[thornie]

Ok everyone, I scored my copy after work and have had a good 3 hours with the game. I have sent PMed pjv and he has given me the go ahead to post my impressions, so here goes...

One more thing, my CPU at home is shot so I'm posting via iPhone so I won't be able to answer questions as fast as I would like. Any ways onto the game.

1. First thing I noticed right outta the box is this game is very pretty. Graphics for some reason IMO are sharper and nicer than the demo. The time of day progression during day games is really nice. Seeing different shadows on my pitcher from inning to inning is just so sweet. Batting helmets look great too, the reflections and detail is really cool.

2. Before playing a game I immediately changed the control setup to cursor hitting with classic and 2k8s pitching controls. I have to say I just love the cursor hitting, it is VERY challenging. Also, I feel it provides a more realistic hit variety than the stick.

The 3 step pitching controls is also a lot more challenging than last years game. The circle expands and contracts a lot fader than it did in 2k8.

3. Here is where the bad begins... The CPU swings at everything in the strike zone. I MEAN everything. It's like 90 out 100 times the CPU will hack away at anything close. It's very annoying. Thing is, I still don't know if I just suck at pitching or what. It gets worse... So I said "oh well I'll just start editing the players now"... So I went into the edit player section and to my dismay there are no attributes for hitting agression, none. There IS a draw walk slider, but I am yet to tweak that.

The other thing that sucks royally is you can't seem to edit players batting stances. If you can I must be missing it because I can't find it anywhere, not even in the create a player section. This has me bummed big time.

4. For those folks that were freaking out about accessing player ratings during the game - fear not, you can access them by subbing through the pause menu instead of pressing the d-pad during the game.

I'll try and post more as the night goes on...