Just took it for a test drive:
- Variable strike zone is great. nibbling the corners is risky now
- Pitches move to the plate much more realistically than last year. Fastballs don't have an arc anymore.
- Even with default settings, pitching is not as easy to pinpoint. Even with an ace like Timmy, I had some of my fastballs catch more of the plate than I intended, and other pitches miss the zone.
- Broadcast camera is spot on.
- Rally towels are cool and the crowd looks good overall. Sounds good too.
- Defensive shift notifications are a nice touch.
- Ball physics seem improved.
- Throwing meter is good and it's challenging to hit the sweet spot with a lot of guys, which is good.
- Hitting camera is still the best I've seen in a baseball game for reading pitches and working the count. Looking forward to being able to zoom it in though.
- Plenty of foul balls.
- AI pitches intelligently, and throws plenty of balls out of the zone. You can definitely work a walk if you're patient, even on default settings which is nice.
- I like the view after you make contact. Has a nice flow to it.
- Baserunning animations are certainly smoother.
- Stealing seems improved, but need to try it more.
- Game seems smoother all around.
Negatives:
- The framerate does dip on contact sometimes (mostly on foul balls), but it's not that bad. Definitely not a game breaker, and like others have said it's an early build (Chase didn't notice it in his preview time)
- I would've liked to have seen the overlays get a fresh coat of paint, but at least they still look good.
- Shadows are still a bit jaggy on the 360, but probably won't be on the PC version if you have a good video card.
- Graphics in general aren't top notch, some animations are jerky, but I can live with this as gameplay is more important to me.
Overall, I really like it. A good improvement over 2K10 and no glaring issues so far. Looking forward to March 8th
