. They ball actually came at you at the same frame rate as every pitch thrown. Well, in this game, the frame rate drops realistically enough, so if you happen to be thinking Fastball and he throws a changeup, you will end up swinging way to early. On the other hand, if you were thinking changeup, and the pitcher throws a changeup, depending on how good the batter actually is, and where the ball is placed in the strikezone, will depend on how well you make contact with the ball, or if you even make contact. You might ask about the pitcher pitching around a certain batter. Believe me, they will do it, because the CPU AI actually thinks about the next batter they face. Picture this scene: I'm up against the A's. I'm down 3-1 in the top of the 5th. Alex Rodriguez comes up to bat. He has two runners on base, one on 1st, and another on 3rd. ARod has struck out twice that day against Barry Zito due to my inability to control my patience at the plate. So the pitcher is thinking he is in a slump, and won't be able to do much right now with the mentality he's coming to the plate with. Even though the CPU Pitcher knows your cold zones, he knows that if he keeps pitching just in the cold zones, you will make contact and they will regret it. So the pitcher will actually try to make you go for those corner pitches, the ones so close, it looks like a ball, but hits just right for a strike. Well, they actually try to make you swing. They even throw down the middle, so as not to make you find a pattern. They vary the pitches realistically. You can scout the team to find out what kind of throws they throw more often. That helps only a litte bit though. So ARod is up at the plate. He lets the first two go by that were close on the outside corner, the first a ball, the second a strike. The third pitch happens to be in his hot zone (from my perception). Primarly, I use the power swing with ARod, though I do use the normal swing because he does have power, believe me. On this third pitch, it was a fastball, cutting down inside. Timing it just perfectly, I swung the ball, and hit one over the right field wall, knocking in two runs. Well, needless to say, at the next at bat ARod participated in, Palmeiro was on base, we are still leading 7-3 in the top of the 7th. Ruben Sierra, subbing in for a tired DH Jason Hart, is the next batter. There are two outs already. Do you know what happened next? They pitched 4 straight balls to intentionally pitch around ARod, and get to Sierra, who has not had a good season so far, only decent, and only 1 RBI. Well, being as impatient as I am at the plate, the pitch on in his hot zone, fastball in the inside-middle of the strike zone. Well, at least I thought it was a fastball, but turned out to be a sinker. Swinging at what I thought was correct timing, I hit the ball, but only got the top part of the ball. The ball had actually dropped into his cold zone. The second baseman picked up the normal speed line drive, and just through Sierra out at first, inning over. I did end up holding the A's to their only 3 points,winning 7-3.
The first game against the Red Sox at home. Tom Davey (blazing fastball, and a wicked changeup mixed in will kill batters) vs Pedro Martinez. In this game, there are pitcher-batter duels, and there are Pitcher-Pitcher duels. This game started out a Pitcher-Pitcher dual. Going into the top of the 6th, the score was 0-0, with the Rangers owning the only hit of the day, a single by Kevin Mench off a slow dribbler towards the 3rd baseman. Tom Davey was owning Pedro in strikeouts (I told you, I know how to pitch, lol, I just do for some reason). Pedro was owning my batters. I never got the ball past the infield. His sliders were off that game though, always turned out to be a ball. But his Fastball was hitting 98 MPH, and just when I thought he would throw another (finding a pattern in their pitching will never work, trust me), he hits me with a changeup, and my batter ends up whiffing the ball before it even gets within 5 feet of the plate, lol. He struck out ARod twice that game, lol. Tom Davey's fastball started out hitting at 99 MPH, with two of them hitting 100 MPH, and his changeups were hitting at 80, 83 max. Ending the 6th inning, the score was still 0-0, the Rangers owning the only two hits of the game. However, going into the bottom of the 7th, the Rangers were up 1-0, due to a Home Run off Pedro thanks to Ruben Sierra, who now owned two RBI's this season, lol. We ended up getting a rally going after they switched out Pedro (season ERA before the homerun was 3.99 already). We ended up winning the game 6-0, Tom Davey earning his second win of the season. He's only pitched in two games, in which both of them he started. I wish he could start more, but his stamina is not good at all.</font>