[thornie]

This game is starting to remind me of the hot girlfriend with just enough personality to keep you interested, then would say something so remarkably stupid that makes you really think twice...

I've now logged an entire weekend with her.. um I mean it. So here goes...

IMO the game is broken. I love it, but it's broken. It needs to be patched desperately and if they are taking this game as seriously as some are saying, it needs to be patched soon. Here are some issues that I'm having and have found "workarounds" for...

AI taking strikes - All IE sliders set to ZERO. Then I edited every single players "draw walk" slider to 100, and dropped their contact down my 15 ticks. This allows me to get MAYBE 3 called strikes the entire game. Hey listen... when the alternative is NO called strikes for the whole game, I'll take this as a moral victory.

Drawing Walks - I took the extreme approach here and lowered all AI pitch accuracy sliders to ZERO, all of them. I get good results, I walk maybe 4-5 times a game and routinely get the pitcher in the 80s-90s in pitch count. One thing about this game is that they 9 times out of 10 will pull the pitcher at around 75-80 pitches. So if you get the pitcher to get in the 100s, you deserve a trophy.

I have to say that hitting against the AI is a ton of fun, and is the best part of this game. It's like playing TWO completely different games when going back and forth between pitching and hitting. I'll have like a 10+ minute inning hitting against the CPU, then I'll consistently have 2-3 minute innings pitching. It's really REALLY frustrating.

Fielding - Fielding in this game is pretty awful. I figured out a way to avoid dropping the ball in the outfield, or the outfielder over running the ball completely. Turns out that shadowy circle around the yellow indicator is like a suction cup. If you GENTLY approach the shadowed circle and let go of the stick, your fielder will go into an pre animation and catch the ball. It's not perfect but I'm dropping far less bals in the outfield.

The infield fielding although better, is still broken. It seems the only way to avoid the problem of the 1st baseman not recieving the ball with his foot on the bag is try and get the throw meter on the green. If any part of the meter touches the red, the 1st basemans foot will mysteriously be off the bag during his catch animation. The things is though, AI baserunners are way too fast, and its VERY difficult to catch a slow roller and get a guy out throwing on the green. Jason Giambi out of all people beat out a slow grounder to the SS for God's sake.

IMO these are the three issues that need to be fixed and patched immediately. This is the CORE of the game, and it's flawed. Fix this and you'll have a great game on your hands.

One last thing...

Regarding not being able to change the CPUS lineup. You DON'T have to make a ton of different game saves and load whichever before you play. All you have to do is set the lineup BEFORE you play. This takes like 5 seconds. Management --> Pitch Rotation --> EDIT to your liking, and back out. Seriously, it takes like 5 seconds.