***Official MLB 2K9 Retail Version Impressions***

[therockstar2005]

One other little thing about simming the chise. If you're just straight simming, the speed of the engine is pretty damn fast. In under a minute I simmed from Opening Day to the All Star Break. It might be small, but it's really nice to be able to sim through a season in like 2 minutes or so.

[Trapdoors Exist]

Quote: Originally Posted by Peter_OS

How the hell do you do a check swing?

Use classic batting. With the stick, it's nigh impossible. With classic, check swings feel very natural.

As for impressions, I've spent enough time with the game to form a few. Just so people know where I'm coming from, I didn't play last year's game (hated the demo) and I was not a fan of 2K7.

With that out of the way, I really don't get all the hate on this game. Make a few slider tweaks (I've been using guru's from 2K Share) and this game plays great. I can't comment on franchise or online, but the gameplay feels spot on. That's far and away the most important thing, as the rest is meaningless without that. No, I don't get realistic pitch counts (I generally throw 100-110, CPU is around 120-130), but I'm getting pretty realistic numbers of hits, walks, and strike outs. That's more important to me than how many pitches I'm throwing.

As for bugs, the only one I've seen that affected gameplay is the "1B taking his foot off of the bag too soon" glitch, which has happened twice. Luckily for me, there was no one on base either time and I was able to pitch around it. That seems like an easily fixable problem via patch. I've seen some graphical weirdness (players running through other players during cut-scenes, for example) but what I've seen has had zero impact on the game I'm playing, so I really couldn't care less.

If editing batting stances is more important to you than good gameplay, you'll be disappointed. If you just enjoy playing a good game of baseball, you'll dig it. It's really that simple. 2K still has work to do on some of the window dressing, but with some slider adjustments (which is to be expected with any sports game), the gameplay is great.

A couple of reviews have mentioned that more and more problems crop up the longer you play the game, but I'm giving it a thumbs up for now. Hopefully my opinion won't change.

[Herky]

Quote: Originally Posted by therockstar2005

Part 2 of the Season Sim: 4 Teams in the AL Playoffs (in order of seed): Yankees, Tigers, Red Sox (wildcard), Rangers NL Playoffs: Reds, Marlins, Cubs (wild card), Rockies No real big trades after All-Star break, so we'll go to the stats before the playoffs take place: -AVG looks a bit more realistic than before (Bay has highest w/ .348, M. Cabrera .337, A. Callaspo .332, D. Jeter .331) -HRs look good (Texeira 42, J. Hamilton 38, 3 w/ 37) -RBIs also pretty good (Texeira 143, Delgado 126) -Steals good, maybe a bit high (BJ Upton and J. Reyes 56, W. Taveras 50) -ERA rounded out pretty well (Brandon Backe 3.07, S. Olsen 3.12, A. Harang 3.19) -Ks nice and high (Harang 235, Peavy 232, Kazmir 223, Lincecum 220) -Walks still might be low (Zito 119, Cain 117, D. Willis 115) -Saves pretty low (Papelbon 29, Marmol and BJ Ryan 28, B. Jenks 25) Now for the playoffs: Yanks over Rangers 3-0; Red Sox over Tigers 3-2 Rockies over Reds 3-1; Cubs over Marlins 3-1 Yanks over Red Sox 4-3; Rockies over Cubs 4-2 Rockies over Yanks 4-2 (Holy Sh*t) After the World Series they hand out all the hardware: NL Comeback Player: PIT Steven Pearce (who?) NL Rookie of the Year: FLA Cameron Maybin NL Reliever of the Year: CHI Carlos Marmol NL Cy Young: SD Chris Young (17-7, 3.41 ERA, 216 K, 229.3 innings, 1.34 WHIP) NL MVP: FLA Hanley Ramirez (.315, slug .551, 33 HR, 99 RBI, 39 SB) AL Comeback Player: ANA Kendry Morales AL Rookie of the Year: CWS Chris Getz AL Reliever of the Year: BOS Jonathan Papelbon AL Cy Young: NYY CC Sabathia (20-9, 4.03 ERA, 202 K, 1.38 WHIP) AL MVP: NYY Mark Texeira (.312, slg .559, 42 HR, 143 RBI) World Series MVP: Todd Helton They also hand out Gold Gloves, too. Not as worried about it. Afterwards, they show who's retiring, and then give you a little rundown on how your teams finished, attendance increase/decrease, and next year's budget (which is probably flawed w/o patch). As a quick aside, player progression seems pretty nice. While performance on the field does seem to influence it, it also isn't the only thing. Age does play an important part, too. Ok, I think that's good enough. Any questions let me know.

Nice. Stats seem pretty good.

Any info on regression? Did older players get worse?

Did you notice many injuries to pitchers? I know there were not many in the past.

[therockstar2005]

Quote: Originally Posted by VikingFan4Ever

Nice. Stats seem pretty good. Any info on regression? Did older players get worse? Did you notice many injuries to pitchers? I know there were not many in the past.

There was regression, as some older players did get worse, or stayed the same, even if their stats were pretty good. Manny dropped a point, a few others (off the top of my head).

I did see some injuries to pitchers, not a whole lot. However, that's really from at the All-Star break, since I just simmed to that point and then towards the end, so in the day to day and weekly operations I can't really comment on the injuries. It didn't seem too heavy or with too many injuries.

If I get time tomorrow, I'll try to sim through the second season, as the FA pool isn't quite as bad as I was expecting. I'll pay attention towards the regression more then, and try to stop once each month and look at injuries.

[Checmate101]

I dont' have the game yet, but can somebody see if Ryan Dempster does his glove flip thing before he pitches?

[kGinGreen]

I rented the game.

1st game Royals(me) vs Athletics. Legend difficulty.

G. Meche 7 innings pitched 9 hits, 3 runs , 2 k's 1 hr,
Farnesworth 1 ip, 2 hits, 0 k's
Soria, 1 ip, 1 hit, 0 k's

Ducherer 8 ip, 7 hits, 1 run, 3 k's
devine 1 ip 2 hits 1 k

A's
37 ab's
.324 ba
9 singles
2 doubles
0 triples
1 hr
0 walks
2 k's
0 sb's
1 error
64 strikes
1 ball

KC
35 abs
.257 ba
9 singles
0 doubles
0 triples
0 hrs
0 walkes
4 k's
0 sbs
1 caught stealing
2 errors
65 pitches
10 balls
55 strikes

final score a's 3. Royals 1. Overall it was a fun game. I screwed up a base running mistake to tie it 2-2. The baserunning controls are horky, but i blame myself for that. No balls thrown though and the game went pretty fast. I think 2k was aiming for this.To me this game is on par with nba 2k9 and the ai is very similar in certain regards. It's funky. Was the game fun? Sure it was. It was a close game throughout and i saw a bunch of different things. I can see what 2k was aiming for here. Whether i agree with it is another story. I can see where doubles and extra base hits will be hard on the higher difficulties. I think with some good sliders this game could be good though. What else is new..... To me it seemed similar but better than past versions. It's still 2k. It still has flaws and the same kind of stuff, but it can be worked with imo. This game gets a passing grade but barely imo. Ai, strikeouts, realistic hit variety, rocket arms, walks, contact all remain. Same issues as past versions.

[RealmK]

My first impressions are that its above and beyond what 2k8 was. The presentation is excellent, I think the new pitching interface works well enough, batting feels on the whole more solid and I feel I have better control over influencing where balls are hit, maybe too much actually but its an improvement none the less.

Base running is somewhat wonky but that may be just me getting used to how it is now, fielding at times feels somewhat wonky as well with players not getting under fly balls as well as they should.

Solid framerate, graphically its not where it could be but it doesn't look bad by any means. The commentary is for the most part spot on and well delivered. The new interface is slick at least from a presentation factor. I still absolutely loathe 2knav on the whole but at least the menus are laid out well and its easy enough to navigate to what you're looking for.

Over all a very solid and very much improved 2k baseball title, it plays a solid game of baseball, has prolly the best atmosphere a 2k sports title has ever had, runs well and its fun to play which is really all one can ask for.

[JohnDoe8865]

I'm enjoying the game so far despite the many issues. The batters are too aggressive for the AI and the CPU pitchers are throwing 90% strikes even when I take every pitch. I'm not exaggerating. However, I'm still having fun through 2 full games. I'm using bigfnjoe's sliders right now and have been since I popped it in the 360.

I've seen nearly every issue that has been mentioned and they are all there, the 1B step thing, the wonky outfield running, the curious base running on occasion, the catcher sometimes just stands and forgets to get back into his stance, the mistaken stat overlays, etc. etc. I'm not giving 2K or Visual Concepts a free pas by any means. I expect a patch in the next couple months that remedies most if not all of these gameplay problems. I do not expect that stance and delivery editing or the cap on editing players names to be patched, because some of these are issues native to VC's other games (see NBA 2K series).

If VC doesn't issue a patch that confronts the issues that are so widespread, I simply will not buy their product anymore. That's the only way for an individual to make a difference and I'll continue to criticize the game as I do Madden, or NCAA or NBA 2k, or NCAA Basketball, etc.

I think the game is playable in the current build, but it still feels a bit like a late beta build, as supposed to a final polished build. I only paid $50 for my copy after using a giftcard, and I have OOTP 9 (and OOTP 10 on preorder) for my GM/franchise fix.

If you have a PS3, there is absolutely no reason to buy 2k9. But if you are on 360 like me, it is worth playing this year I think. I didn't buy MLB 2K8, as I hated it, and I passed on NCAA Football 09 as it sucked, so I will not buy games that I don't like. I don't regret the purchase of this game, considering it is my only console baseball choice and the value that I think it will give me.

That's my $1.02.