MLB '10: The Show First Look (ESPN)

3. Not so fast


Ever since I used to play as the Cardinals in "RBI Baseball," I've been driving my friends crazy with the rate at which I steal bases in video games. My days are numbered now that "MLB 10" is introducing a new way for pitchers to pick off baserunners.



"Last year, it was really confusing to people if you were playing from the pitcher's view on how you were supposed to pick off runners," Cramm says. "To the eye, the buttons were the opposite of how they should have been, because [the] circle was always first base no matter what view you were in. So this year we made a really important change to where pickoffs are now performed using the shift. Hold it down and all the buttons will map according to the view you are in. That avoids a point of concern and confusion that to me was more like a bug last year.



"The next thing we added is the ability to choose different kinds of pickoffs. There are three different pickoff types: casual, where a guy steps off and throws over to the base. You have a quick move and you have a deceptive move. We also have the third-to-first move now, where a right-hander fakes the throw to third then looks back to first. The new button configuration allows us to add all of this. And what's great is these moves only work in the right situations. Like, you can't do a deceptive move if you're a right-hander and there's only a runner on first; those are only for lefties. But if you're a right-hander with runners on first and third, you can do a deceptive, and that's your fake throw to third, throw to first."



As for the button controls: tap for casual, double tap for the quick move, press and hold for deceptive. "For deceptive, the entire situation is going to look like a pitch," Cramm says. "The pitch meter is going to go and everything is going to stay in that camera until you make your move to the base. And the A.I. is going to do this to you, too. So as a base runner, now, you can't just take off on the first move. And this really makes things fun, especially in two-player games, because this adds a new level of cat and mouse as the pitcher tries to change his looks so that the runners aren't just taking off at will."

But that's not the only visual treat that's been added to the game this year. You'll see things like cloud shadows moving across the field, daylight transitional lighting, dugouts and bullpens populated in real time (not just in cut scenes), and even playoff noisemakers and towels in the crowd. Gamers can expect more animations of fans reaching over the rails, foul balls that will ricochet off both catchers and umpires, working analog and digital clocks inside stadiums and fans from the visiting team populating stadiums, like when the Cubs play in Arizona and the Chicago faithful come out in full force wearing their team colors.