MLB 2K8 News Post

Major League Baseball 2K8 360 Impressions

01:24 AM - February 26, 2008 by Steve_OS

Matt Blumenthal had an opportunity to demo Major League Baseball 2K8 this afternoon. His official writeup of the event will be up later this week, but we wanted to get some quick thoughts up here for you guys.

This game looks beautiful, the player models have improved but the real leap is in the animations. The animations move silky smooth and there is no need to worry about herky jerky animations of the past anymore.
I'm impressed with how intuitive and fresh the analog controls are. The pitching takes a little time to get the hang of but the new mechanics add a whole new dimension to the pitching model.
The baseball cards feature is surprisingly cool, expect me to have more on that later on this week.
In-game saves are officially in the game this year.
Check swings don't seem to be a chore anymore. They are now accomplished by pulling back on the right analog stick - no more right trigger necessary.
Stadium-specific animations are in. The Yankee Roll Call was mentioned specifically.
There should be plenty of foul balls this year. I saw several in the few at-bats I played.
No spring training games this year.
I counted eight unlockable classic stadiums. I think more might be available by default as well.
No co-op play
You will have the option to make trades for CPU-controlled teams in franchise mode, but you won't be able to edit their rotations and lineups.
It was suggested to me that the demo is done and has been submitted. If that's the case, it's in Microsoft's hands now.
I will hit on a few of the big questions from the forum here.

Game: Major League Baseball 2K8Reader Score: 6/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS2 / PS3 / PSP / Wii / Xbox 360Votes for game: 74 - View All

Member Comments

# 21 Artman22 @ 02/26/08 08:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ExtremeGamer


	Doesn't sound like too much improved, just about everything on that list was in 2K7 sans the trading cards.

yeah 60fps, smooth animations, no herky jerkey movements. Yeah your right it sounds like no improvements

# 22 markprior22 @ 02/26/08 09:04 AM

With the concerns over not being able to edit CPU lineups, did you look at some lineups and see if they look reasonable?

# 23 bsbllstr876 @ 02/26/08 09:05 AM

No spring training...

What's baseball without spring training?

# 24 TheLetterZ @ 02/26/08 09:16 AM

Let me try to answer a few of those quickly.

- Hit variety: We didn't spend much time actually playing the game. We played maybe one full inning, so I don't have real observations of my own here. But we discussed it in-depth and it should be better this year for reasons I will discuss in my writeup.

- I'll get to online stuff in the writeup but I'll say now that I'm pleased that they have added button press controls-only and strikes-only lobbies. Hopefully the latter will weed out some of the unrealistic players from random online games.

- I played the 360 version.

- Presentation: I'm told there's a greater variety of commentary this year. Not sure about camera angles but fielding seemed easier than last year. It's been awhile since I've played 2K7 but maybe the camera not as zoomed as last year?

- You can't save replays.

- Fielding controls have been tweaked this year. Spectacular plays will be more difficult and rare. This includes wall climbs.

# 25 bigfnjoe96 @ 02/26/08 09:17 AM

Thanks for the quick write-up Matt. Here's hoping KUSH/Blue Castle fixed the problem with the Line-ups, since we can't manually edit them ourselves. I'm really encouraged by your remarks about how fluid the animations look & feel. Matt would you say the bumping-up of the frame rate is what is helping the animations look so fluid & did you notice frame rate drops during your time with the game...

# 26 Blitzburgh @ 02/26/08 09:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigfnjoe96


	Thanks for the quick write-up Matt. Here's hoping KUSH/Blue Castle fixed the problem with the Line-ups, since we can't manually edit them ourselves. I'm really encouraged by your remarks about how fluid the animations look & feel. Matt would you say the bumping-up of the frame rate is what is helping the animations look so fluid & did you notice frame rate drops during your time with the game...

It seems we are getting a bit of contradicting info...I thought I remember from the BB phone intereview or something that he said we can edit the lineups and rotation of the CPU contolled teams? Also, one person said there is in game saves and the other said there wasn't? Now I am confused! haha

# 27 TheLetterZ @ 02/26/08 09:30 AM

- Frame rate looked good.

- Oh, and about the lineups. I was told they worked hard on improving the AI logic for the roster management. We hear that often but hopefully there will be noticeable improvements this year.

# 28 ExtremeGamer @ 02/26/08 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Art1bk


	yeah 60fps, smooth animations, no herky jerkey movements. Yeah your right it sounds like no improvements

We'll see on the actual game when it's in our hands. Sounds like he only played one inning and the rest was discussed.

This happens every year, everyone gets all hyped for MLB 2K, and it's a huge disappointment. I hope I'm wrong, but it sounds like the team worked more on the playing card system than actually improving the gameplay.

# 29 TheLetterZ @ 02/26/08 09:31 AM

- I saw the in-game saves button.

- We tried editing the lineups and rotations for CPU-controlled teams and it was impossible.

# 30 bigfnjoe96 @ 02/26/08 09:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheLetterZ


	- Frame rate looked good. - Oh, and about the lineups. I was told they worked hard on improving the AI logic for the roster management. We hear that often but hopefully there will be noticeable improvements this year.

Nice...BTW, sorry bout your wildcats last night

# 31 Flaxseed Oil @ 02/26/08 09:35 AM

Hey man, what about bat sounds? thanks for taking the time to do this.

# 32 Flaxseed Oil @ 02/26/08 09:37 AM

Hey man, what about bat sounds? thanks for taking the time to do this.

# 33 ehh @ 02/26/08 09:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheLetterZ


	- We tried editing the lineups and rotations for CPU-controlled teams and it was impossible.

I'm not too concerned yet since this is the demo. Didn't BB say in the conference-call that you can do this in the final build?

Plus it will only be used in franchise mode so I don't see how or why it'd be in the demo. No need to panic yet, IMO.

# 34 driz14 @ 02/26/08 09:40 AM

Curious about the bat sounds as well

# 35 Trevytrev11 @ 02/26/08 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve_OS


	Matt Blumenthal had an opportunity to demo Major League Baseball 2K8 this afternoon. His official writeup of the event will be up later this week, but we wanted to get some quick thoughts up here for you guys. This game looks beautiful, the player models have improved but the real leap is in the animations. The animations move silky smooth and there is no need to worry about herky jerky animations of the past anymore. I'm impressed with how intuitive and fresh the analog controls are. The pitching takes a little time to get the hang of but the new mechanics add a whole new dimension to the pitching model.

That might be enough for me. Last year, defense just wasn't consistant and so many of the animations were canned it felt like you only had control some of the time. If you wanted to get behind a fly ball to make a strong throw, it seemed like it was a crap shoot for the computer to be on the same page. I'm still waiting for a game to come up with some sort of "catch" button...maybe that will be the new thing next year...swing stick last year, analog pitching this year, catch button next year.

I think I'm most excited about the pitching. Besides having a bit of a learning curve, I haven't heard one person who has seen or used it have a bad thing to say about it. While I thought payoff pitching was too easy, I thought zone pitching pitching was challenging last year. Once I made the switch, the game changed for me. But. as a former pitcher, I'm excited tha button pressing is gone. Locating a fastball perfectly is challenging to even Greg Maddux and the fact that you can Make Barry Zito hit his spot 80% of the time in the past is a bit of a joke.

I think these two things are enough for me. I won't pre-order and will rent to make sure these things are as good as described, but if they are...it might be enough to make the game feel fresh.

Don't get me wrong, the presentation will get old and stale fast and I'll probably end up turning it down and turning my music up like I do with most games. I'm definitely not thrilled about the "idea" for the hitting system, but will give it a try and if the results seem realistic and there is a bigger variety in the hits, then I can live with that. Baseball has always been three things to me (pitching, fielding and hitting) and if they can nail 2 out of 3, I'll be happy.

I know we all want the complete game now, even though we know it is a "3-year process", but as long as the game feels new and improved to 2K7 in these area's, I can handle it. I don't want to sound like it's OK to settle because the last thing 2K needs to be is complacent, but it's a start.

# 36 Artman22 @ 02/26/08 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by driz14


	Curious about the bat sounds as well

Same here. I would like to know about the bat sounds.

# 37 bigfnjoe96 @ 02/26/08 10:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sask3m


	In- game saves were available last yr.

In-Game save as in starting a game then stopping in the 4th inning. Saving, then being able to pick-up that same game where you saved from. I have play 2k7 a helluva lot & unless I'm blind or was doing something wrong, this wasn't available last year.

# 38 GnarlyKing @ 02/26/08 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bigfnjoe96


	In-Game save as in starting a game then stopping in the 4th inning. Saving, then being able to pick-up that same game where you saved from. I have play 2k7 a helluva lot & unless I'm blind or was doing something wrong, this wasn't available last year.

Yes it was, at least in franchise. You save your franchise in the middle of the game, quit, and when you reload your franchise, it takes you right to the spot you were in the game when you quit.

# 39 ausar72 @ 02/26/08 10:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GnarlyKing


	Yes it was, at least in franchise. You save your franchise in the middle of the game, quit, and when you reload your franchise, it takes you right to the spot you were in the game when you quit.

Yes, I will also concur with this. This was definitely in the franchise mode for 2K7.

# 40 born_bad @ 02/26/08 10:37 AM

In -game saves were definitely available, even in exhibition games in 2k7. I did it all the time.

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