MLB '09: The Show

I traded in The Show 09 and got The Show 10. ^_^

 

Well the accounts on OS is that online play is busted again this year.

No sale here.

 

Operation Sports MLB The Show 2010 Online thread:
http://www.operationsports.org/vBulletin/showthread.php?t=398535

It looks like although they added more online game features, the lag is only a little better than 09 but by not much.

The lag problem seems sporadic (depends on individual connections).

There is also a bug affecting intentional walk, and sometimes it may freeze after online play.



I wonder what the problem is. Does a baseball sim require a lot of bandwidth compared to a shooter ? As a start, I think they need to include a network stats display in the game, so people know what exactly is causing the problem (poor ISP, poor coding, congested infrastructure, or a combination of reasons).


EDIT: The IGN folks seem to like it. I wonder if they test from home or office.
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/107/1073732p3.html

My virtual baseball skill is probably too weaksauce to go online at the moment.

 

Imho Baseball is probably sooner too simple than too complex, but maybe that's just because simple variants of it are a common school sports here. A lot of the complexity goes into the batting, and the controls currently make that a lot more complicated. It's going to be really interesting whether or not they can get an Arc implementation out there that is intuitive in 2D, and whether it really needs 3D to get something that is truly realistic (I'm guessing yes, but having a 2D s-ide and back-view simultaneously could help as well)

 

Yes, I am after the realism. I'm thinking of sending my son to a junior baseball team. This thing should be able to teach me all about baseball (once I sink in time to learn).

May try online after a few weeks.

 

Heh, a physically challenged man wrote to the "MLB The Show" team. He ended up getting a free game, and an in-game ball player modelled after him:
http://www.localnews8.com/global/vi...ideo Game&flvUri=&partnerclipid=&rnd=21432616

 

Picked up The Show 10 last night, I plan on giving it a whirl after my son gets finished playing a couple games. Unlike most in this thread I don't struggle with the rules of baseball having played for over a decade. The rules are not complex (to me) it is the situational aspect that makes baseball the chess game that it is...do I let the run score to get the double play or do I make a play at the plate because the guy on third is the catcher (typically one of the slower players) keeping the force in play even if I don't get him knowing that the 8-9-1 spots are coming up?

 

You lost me in that post.

 

LOL, I was thinking that at the time that I wrote it as well, "no one is going to understand what I just said".

Here is a recap from the game I just played with my son that actually had a similar instance in it.

I had a man on first and third, one out in the inning, I hit a sharp "liner" to the shortstop, my son throws the ball home and gets me out, so now there are two outs but now there are men on first and second, two pitches later Berkman launches a home run to left field, three runs score. So, instead of my son trying for and probably succeeding at the double play which would have gotten him out of the inning with no runs scoring (when you get an out by way of a force out, which is what a double play would be, runners crossing the plate do not count as runs) he instead has two outs and still has the tougher part of the lineup to contend with (3-4-5). This is another thing that goes through my mind, I would much rather face the tough hitter leading off an inning versus what my son did because with no one on base a homerun is still only one run.

 

I got it. I'm a huge sports fan in general. I love watching all sports, from hockey (duh, I'm Canadian), baseball, basketball, football and MMA. Not very good at the games though.

 

Not being a baseball fan, and particularly not a sports fan (outside of F1), I was pretty surprised to be taken in by this series (the demo anyway). San Diego Studio's TV-style presentation is wonderful for maintaining context and rewarding the player(s) visually and audibly as the game progresses. I'm amazed at how much more advanced technologically The Show is compared to the 2K Sports' game, particularly with regard to the crowds, jerseys (looks like stitched cloth!), helmets (looks like plastic!), cloth animations, player animations, player faces, depth of field, time-of-day, anti-aliasing, frame-rate, stadium rendering, etc. Of course, the little flaws are standing out that much more, and I'd really like to see better animation blending in the future. The lack of some background detail in the buildings and sky becomes apparent on closeups.

Anyway, I am very impressed. Not being familiar with the genre, I am curious how important frame-rate is to the gameplay (say, batting)- will 30 fps work if the visuals are dramatically improved? I was surprised that 30fps did not have a real negative impact on my ability to play F1CE.

 

at the end its all about having fun, even if your getting your arse kicked.

the only time it is not fun, is when you get cheated. *cough*Madden*cough*

speaking of being a sports fan... in a couple of months May 25th is going to be a great day..

UFC 2010 for the MMA fix.

BackBreaker Football for the Next Gen american football fix.

 

This is currently my #1 title to be "PS Moved" ([size=-2]Still don't like the name of the motion controllers[/size]). Come on, Sony~~

 

Tried the demo for '10. Seems like a cool game. I finding batting really tough. I saw one animation screw up, which I'm 100% sure will be fixed in retail. If you hit a batter with a pitch, your pitcher gets stuck in his follow through animation, which looks hilarious on the replay. Everyone is walking around and the pitcher is hunched over with his hand reaching down to the ground. It's quite the pose.

I have a question though. My PS3 is set for 720p and 1080p. For some reason the output is framed with a black border. My monitor is 1920x1200 and does aspect-stretching, so it'll leave a black frame top and bottom for 16:9 content. But this has top, bottom and both sides. It's very weird. I've never seen this problem with another game on PS3 or 360. Is it possible the game is outputting some weird resolution my monitor's scaler is handling incorrectly?

 

There are a few PS3 games that aren't quite 720p that have black bars, but MLB The Show is native 1080p (or 720p if you select it). It has borders to compensate for overscan. This is one of the few games (if not the only one) that's actually native 720p/1080p that has borders intentionally placed by default. You can go into the options and stretch the image to fill the screen. At least you could in the MLB 09 demo.

 

I don't have many problems with batting, the pitchers seem to throw what I would expect in given situations. Unlike real life, I can't detect the spin on the ball very well so I am still out in front (swinging early) on the change.

There are more than a handful of temp glitches that I have come across and some things are pretty jarring to my eyes, the biggest offender is the angle of the balls being thrown (from certain camera angles) from the fielders. There are some awesome nuances in the game though as well. I threw a hard slider, batter fouled it off, catcher missed it...ump caught it full force and he stumbled for a second before dropping to a knee; that was excellent. But there are also WAY too many dropped third strikes especially when the pitcher is just throwing 4 seam, 2 seam and change...!

Spoiler

The stadiums are absolutely atrocious as are the city backdrops. I would say this doesn't bother me but I would be lying, I go to Wrigley to be at Wrigley FIRST, THEN to watch "my Cubs", the on-field visuals are decent with the player models being really good.

 

Second patch arrived on 18th March:
http://theshowcommunity.com/showthread.php?t=1369

 

(hiding this piece of news to MLB game thread)
MLB.tv integration to XMB
You live in US or Canada and watch each and every baseball broadcasting? You can now play mlb videogame and watch real-life live mlb games on a very same video game console. Integration UI looks easy to use, should work for Joe Average.

 

MLBs blackout restrictions suck and those are still in place so, no, you cannot watch every game broadcasting. I had a subscription in a previous year but could only watch my team from the archives because of the restrictions, I could listen to the game on mlb audio but until recently you couldn't choose which broadcast team you wanted to hear. Hopefully, they have made some changes in recent years...even canceling was a pain in the ass because you had to call them. The entire experience soured me on their offerings, which are not cheap.

 

My kid got a soft toss (toy) machine for his birthday. We had fun hitting balls until half of them landed in our neighbours' backyard and rooftop within minutes.

Now really curious to try Move + MLB The Show. e.g., Can the virtual reality and reality match up to provide a "seamless" experience ? If so, the big plus is I don't have to run around too much to pick up the balls.

If Sony want, they can also allow fans, leagues and clubs throughout US to sign up in their community. That way I can pick one for my son easily. Need to use up his energy. Daddy is suffering here.