Major League Baseball 2K9 Demo Available, Post Your Impressions Here

[Lisa_Bonami]

Based on only 2 quick innings of Demo play here are some high level things that standout:

Good:

+gameplay has a more fluid retro video game baseball feel in comparison to last year's mechanical clunky feel

+hit variety and placement

+tighter control

Concerns:

-some quirky and misaligned animations still present. ie. outfielders crow up to throw in one direction but the ball releases in another

-On close ups and foul balls, the "Chug" rears its ugly head. You can feel the frame rate dip in situations that seem to include certain camera angles that pan to the crowd or have high poly counts

-Is the hitting oversimplified for its own good? (hoping this could be a slider difficulty setting to increase the challenge)

-CPU seems to be too aggressive with the swing and will only seem to hold up on balls way out of the strike zone (hopefully this is also a slider setting to fix)

Overall, Im satisified with the demo and this year's design team seemed to have a theme to keep the game accessible and most importantly fun. And I believe they are on the right track with this years version. Again, this is based on very limited gameplay and is more of an overall first impressions. I hope digging a little deeper doesnt reveal some uglier findings

So far...so good

[dave_sz]

Quote: Originally Posted by Riotboy

and the graphics are way better than 2K8/The Show 09, but not so much 2K7. I

Ok, seriously? Are we playing the same demo?

[bellz666]

Buy a PS3 and get The Show....

[PVarck31]

Quote: Originally Posted by taco

And you are?

He is a senior staff member of operationsports. And you are?

[rdonnel1]

I think the some of the signature styles are terrible...they dont have victorino's stance, werth's stance, carlos pena's stance and utleys stance isnt even good. All these players are pretty big names. I was expecting much more people to have signature stances

[jim416]

3rd inning demo, if it hasn't been posted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhnMF...eature=channel

[JonahFalcon]

They really nailed the crowd, though. Bases loaded against me - the crowd isn't screaming (it's the 3rd inning), but everyone is standing up.

[kaydigi]

One the fence about canceling my pre order, will wait for a retail impressions thread.


- The running out fielder animations are very awkward. They look like plastic man twisting their upper torso.
- The swing stick batting completely diminished my pre release hype. I understand you can change it in the retail, but i'm not willing to gamble $60 on the playability on "regular batting". I wish they would have given us a choice in the demo.
- The icons and after swing graphics are vomit inducing. Can you turn them off in the retail??
-The person who approved the design of the "runners on base icon" should be fired. Static army men cutouts represent baserunners now? I just do not like a lot of the graphic overlays.

I really wish sports games had a 2 year development cycle.