MLB 11 The Show a quick tidbit

[AJColossal]

The game is still very much keeping my interest.

When you really think about how well the game nails nearly every component of the on-field action, it's really staggering.

[Brando70]

Still playing my Cubs franchise as well, 15 games under .500 just before my first series with the White Sox but only 8 games back. I'm giving myself until the All-Star Break to get under 10/5 games and if I'm still lagging way back, I'll probably throw in the towel.

The things that took an already great game over the top for me are analog pitching and the tremendous hit variety. Injuries, too, have been very good, with a nice variety between day-to-day dings, minor injuries, and major ones.

[MizzouRah]

As good as this game is, I think I might be burnt out on it a little. I haven't touched it in weeks. This is going to be the first time in the last three or four years I'm not going to finish a full 162-game season.

This was my first year with the game and although it is one total package, video game baseball just isn't for me - I finally realized it.

Football, hockey, soccer and an occasional game of NCAA 10 college basketball are the only sports game I desire to play on consoles anymore, baseball is only text sims for me.

[skinsfan]

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6201006

Article by Baseball Tonight's Steve Berthiaume about creating baseball's past using The Show.

Dude is crazy.

There are some tremendous historic rosters in the vault already for this years' Show.
Full seasons for 1987 and 1998 including minors and an All-Time Classic roster that's about to be finished.

[AJColossal]

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6201006

Article by Baseball Tonight's Steve Berthiaume about creating baseball's past using The Show.

Dude is crazy.

There are some tremendous historic rosters in the vault already for this years' Show.
Full seasons for 1987 and 1998 including minors and an All-Time Classic roster that's about to be finished.

Thanks for that.

Haven't even touched RTTS, classic teams or any of that stuff. Just playing a random season with the Rockies and having a great time.

Most games end up having a shelf life of a month or so for me, and here we are 4-5 mos after the game's release and I'm still scratching the surface.

[sportdan30]

I recently sold my copy for $30. I just couldn't get past the 40 game mark. Great great game, but they seriously need to add some new life in to this game. It's time for a new dynamic broadcast similar to the 2K series. That MLB Today feature is just awesome. Implement that in to The Show, and you have a near perfect game! If it had that feature, I'd still own the game as I could play a pivotal series (i.e. Cards/Pirates this weekend) along with upcoming playoff series.

Also, time to get rid of Matt and Dave. Find two guys who will sit in a studio together and deliver thousands of lines together. Lets hear some anecdotes, etc.

I'm also a little tired of the pitching interface. All three are well designed, but it pains me to play with them for an entire season. I don't know exactly what can be done to make it more innovative and fun. If I had to choose one, I'd go with "classic" as it seems to keep the pace the best.

[Slumberland]

Two things have rekindled my commitment to this series:

1. Analog control really does make pitching and fielding much more interesting.

2. Difficulty is perfect out of the box.

[Rodster]

I recently sold my copy for $30. I just couldn't get past the 40 game mark. Great great game, but they seriously need to add some new life in to this game. It's time for a new dynamic broadcast similar to the 2K series. That MLB Today feature is just awesome. Implement that in to The Show, and you have a near perfect game! If it had that feature, I'd still own the game as I could play a pivotal series (i.e. Cards/Pirates this weekend) along with upcoming playoff series.

Also, time to get rid of Matt and Dave. Find two guys who will sit in a studio together and deliver thousands of lines together. Lets hear some anecdotes, etc.

I'm also a little tired of the pitching interface. All three are well designed, but it pains me to play with them for an entire season. I don't know exactly what can be done to make it more innovative and fun. If I had to choose one, I'd go with "classic" as it seems to keep the pace the best.

I agree with everything other than Matt. I think his talent adds to the game. The problem is like you said there has been no advance in their dialogue and the other voices added have been tacked on like Rex and now his replacement so it sounds like they are not in the same booth.

Here's my problem with the series and it applies to everything else. Their series is the standard for baseball videogames and they know it so there is little effort until there is a real threat to The Show. Even though 2K Baseball has made great strides it's nowhere close to the quality of The Show and the devs know it.

I'm content with The Show 10 and unless there is an overhaul to the series i'll skip next year. Me and Vinny buy the game for RTTS mode and they have done little if anything to advance this mode which could and should be epic.

One of the reasons why I never sold MLB Power Pros for the Wii is because their career one is RPG like, tells a story, you can customize your character and watch the story play out.

[GTHobbes]

I'm still waiting for the August PS3 price drop to replace my broken system, and I've missed playing The Show more than I've missed anything else. I'm in the minority because I love the commentary -- can't say how many times I've been amazed to hear those guys comment upon specific things happening on the field. I think the problem is some people are so used to hearing their voices that they don't appreciate all of the new commentary that's been added over the past 4-5 years.

[FifaInspected]

Thanks to a post above I checked out the Vault last night and downloaded the 1987 roster file.

Tigers vs the Redsox at Fenway.. Clemens vs Jack Morris. Lou Whitaker with his orange batting gloves...
Clemens was nasty!!! it didn't end well for my Tigers. Morris held his own until about the 5th.. It was all down hill after that.

Great fun though. I'm tempted to do a season using that roster set.

[Brando70]

I can see the disappointment with RTTS, but for me (strictly a franchise player), this year's game has been amazing mostly because I think it really captures nearly every element of baseball. I have seen so many different kinds of hits, pitches, catches, errors, etc that the game just doesn't get old for me. Frustrating, yes, because it is hard and the Cubs are particularly bad in this year's game. But I start every game really not knowing what will happen, and it's that variety that keeps me coming back for more. The only other game I've played recently that was even close in that regard was NBA 2k11.

[tmdba37]

I just wrapped up a 162 game franchise season with the "Cubs." Won the Division with an 98-64 record. The Cardinals finished second with the Wild Card at 97-65. Both teams passed the Brewers (95-67) who had been in first for the first five months of the season. This being my first MLB The Show Experience, I have some thoughts on things that were great and things that really need to be tweaked.

First the Great Things.

1. Feels Like Baseball. . .
In the sense that things didn't seem too video gamey and scripted. Every game had somewhat of a unique feel and there were countless number of cool and strange plays--just like you'd see in a regular season. Starlin Castro hit for the cycle. Ryan Dempster got 26 straight Giants out only to give up a home-run to batter number 27. I could go on and on, but the game does capture the National Pastime as well as folks have told me in the past.

2. Pitching is a fun challenge. . .
The Analog pitching is an art and just feels right compared to the old button pushing mechanic, I love it so much and curse it so many times it has been fun to try and master--a game within a game really. Additionally, I love how the game forces you to manage your bullpen and how sometimes your starter is lights out and other times they are meh. . .I lost a number of games trying to stretch the starter or reliever that extra inning/batter/etc. It really makes you appreciate what Managers and Pitching Coaches need to deal with each day.

3. Moon Shot Homers and other Juicy Bits of Offense
The analog hitting didn't work as well for me, so I switched back to button swinging and overall, hitting is really hard. I had well over 1000 K's and it made every success that much more delightful. Having guys hit that hanging curve-ball 440 feet is awesome and I just cannot get enough. That being said getting a clutch base-hit or laying down a safety squeeze are great as well.

Now some of the Not-so Great Things

1. Foul Balls and No Balls. . .err, I mean Walks
I guess I should have messed with the sliders a bit, but generally I've turned back the clock 20 years and put my copy of Moneyball back into cold storage. I think that the game needs to eliminate some walks to shorten the length of games, which is fine, but my bigger problem with the lack of AI pitched balls is that you end up fouling off way too many strikes that you perfectly timed. I had so many foul doubles and home-runs it was kind of silly at times. I just wish that some of the really bad pitchers on AI teams had more variation in their pitches as often times it was the some of the no-names that I had the biggest problem with and those are the guys who more than likely should be walking the yard or get a nice double-digit beating.

2. Eric Karros
I hate this guy. He is a footnote in Cubs history having been on the infamous 2003 "Bartman" team, but other than that, why the hell is this guy on this game. I really wish that Sony diversified a bit and perhaps added three or four two-man teams to do games--then you can switch from Matt V. and Dave Campbell to someone else for 20 games and really make the sound fresh. I didn't mind Vasgersian but Karros' bits were literally the same each damn game. . .the worst was this quip "Even though there are two outs, this is a team that can really still do some damage." I am paraphrasing a bit, but he says this about every damn team so it essentially makes the whole thing moot. Again, I probably should have turned his dumbass off, but I think by game 85 I had already drowned him out as background noise. The bottom line is that a proper baseball booth is two guys. . .and I really think there is plenty of space to offer other options--even if it was DLC. . .I think I'd pick that up--especially if it were broadcasters I admired.

3. Stupid AI Trades=The Need for Expanded Trade Options and No-Trade Logic
I said I won the division with the "Cubs" in quotes pretty much because I dumped over half of the real team during the season. I won't list my actual team of stars and improved players, and it's not quite a "Superteam" by any means, but I have guys that their previous teams would likely not have traded (especially for Cubs Players/Prospects). Also, The Braves traded half of their team when they fell out of the Division Race--it seemed really strange based on guys going in and out. It made me think that the game really needs to allow for more players per trade. . .probably 6 or 8 slots per deal instead of the three and three. Additoinally, it really needs a do not trade indicator both for AI players that I may want and especially for players I was able to deal.

For example, I was able to trade Alfonso Soriano to the Yankees. In real life, this trade would likely only happen if I paid a significant amount of his bloated salary. I'm not sure if I need that much detail in a platform baseball game, but I think it would be easy for the game to designate a handful of players that would not be traded/desired or perhaps an option that really makes it hard to trade Superstar Players vs. the current kind of sort of hard to build an Improved Team in season.

. . .well that's it for now, what a great game, it really makes adding the PS3 to the tv stand more than worth the investment. Anyway, the playoffs have started and the Giants won game 1, 8-3. It will be tough getting out of the NLDS with the love they were given in this game. . .

[AJColossal]

Good points on gameplay.

This year in particular I noticed that sliders can have adverse effects on other components of the game. I like a challenge on pitching, so when i zeroed out my control slider, I was basically a pitching machine at a batting cage. Gave up 4 hrs in a row at one point, lol. Thankfully the game is about perfect on default.

In the future, I hope they refine the analog controls. Loved analog pitching, didn't like hitting (probably because the button system works so well), and anolog fielding I never really got the hang of.

Agreed that you see new things every game. Just when you think, walks are low, Lincecum (!) walks me 7 times in game. The variabilty is incredible, and just keeps you coming back.

It's just my favorite series right now, and the only reason I'll stop is so I'm not burned out on next year's version, lol.

[Brando70]

Todd, that is awesome. Congrats on making it through the season. I really wanted to this year but just didn't have the time.

The one thing I wish more than anything for analog pitching would be to have pitches that miss tend to be balls more often. It seems like more often than not, mistakes with the meter cause pitches to drift into the zone, and that in general, it's much easier to throw strikes than balls. That should be reversed.

For hitting, I also would love to see the return of something like MVP's color-coded pitches. It is just too hard to tell the difference between a changeup and fastball in this game, to the point where anyone with a change was usually deadly with it.

My only other request would be to include a batter's stats when in Fast Play mode -- 1st at-bat shows the season stats, then you see the in-game stats before the pitch.

[tmdba37]

Todd, that is awesome. Congrats on making it through the season. I really wanted to this year but just didn't have the time.

The one thing I wish more than anything for analog pitching would be to have pitches that miss tend to be balls more often. It seems like more often than not, mistakes with the meter cause pitches to drift into the zone, and that in general, it's much easier to throw strikes than balls. That should be reversed.

For hitting, I also would love to see the return of something like MVP's color-coded pitches. It is just too hard to tell the difference between a changeup and fastball in this game, to the point where anyone with a change was usually deadly with it.

My only other request would be to include a batter's stats when in Fast Play mode -- 1st at-bat shows the season stats, then you see the in-game stats before the pitch.

Brando, thanks. . .I think the thing that helped the most was when my wife was in Cabo for about a week back in June, I got like 20 games in while she was out and really made the 162 go by a bit faster. =)

I agree with some sort of color code on some of the pitches. . .maybe just for the better hitters because you cannot (IMO), unless you are a good guess hitter tell the difference between change/fastball or even 4-seamer/2-seamer/sinker.

The pitch thing is weird, because I've had it go both ways when you miss your spots. . .it's probably the only thing that is somewhat pre-determined in the game where you can execute a pitch and then see said pitch wind up in the left field bleachers. This happened to me mostly with a lefty trying to hit the outside corner with their slider.

[FifaInspected]

With this being my first season with The Show, i'm shocked at the fact that I just don't get sick of this game. I've got a season going with the Tigers as well as a RTTS.

[Rodster]

^^^ No surprise but i've been playing it since the first time it showed up on the PS3. Last year I played 2K10 most of the year and this year I quickly traded in my copy of MLB 11.

[AJColossal]

I can see the need for more of a struggle with the pitch location. This game is by far the best I have played re: giving up walks ,but I never really have a game where I just can't find the plate.

I think if they fool around too much with user control and pitching, people will complain they can't throw strikes. But the problem with the sliders and changing it to your liking is that it has adverse effects on the rest of the game.

But for my taste, this game does an excellent job of balancing user input vs. statistical outcomes. I know some people want more of a logical representation of what they did with the controller to be shown on the field, but I don't mind it.

For example, I once swung perfectly and completely missed the pitch. Looking at the replay the ball literally went though my bat. The game/statistics engine just wanted me to strikeout.

It looked stupid, but as long as the game isn't obvious about it (and it doesn't happen a lot) I don't mind.

[Slumberland]

I think the thing that helped the most was when my wife was in Cabo for about a week back in June, I got like 20 games in while she was out and really made the 162 go by a bit faster.

Man, that is key. I totally have the will, but the time is lacking. When my wife's not around I can happily play four games almost in succession. As it is I'm about halfway through my season but I really want to get through it. I've also saved the post-game highlights for every game so far, for some reason... even though I'll likely never do anything with them!

[Pete]

Just finished up my Reds season.

Played an 82 game season. Got into the playoffs as a wild card. Beat the Rockies in 3, the Phillies in 6 and beat the Yankees in 7 to win the World Series. Great thing is I was down 3 games to none and won the last 4 to win it.

I traded for Reyes, Bryce Harper and Balfour. Maybe the only thing lacking with this game is the trade logic, but I did give up some decent players and some youth. The Harper trade was probably the most unrealistic of the three.

In my opinion, this is the greatest sports game ever. It really does almost everything right. I played classic pitching and hitting and analog fielding.

I am not a huge gamer, but when I did get a chance, this game was what I wanted to play. Baseball is by far my favorite gaming sport to play and this was just so realistic.

I will continue to purchase the new edition of this game yearly. This game and company has given me everything I could have wanted out of a baseball game. I will continue to support it.

[Brando70]

Just finished up my Reds season.

Played an 82 game season. Got into the playoffs as a wild card. Beat the Rockies in 3, the Phillies in 6 and beat the Yankees in 7 to win the World Series. Great thing is I was down 3 games to none and won the last 4 to win it.

I traded for Reyes, Bryce Harper and Balfour. Maybe the only thing lacking with this game is the trade logic, but I did give up some decent players and some youth. The Harper trade was probably the most unrealistic of the three.

In my opinion, this is the greatest sports game ever. It really does almost everything right. I played classic pitching and hitting and analog fielding.

I am not a huge gamer, but when I did get a chance, this game was what I wanted to play. Baseball is by far my favorite gaming sport to play and this was just so realistic.

I will continue to purchase the new edition of this game yearly. This game and company has given me everything I could have wanted out of a baseball game. I will continue to support it.

That is awesome, Pete. I am in the same boat of praising The Show. If I could only buy one game per year, it would be this.

[10spro]

Looks like Adrian Gonzalez will be in the cover of MLB 12. Unless they come up with some outstanding new features, I may just skip it this coming March. For as good as this franchise represents the game of baseball, it starting to grow a bit old on me. Did however enjoy a lot the analog pitching this year.

[sportdan30]

Looks like Adrian Gonzalez will be in the cover of MLB 12. Unless they come up with some outstanding new features, I may just skip it this coming March. For as good as this franchise represents the game of baseball, it starting to grow a bit old on me. Did however enjoy a lot the analog pitching this year.

I feel the same way, however after trading the game in a couple months ago, and the Cardinals winning the WS, I'm itching for a baseball game.

If they would just implement a MLB Today feature like they do in 2K, it would bring a freshness to the game. Also, make the broadcast more dynamic with more stats.

[dbdynsty25]

Looks like Adrian Gonzalez will be in the cover of MLB 12. Unless they come up with some outstanding new features, I may just skip it this coming March. For as good as this franchise represents the game of baseball, it starting to grow a bit old on me. Did however enjoy a lot the analog pitching this year.

I feel the same way, however after trading the game in a couple months ago, and the Cardinals winning the WS, I'm itching for a baseball game.

If they would just implement a MLB Today feature like they do in 2K, it would bring a freshness to the game. Also, make the broadcast more dynamic with more stats.

Not sure if you have a 360 (and it may be on the ps3 too) but give bobble head pros a try. It's a cool alternative to the hard core sim. It definitely has sim qualities too though so you will get some good games from the computer.