MVP Baseball 2005 Interview at IGN

Jason · Post by **Jason** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 12:15 pm

http://sports.ign.com/articles/575/575077p1.html

They have some interesting info on the hitting system, although the producer wouldn't go into too much detail about it. It seems they fixed the lefty bug and player progression bug too.

kicko · Post by **kicko** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 12:55 pm

sounds great but EA always does somethig to bite people fingers every year while they play. i will buy pc version this year for sure, the create a park will be incredible with all the pc modders.

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 12:57 pm

Well if they really spent a lot of time tweaking, I will be pleased.

I like the new feature of guys being able to catch the ball on the move, sounds good for turning the dp.

Varibable Umps on the field as well as behind the plate is nice. Arguing with the Ump, ok maybe,

My interest level went from 2 out of 5, to 3 out of 5.

Jason · Post by **Jason** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 1:05 pm

Knowing that they fixed the lefty bug and made the fielding more responsive, my last question/doubt about this game is the hitting system - I really hope EA has come up with a good one. I'd be very interested in hearing more details on this 'Hitter's Eye' system.

Diablo25 · Post by **Diablo25** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 1:18 pm

I WANT WALKS (among other things). Then I'll be happy. MLB and MVP have my interest...for now. ESPN has to show me something to get my interest.

GridIronGhost · Post by **GridIronGhost** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 1:50 pm

Diablo25 wrote:I WANT WALKS (among other things). Then I'll be happy. MLB and MVP have my interest...for now. ESPN has to show me something to get my interest.

They added a slider for walks, the variable ump will cause the user to have more walks too as does the new pitching system. ESPN has been more presentation and online league play this year and yes the horrible swing animation is still there.

Danimal · Post by **Danimal** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 2:53 pm

Well that is assuming the sliders work

Correct me if I am wrong, but the steal slider last year did nothing to fix the steal problem. Maybe my memory is shot and I am wrong on that.

Diablo25 · Post by **Diablo25** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 2:57 pm

GridIronGhost wrote:
Diablo25 wrote:I WANT WALKS (among other things). Then I'll be happy. MLB and MVP have my interest...for now. ESPN has to show me something to get my interest.
They added a slider for walks, the variable ump will cause the user to have more walks too as does the new pitching system. ESPN has been more presentation and online league play this year and yes the horrible swing animation is still there.

Actually, the swing animation has been cleaned up...at least in the vids I saw.

GTHobbes · Post by **GTHobbes** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 3:07 pm

Slow down those ESPN vids and watch the swing animation again...still looks pretty bad from what I saw, especially the hitters' feet. Still plenty of time to get it right, but they're not there yet based on the newest video released this week.

sportdan30 · Post by **sportdan30** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 3:33 pm

I don't about any of you, but I find it rather irritating that Brent or whatever his name is just laughed when asked about the "lefty homerun" situation. Great, they fixed it this year....supposedly. They ought to really think about discounting this coming year's game by about 15-20 dollars as some sort of retribution.

I know, I know. It won't happen, but it's still b.s.

Diablo25 · Post by **Diablo25** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 3:43 pm

sportdan30 wrote:I don't about any of you, but I find it rather irritating that Brent or whatever his name is just laughed when asked about the "lefty homerun" situation. Great, they fixed it this year....supposedly. They ought to really think about discounting this coming year's game by about 15-20 dollars as some sort of retribution.

I know, I know. It won't happen, but it's still b.s.

Agreed.

matthewk · Post by **matthewk** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 4:04 pm

Danimal, you are correct. Even with the stealslider cranked, the CPU only stole with a top of the line speedster.

After last years lefty bug nightmare I WILL NOT be buying this game until after those with no willpower have gotten the game and tested it out first. If I can rebt it early, I will, but there is no way I'm going to buy MVP blind after last year.

That said, the PC version I picked up cheap is like a whole new game compared to the Xbox version. Between patches and mods this game competes very well against High Heat.

Diablo25 · Post by **Diablo25** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 4:51 pm

matthewk wrote:Between patches and mods this game competes very well against High Heat.

Lets not go that far.

hoserthehorrible · Post by **hoserthehorrible** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 5:06 pm

Last year EA put out a patch that fixed the leftie HR bug, helped with the progression issues, resolved the player vs pitcher roster issue, and eliminated a lot of the stuttering people were finding. The add on community easily fixed the lack of steals issue, increased the walks a little bit, and added a lot of value on top of the game. MVP 2004 for the PC ended up being a very good game. Of course, those who only played the game on a console missed out on a great game because out of the box originally the game did have issues.

I see no reason why this year's version won't start where last year's version left off. The leftie bug will be fixed, the player progression will be fixed, and the steals will be resolved as well. Supposedly there's more walks and better throwing on the run. We'll have to see if that's the case.

As with nearly every EA Sports title however they'll likely introduce some new problem that will annoy people day one and it'll likely be fixed with a PC patch or by the PC mod community. Like every other year the PC players will have the advantage and the console community will be stuck with whatever comes out of the box day one.

matthewk · Post by **matthewk** » Thu Dec 23, 2004 5:56 pm

Diablo25 wrote:
matthewk wrote:Between patches and mods this game competes very well against High Heat.
Lets not go that far.

Why not? With the latest patch and a few mods, it does stand up to HH2004. I've been trading off games between the two, and I can make an argument for either being the best PC baseball game.

I know that High Heat is considered the Holy Grail of baseball games for a lot of serious baseball fans. I was one of them ever since the first version in 1999, ugly swings and all. I still think it is a great game, one of the best sports titles ever. It does have it's problems, even in the 2004 version with mods applied.

For one, I have come to see that the movement of pitches in HH is overdone. Fastballs can drop a foot and a half, and curveballs can go from your head to the outside of the plate in an instant.

High Heat does a lot of things very well. From what I have seen the past few weeks, so does MVP. The mods that have been produced for MVP rival those of any version of High Heat.

Bottom line, if you have a PC that can handle either HH2004 or MVP you are better off than anyone limited to a console. I prefer console gaming to PCs, but in this case the only console game that comes close is ESPN.

Diablo25 · Post by **Diablo25** » Sat Dec 25, 2004 11:40 am

matthewk wrote:
Diablo25 wrote:
matthewk wrote:Between patches and mods this game competes very well against High Heat.
Lets not go that far.
Why not? With the latest patch and a few mods, it does stand up to HH2004. I've been trading off games between the two, and I can make an argument for either being the best PC baseball game.

I know that High Heat is considered the Holy Grail of baseball games for a lot of serious baseball fans. I was one of them ever since the first version in 1999, ugly swings and all. I still think it is a great game, one of the best sports titles ever. It does have it's problems, even in the 2004 version with mods applied.

For one, I have come to see that the movement of pitches in HH is overdone. Fastballs can drop a foot and a half, and curveballs can go from your head to the outside of the plate in an instant.

High Heat does a lot of things very well. From what I have seen the past few weeks, so does MVP. The mods that have been produced for MVP rival those of any version of High Heat.

Bottom line, if you have a PC that can handle either HH2004 or MVP you are better off than anyone limited to a console. I prefer console gaming to PCs, but in this case the only console game that comes close is ESPN.

Matthew, we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. I really like MVP but it still hasn't approached Hight Heat (not the 2004 ver.) for me. No walks...end of story. If I'm missing the mod that allows you to get walks then please point me in that direction. All being said, I'm anxious for MVP 2005. Last year's ver. was a super jump for the series.