MLB 12 The Show - PS3 Impressions Thread

[pistolpete]

This game is phenomenal. The controls schemes are great because there are so many options which make this game much more accessible (easy) for those of us without precise fingers or lightning reflexes.

[mwjr]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jgainsey

Dear SCEA, Thanks for the kick in the balls to start off my MLB 12 experience. - Braves and Red Sox fans

Yeaaah. I've been Xing right on through that.

[Chairman7w]

This is interesting, as I've seen the exact opposite complained about in this very thread. I actually have found myself thinking "Why didn't my pitcher grab that???" I think it's just fine.

Quote: Originally Posted by BenGerman

Still see the Pitcher stopping too many liners up the middle. Its annoying, but certainly better than last year.

[Chairman7w]

Thanks for taking the time to write your review. It's obviously well written and thoughtful. BUT calling the commentary worse than Madden's kinda sends your credibility tumbling.

I actually agree with most of your other points though (except your pitching comments - I really dig the pulse), but I don't add as much weight to the criticisms as you seem to. They seem awfully minor.

Oh well - good review anyway.

Quote: Originally Posted by vannwolfhawk

I havn't played this game the last 2 years as I sold my PS3 a few years back as the only game I had for it was the show. I just couldn't justify having both systems at that time. I played 2k12 last year and enjoyed it to some degree. After reading these boards, reviews, and just knowing the hype behind this game and how strongly the fans feel about it I decided to go get a PS3 again just for the show. That being said I am a little disapointed. Don't get me wrong this is an amazing game, but I think it has key areas it needs to improve on before its the greatest ever. Here are my impressions after a good solid 12 hours of playing the game. Pros Love the ball physics Graphics, lighting, stadiums, all the small details, and player faces are beautiful and amazing. I love the hitting and it feels good I like that you see choppers, more grounders, ball slows down on poorly hit grounders, less line drives, etc. Feels very realistic. The sounds of ball hitting bat or mit sound great! Cons Pitching is a disapointment to me. The other game nailed this aspect IMO. It doesn't feel like a game of skill when you are pitching. I have no idea where the pitch will go after I hit the button no matter how small my circle is or how accurate my pitcher is. I have tried every pitching mechanic the game has to offer and its all the same story with different mechanic but same results. Shouldn't certain star pitchers have higher accuracy? As of now guys like Halladay and Felix are all over the place. I even went in and edited all accuracy for player pitches to 99 and sliders i upped to 99 for accuracy as well and still was all over the place. This is a huge part of baseball obviously and I think they need to adopt to 2k's pitching mechanics as they killed it IMO. When I strike someone out I want to feel like I did it and not luck of the draw. As of now pitching is just not fun to me in this game. I had a blast last year with the other game! This 1 area alone and Id be a happy camper! Defense and pitching win championships. It seems for some reason all the major sports gaming titles miss this key area and more focus on offense to much and over power it. Maybe this is for the little kiddies? Lack of slider options and the difference between 0-10 needs to be a bigger gap IMO. I have player defensive speed and reactions at 0 as of now. I have pitch accuracy at 10 and they could keep going up or down if it was possible and I had the option to do it. Commentary is horrible! Maybe Im used to 2k basketball or even 2k baseball from last year? There are lulls and complete silence way to often. At the start of a game they say this is what the defense will look like and you have a minute of silence. Why doesn't the commentator step in and talk about a key defender or pitcher that is starting? This needs a overhaul. Reminds me of madden except worse. They also need better announcers and play by play as well. I am not a big fan nor have I ever been of canned animations. I hate when my outfielder makes a catch and then the CPU takes over and throws it to the infield. I feel like I lose control. As dumb as this sounds I would like to throw the ball back to the infield and to the pitcher. Same go's for the first basemen after I throw a routine out to 1st base or anyone for that matter. Let me throw the ball around the horn and back to my pitcher MYSELF! Crowd noise and atmosphere is bad. The game was raining in Safeco field and the roof was open? I think there needs to be more arch on throws and there are to many line drive throws from either the outfield to infield or when a play is not even a close play at 1st base. I look at 2k basketball and see all the edits within a player we can make and in MLB there are very few areas to edit. We have more options to edit in player appearance and music for each player then we do within a players attributes. Maybe give us the oppurtunity to adjust a players tendency to steal, etc... If I am wrong in this area forgive me. I have looked around but I have not seen this anywhere. Can we have the ability to have coaching/managers profiles per team with setting different tendencies? Teams or managers that want to play small ball, steal bases more than others, be more aggressive, etc.? I have not seen this option anywhere. Am I missing this? If so, again please forgive me. I havn't played this game in a few years. These are just my opinions and admittedly I am a basketball guy 1st, football guy 2nd, and baseball 3rd, BUT I have played baseball games since the early days of baseball stars, RBI, etc. Its come a long way since then. These were just quick thoughts I had and things that either impressed me or things I would like to see added in the future. Anyways... Sorry for long paragraphs! Go ahead and bash me now Im ready:-)

[hahjrb]

I don't consider this a bug so I am going to post here. I have noticed that there is a time when you get a routine ground ball to the shortstop that is just to his right hand side. It's so close to start with that he goes into a pre-canned motion of basically walking to the ball. It makes it impossible to get the runner out if he has more than slow speed. Caused me to actually lose a game as it happened twice in the ninth inning of my Cubs-Cards game.

[econoodle]

Quote: Originally Posted by Knight165

We discussed this at CD. I think we'll see this next year. If you choose "sim season" from one of the two "sim season" options(it's in two places if you look..one on the front end...the other from the schedule)...it will just continuously sim seasons(and off seasons) until you back out. Aaron seemed to think they could add it. We could do it with the debug machines at SCEA and it's pretty nice. NO PROMPTS!(NONE) M.K. Knight165

Godsend!
thanks for putting this bug in the dev's ears.

even tho i settle in to my franchise and run with it, i am constantly simming other chises to do testing, this will free up a ton of time.

Another 3 pointer at the buzzer for the CE!


Impression

I am shocked at how well this plays out of the box, with minimal sliders.
I know sliders are a preference and that mine will be different than others, but outside of lowering pitch speed [these old reflexes], lowering pitchers strike frequency and slight lowering of outfielder speed and throwing strength [tho i have had a few games where those played fine on default] I haven't done ANYTHING.

thats scary.

my dodger/padres extra inning affair last night is still in my headspace and I don't want it out of there.

[jim48888888]

first off... allow me to say... i don't come here much, and i don't read most threads, but i got the game yesterday and i have to say... ANY review that gives this game less than a 9.3 or 9.3 out of 10 is not familiar with the franchise. the players actually catch the ball this year by closing their mitts. i saw one reviewer say, "does the ball really hit third base that much, anyway?" when referring to the new ball physics. well... i've played 6 full games and it hasn't happened to me, yet. fly balls no longer just go the direction of the wind. and thank GOD they included the ability to position ur swing! last year i said to everyone that was the ONLY thing missing. i wan't control over as much as i CAN control. that's why i haven't, and will NEVER use the pulse pitching... but here's the thing i love about the developer... not only did they include a new feature for pitching... but they actually went back and IMPROVED the analong pitching meter. i often wondered how much of an influence on the speed of the pitch i had... now i know thanks to the 3 different colors (yellow, orange and red) that appear on both sides of the meter as u push the right stick forward at varying speeds. and the ability to stretch and toss or be ready and waiting in the bullpen... PERFECT enhancements. the only negatives i see... are maybe one too many VERY high chopped foul balls. i even stole second base with andrew mccutchen and the announcer commented on how he couldn't believe the steal was successful based on the fact he almost fell on his face as he left first. so... i watched the replay... and there was the animation... very cool. but, getting back to the placement of the swing. last year, when i would be behind in the count, say 1-2... and a high fastball would come in and i'd regret swinging because it was dependent on the computer as to whether or not i could "fight off" a pitch... frustrated me to no end... this year, though, i see a fastball at the top of the strikezone (or anywhere, for that matter) and even if it's a ball and i swing... at least i can control the bat and stay alive by fouling one off. it really is "so real it's unreal"... and i couldn't be happier. now if they would just include some pitcher's pitches... it would be perfect. for example... how is charlie morton's slider STILL not in the game when that was the VERY PITCH that re-ignited his barely flammable career before 2011? and i know it's not just him... other pitchers as well... but other than that... i know what video game will frequent the innards of my ps3 more than any other title this year. The Show must go on because it's stronger than ever before! peace!

[N51_rob]

I love how on most teams you can really tell the difference between a teams #1 and #5 starters. I was raking against the Padres number 5, but Jaret Weaver no hit me through 7.1 innings.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus