MLB 2k8 Patch Impressions and Starting a Franchise

From what little reading I can find the patch for MLB 2k8 addresses just two issues: framerate and inability to manage the minor league rosters for the Padres. (I forget the specifics of the latter because, well, it's the Padres.) I didn't have much time last night to play a whole game with the new patch, but I did play about five innings just to get a taste. The framerate is much improved, but don't expect miracles. There are still the odd slowdowns and speedups when fielding and there are still hitches on infield throws. They're not as prevalent or distracting but they're there. A smooth 60fps game, that we were all sold on during the 2k conference call, this is still not.

On a sidenote, I've started a franchise with some user-made rosters. (2k's last roster update was at the end of freak'n February. Nice work, guys.) Seven games in and my impressions haven't changed much at all. This is a fun game, when there isn't bizarre sh#@ happening.

On the plus side, I had one of those great fist-pumping moments over the weekend. My Tigers were getting just obliterated by the White Sox (not unlike real life), 10-2. I was scratching my way back into it. 10-6 after the sixth inning. 10-8 after the seventh. Finally, in the bottom of the eight I was able to tie it up, 10-10. In the bottom of the ninth, still tied, I got a lead off triple from Gary Sheffield. (You can get a lot of triples in this game playing in Comerica Park, which is sweet.) The game proceeds to issue back-to-back intentional walks to Magglio Ordonez and Miguel Cabrera, who were having fantastic games, to load up the bases. (Again, sweet!) On the second pitch to Carlos Guillen (who was hitting in the low .200s), the White Sox pitcher tosses a wild pitch that goes back to the backstop. Gary Sheffield races to home for the win. Simply an awesome game. Had my wife not been home, I probably would've been running around the house whooping it up. (Yeah, I'm that kind of dork.)

The counter-balance? My very next game, in Boston, I've got a no-hitter going in the sixth inning with Verlander. There are two outs and I'm just cruising. One of the Sox hitters (I forget which), hits a lazy fly ball to right field. I'm under it with Ordonez who manages to somehow not catch the ball. It just drops in while he stands there. Okay, fine. There probably should be an animation for that, but errors like that do happen. There's one problem, though. No error was charged. I lost out on a no-hitter because this game flat out does not charge human teams with fielding errors. Throwing errors yes. But every time I have a fielder miss a lazy ground ball or drop a fly, there is never an error charged. In most games that's simply annoying, but when you've got a no-hit bid going and it's spoiled by something like that, it's simply unforgivable.

Closing the Book on MLB 2k8

I've been quiet for a few days, but I've been continuing to play MLB 2k8. I probably have a dozen or so games in at this point and hope to have a review draft up to Bill by tonight or tomorrow morning. This is just such a monumentally frustrating game. If you can pretend the framerate issues aren't there, that fielders aren't prone to running right over a ball, that a fielder with the ball in hand and a baserunner don't pass right through each on the basepaths, etc. then you can, in fact, have a lot of fun with this game. A lot of fun. Given that I don't have a PS3 or PSP on which I can play MLB '08 instead, I do plan to keep playing this game even after the review is done. (I'll just wait for final rosters, hope for a patch, and then see how far I can get into playing a single, full season.)

Right now I've established an uneasy truce with the game by turning off the audio commentary (something I did after the first game), letting the AI handle off-the-field roster management (the UI makes it too much trouble) and tuning the AI pitching such that it will throw pitches outside the strike zone with regularity. (Thank goodness that slider works.) I've also gone back to the dynamic fielding camera. I so want to use the aerial one, but I just cannot track a hit ball with that view. I end up reflexively running my fielder in three different directions as I try to figure out just where any given ball has been hit. I'm not sure if that's a failing with the game or the ability of my eyes to send signals to my brain properly... but it's one or the other.

Anyway, if you *need* a baseball game to play this summer and all you've got is a 360, don't avoid MLB 2k8. Just don't expect too much. The pitching model is a lot of fun, and the hitting model, while simplistic, can grow on you. It's also fully capable of providing some exciting baseball. Over the weekend I was playing the Tigers in Cleveland. I had a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the eighth. I brought in Joel Zumaya as the setup man and they just rocked him. I think I got one out before I pulled him for Fernando Rodney, having already surrendered a run and loaded the bases. The ho-hum stadium atmosphere was suddenly electric. With Rodney I was able to get out of the inning trailing just 3-2. In the top of the ninth, I got a one out, two run homer from Miguel Cabrera and went on to win the game 5-2. It was absolutely exhilarating.

MLB2k8 Fielding Cam

Just a quick note before my wife and I head out for dinner. I played a couple more games last night with the fielding cam (how on Earth did I not see that option?) set to Aerial. It's closer to what I'd like to see, but it's sort of a fixed camera position. I don't think (I have the memory of a fruit fly, so I'm not positive) it's completely stationary. Certainly, it swivels as needed and it might shift its position a small amount, but it's not a great view for infield action. It's also very difficult to see the ball, which is to scale and, thus, tiny (the tracking arrow thingy really doesn't help much in this view). So, it's an improvement (for me) over the default, but I'd love to see a more dynamic camera in a future edition that better balances the context of a situation (zoomed in more on infield plays and out more with better ball-to-player tracking on fly balls to the outfield) and is able to logically place itself on the field where it's going provide the best view of both the ball and the player moving to field it.

Also, this is starting to look like one of those rare sports games that actually improves as you play it. (Instead of vice-versa.) On first impression, it's a disaster. But as many others have found, if you can get past all the slop, it really appears that there's a good baseball game in there. I don't think it'll be good enough to warrant a $60 purchase (at least, not without a hell of a patch), but the pitching and hitting controls really do grow on you and, as stated before, there's a lot of variety in the field.

A Note About MLB Criticsm

A couple things that are probably worth pointing out. Just to be clear (and very often, I'm not), the reason I'm focusing on the presentation on MLB2k8 right now is precisely because I've only played two games. I haven't played nearly enough to get a feel for the nuts and bolts baseball issues, game balance, etc. That'll take some time. But the people playing the game a lot seem to be finding a lot to like.

Also, there's a difference between the type of criticism I'll go into on the blog and what I'll get into when I write the review for Gameshark. Here I'm focusing on what I, personally, want to see. I don't expect that to resonate with everyone, nor should it. When I write the review that focus will shift to what I think the reader will want to know about or be affected by.

Oh and finally, I am, evidently, an idiot (see the comments in my last post) and there *is* a way to change the fielding camera. I looked for such an option the last two nights and didn't see it, but apparently it's there. I guess that part of my bellyaching was pretty much for nothing... at least, assuming one of those cameras lets me see a ball hit into the air.

Todd's MLB2k8 Experience: Game 2

Got another game of MLB2k8 in last night. At some point I'll actually have to stay up late and have a longer game session, but with the kids not going to bed till after 8:00 and me getting tired by 11:00, it doesn't leave a lot of time.

I was disappointed (yet again) to find that there is no practice mode... at least not from the main gameplay menu. (Maybe there is in franchise?) You'd think with a game like this they'd have pitcher/batter practice, as this has become pretty standard fare for sports game in recent years. Fortunately, I was much quicker on the uptake for the whole SwingStick 2.0 thing than I was two nights ago.

On a positive note, you can see the makings of a good baseball game in there. When I wasn't being put off by the choppy framerate and intolerable news ticker, I caught myself actually having a little fun. I'm starting to see what some people are talking about with the variety of hits and "events" in the field (like a ball tipping off the edge of an outstretched glove). The problem is 2k simply must get past this "building" phase they seem stuck in and actually release a complete product. Despite some sound baseball mechanics and, yes, even some fun gameplay, the game is just sloppy. Last night I charged down a grounder with my shortstop and he just ran right over the ball. I mean he didn't even reach for it. Just ran right over it and let it go into the outfield. There wasn't even an error charged on the play. There's no other word for that but sloppy.

I also think I've finally decided why the presentation of the game bugs me so much. This game is meant to present like a TV broadcast. That's nothing new these days, as most sports games are like that. However, whereas I think a lot of sports games benefit from that treatment, I don't think baseball does. (This is just my opinion, of course.) All things being equal, I don't like watching a baseball game on TV. It's far too confined and I'm never happy with the view I'm allowed to see. Which, as it turns out, is pretty much how I feel playing this game.

As a fan of baseball, I'm all about the experience of being at the game. I want to see the field in all it's grandeur. I want to feel the scope. When a batter hits a towering fly ball to right-center field I want to see the ball's flight path and watch the outfielder glide underneath it as another backs him up. I want to see the big picture. And the same holds true when I play a baseball video game. I don't care about being zoomed in for some utterly useless, vaguely close-up(ish) view of a fielder running to some form of cross-hair painted on the grass. That's not visually appealing and it takes me right out of the experience every time I'm sitting there waiting for a fly ball to re-emerge to the camera's view.

In short, MLB2k8 feels like a game from people who's primary experience with baseball is watching it on TV. I'm not saying there are no baseball people at Kush or that they don't understand baseball concepts. Clearly there is some baseball expertise at work in this game. But at the same time, the game's presentation doesn't feel like it comes from a bunch of people who spent their childhoods actually going to the old ballpark to take in a day-night doubleheader either.

MLB2k8 One Game Impressions

Okay, I want to be up front here. This post is probably a mistake, but I am so incredibly let down by my first game of MLB2k8 that I just don't know what to make of it. I don't know if this game suffers from laziness, sloppiness or flat out incompetence, but it suffers from (at least) one of them.

Things I noticed after just one game:

• The stuttering is worse than Bill let on. The game hitches almost whenever the camera moves and whenever there is a transition graphic (and there's a metric ton of those). This should not happen in any console game, let alone a sports game, especially one that should be becoming mature at this point. The worst came in the post game in which I was no-hit by Josh Beckett (I struggled mightily with the whole right-stick swing thing; need to hit practice mode for that) and as the Sox team celebration started (which would've been incredibly cool) the game slowed to, quite literally, like 3-5 frames per second. It was a slide show and it lasted that way through the entire celebration scene, effectively killing what should be a very cool moment.
  
• On a dropped third strike the catcher, appropriately, made the throw to first and the runner was called out. One problem. The first baseman's foot wasn't on the bag. I mean it wasn't even close. (This is relatively harmless, but it's annoying.)
  
• Twice during a game in Detroit, the stadium played, "Cleveland Rocks." (Again, harmless, but annoying and more than a little stupid.)
• I cannot get the score/news ticker to shut off. I found the option in the presentation settings and set it to off, both in the main menu options and in the in-game options. I saved the setting (in both places) and the damn ticker is still there. I can't tell you how much I hate that ticker. Do I care while playing a baseball game that the Buffalo Sabres are injury depleted? And the fact that the option to turn it off is there and apparently doesn't work is just beyond sloppy.
• By default the AI pitcher does throw an insane number of strikes, but if this is fixable by sliders it's forgivable.
  
• Zoom the freaking camera O.U.T. You can't judge any ball hit into the air for height and distance because it's outside the camera frame almost immediately. I don't want to see arrows telling me path and trajectory, I want to see the freak'n ball. (If there's an option to change the camera, I didn't see it.)
  
• This might just be me, but Comerica "National" Park looks like a Little League field. One of the many things High Heat always got right -and I hesitate to mention HH for fear of sounding like I had a grudge against MLB2k from the outset- was that it made the stadiums look big. Really big. Instead Comerica, one of the biggest in baseball, feels incredibly small and it seems this is compensated for by increasing the speed at which runners go round the bases and the speed at which outfielders make plays on the ball. (This is primarily an aesthetic issue that may not bother you. But it irks the hell out of me.)

Needless to say this does not bode well. I must emphasize again, however, these are one game impressions. The thing is they're also the types of issues that I don't see going away just by playing the game and getting to know its nuances. (Notice I'm not making any judgments about the hitting and pitching controls and other game balance related items.) I think I'm going to step back for tonight, take a deep breath and go back to it tomorrow. Maybe I'm just not in the right frame of mind.

Memo to Kush

Dear Kush,

It's come to our attention that your newly released MLB2k8 suffers from some severe, and unacceptable, stuttering issues. Coincidentally, the new release of Bully, which hit shelves on the same day as MLB2k8, has some framerate issues of its own; at least on certain Xbox 360 consoles. Now, these games have been out for roughly two days and already your fellow 2k Games developer, Rockstar, is out there with a public statement that both acknowledges the problem and pledges a timely fix it.

We have just become aware of the issues people are having with Bully Scholarship Edition on Xbox 360. It appears that some older 360s are experiencing framerate issues, freezes and other problems. You have our word that we never experienced any of this in QA - in any of our offices or at Microsoft. I am horrified, and we are now working around the clock to rectify this situation. Thanks to Neo-Gaf for bringing this matter to our attention. We love our games and put a huge amount of energy and care into making them all that they can be. We would never shove anything out the door - we never have and never will. We apologise to everyone affected for the inconvenience. Respectfully, Sam Houser

So, I'd like to know: Where is Kush on the MLB stutter issue and how long do the gamers who have dropped $60 get their fix for what -at this point- should be a mature game engine?

Thanks, so much.
---Todd

PS - Sam Houser, by the way, is the co-founder of Rockstar, and not some hapless member of the design team doing his best Don Quixote impression on the Operation Sports forums, which is usually the best we can get from Kush after your many, many bug-ridden past releases. (Surely you recall the years of problems that plagued the Legacy Mode in College Hoops?) So, if it's all the same to you, I'd like to hear from someone in a position of actual authority in a bit more public venue than a niche fan site. Maybe the news section of your game's Xbox Live menu? If EA Sports can offer at least that with NHL 2008, surely you can.

Quick Update

Bill says my review copy of MLB2k8 is in the mail. So much for all his bellyaching about having to do the review himself and my being a douche. This is what you get from people who live in Columbus.

Anyway, hopefully that means I'll be able to dump some additional impressions on here by the weekend.

Based on Bill's comments, I'm not holding my breath for this one. Issues of balls and strikes are a big red flag of mine and I've really grown to despise sports games that aren't reasonably well-balanced out of the box. People pay money to play the damn game not to spend hours upon freak'n hours tweaking the monster. It's not that I don't think sliders should be there. Everybody thinks a baseball game should play just a bit differently and sliders help facilitate that. But they're not a free pass to ship the game balanced purely towards this mythical group of pure-arcade, no-realism-wanted players. I'm also already dreading this stuttering issue. Hey, maybe it's a console problem! (Yeah, right.)

On a personal note, I still have no new information about my cat. Poor critter started out with a broken toe that had to be amputated. (I have no idea how this happened. My best guess is she snagged a claw on the carpet after I chased her away from trying to eat a balloon cord.) Since then she still hasn't stopped limping and has stopped eating, drinking or moving around at all. We've tried a couple antibiotics now to no effect, and even had a damn biopsy done to see if it was cancer ($280 for nothing on that one). Now I'm waiting on a new blood test and a urinalysis to see if, among other things, it's a kidney problem. (Having lost two cats to kidney failure that's what I suspect we're going to find out.)

This sucks. :(