ScoopBrady wrote:
ESPN always looks great but I just can't get into it and stay into it. The pitches come in very choppy and after playing MVP, MLB, and HH for the past couple of years I've come to expect pitches to look realistic (to me at least) when they approach the plate. The demo didn't do much for me but that's just a demo and we all know that demos do not accurately portray final versions.
I skipped baseball games altogether last season, aside from playing a few of them at demo kiosks in stores. I came close to buying WSB 2003 for the PS2, but decided against it after seeing the exact phenomenon you describe above Scoop. The pitches were really choppy looking - it felt too much like pot luck when I connected with one.
I had already tried MVP 2003 on the PS2 at another demo kiosk and was spoiled by the ball movement in it. But I saw enough of the line drive problems that plagued that game to turn me off in three innings.
This year I've added an Xbox to my stable, and I got to try the ESPN Baseball demo... I wasn't any more impressed with it than I was the PS2 version last year. The pitches still come in with a choppy animation. And the players look like they're all on steriods!
I've seen movies of ASB 2005 and they look pretty good, but I can't tell diddly about how the game will play based on that. I rented ASB 2003 the year before last and tired of it within a day, although it had some fantastic eye candy.
Knowing Sega's penchant for releasing sorry demos, I'm not totally giving up on ESPN. I know a lot of people I respect enjoyed the Xbox version of WSB 2004, so there must be something to it.
I tried to rent MLB 2005 today at Blockbuster, but they were all out. So it's still on my list. I mistakenly rented the PS1 version last week and it was so hard to look at that I couldn't play but a couple of innings.
MVP 2004 is off my list after renting the Xbox version. I liked it for a while, but I finally realized that I couldn't tweak the game to make it play the way I think a baseball game should play. It had some nice features, but it's not there yet, IMO.
So, MLB 2005, ESPN, and ASB 2005 are all still on my list, but it's a pure toss-up as to which way I'll go.
For what it's worth, I'm in the same bunch with Ed and the others who feet that ASB played the best game of baseball the past couple of years. And by a pretty far margin, IMO.
But then again, I never really got into HH. I had it for the the pc a few years back and didn't know anything about the mods that you guys are talking about. I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim that HH was a classic right out of the box, though, and IMO, that should knock a point off of the overall score right there. Hey, if it's my rules, you shouldn't need to turn the OF running speed sliders all the way up or down to control the insane amount of triples or doubles, at least not if you want to get a score above 90% (much less the 93% that MVP got over at OS). I say start rating these companies fairly and include an "out of the box" score or rating alongside the "adjusted sliders" score. Hold these developers accountable for a change, and include a grade for the product "as released," instead of allowing them to ride the coat tails of us consumers to find settings that work. (And any company that releases a game with a slider like "bullpen grace fatigue" without also including some explanation of what the hell that means, loses all of its publishing privileges for a year, if we're truly playing by my rules.)
I guess I've always looked at HH as being the granddaddy of all things evil (sliders), so I didn't really care that much when I heard HH was no more. Also, HH just always seemed too much like a computer game to me, though I'm not sure if that makes any sense. On the consoles, I couldn't ever get past the floaty feel of the pitches in HH or the generic (in comparison to ASB) pitcher deliveries and batting stances. I also remember the first year that HH came out for the PS2, it was released so early (mid-Feb.?) that it even used the schedule from the year before. For a game that was supposed to be so realistic, that blunder still strikes me as being worse than either the walks or the steals issues in MVP. (Nothing like trying to recreate opening day in my living room by re-playing opening day from the year before. Yeesh. Not to mention the time involved in updating the game's rosters which, again, had been set before release in Feb.)
ASB, on the other hand, looks, plays, and feels the most like what I see when I watch big league baseball on TV. (If only they had Skip Carrey and the rest of the TBS crew). The dreaded crouch, poor bat/ball collision detection and the vacuum fielding have always been easy targets for the critics. (And it's a shame, because it looks like ASB '05 could still have some remnants of each). But for my money, no other game has ever gotten right so many of the little things of the game, and that includes everything I have ever read on these boards about the best of HH. There's simply far too many things to list about ASB here, but I've seen some good lists posted over at the OS board.
There's plenty of people out there who hate (or strongly dislike) ASB, for whatever reason, and I've learned not to argue with them. It's like trying to discuss politics with a Republican, in some cases, but in others they make some pretty good points. For the record, I hate the crouch as much as the next guy, and I love the bat/ball collision in MVP. But you'll never see the same number of niggling little gameplay bugs in ASB that you will in this year's MVP. And I like MVP, it plays a decent game of baseball IMO. But there's just some things about it that make it seem like...I dunno, like it was made by Canadians. (No offense intended to anybody who's Canadian. I just wouldn't expect Americans to make the best soccer or hockey games either.)
MLB comes closest to ASB in terms of matching (and in some cases surpassing) the detail in animations, but we haven't had a chance to see much of what ASB is bringing new to the table this year either. From the company that brought us broken bats, mascots dancing on dugouts, animated basecoaches (MVP still does't have basecoaches yet, and none of the "reviewers" even care), working out of town scoreboards, drag bunts, wild pitches and passed balls, balks, pitchers wearing warmup jackets on the basepaths, active bullpens that are visible during actual gameplay, changing hot/cold zones, etc., I don't see how anyone who likes baseball could NOT be running down to their local gamestop on Wed. to see what Acclaim has in store for us this year. Personally, I can't wait to try out the new BTP cam which looks to be the new best in the business. I loved FP mode in ESPN Football and have the open mind and patience to learn how to use the new Fieldercam in ASB, so I'm looking forward to giving that a go as well.
Sorry for the long rambling post, if anyone's still reading. But to the guy who complained about the lack of difference in speed between fastballs and changeups in ASB, I STRONGLY disagree. I always play using Easy Batting on the highest difficulty level in ASB, and typically strike out from 4-8 times a game. (If a Pedro Martinez or a Randy Johnson is on the mound, I may K 10-12 times a game.) Many times its because I can't hold back on the change. Maybe I just suck though.
Nice post GT. Yeah we have a great thread going over at OS about the little things in ASB. here are some of the things I posted.
1. Pick off to first in the middle of the delivery for lefties. Pick too late, balk.
2. Catcher Snap Throws.
3. Drag Bunts
4. Force slide step from pitcher.
5. Changing of IVY color at wrigley as the seasons goes on.
6. Pitch History from last at bat.
7. AI starting beanball fests
8. Option to make Outfielders take step back to force a stronger throw (2005)
9. Seeing steam from players mouths on cold days.
10. Rule 5, Waivers, Arbitration.
11. Pass Balls, Dropped 3rd strikes
12. Homer collision detection
My next post
1. Pickup Games, I really love this mode when my buddies and I get together.
2. Spring Training with Minor Leaguers (2005)
3. Attribute Points Earned during spring training, can even be used to learn new pitches (2005)
4. Suspensions (2005), and possibly fines (Can't remember if they said they got this in or not).
5. Scenario Mode/TWIB Challenge.
My other post
1. Online Play
2. Expansion Teams, with expansion draft
3. 80+ Stadiums, including many original ones.
4. Expansion teams can now play in classic stadiums (2005). YAY!!
5. Sports Ticker (2005)
"(And any company that releases a game with a slider like "bullpen grace fatigue" without also including some explanation of what the hell that means, loses all of its publishing privileges for a year, if we're truly playing by my rules.)"
No kidding! If companies don't want to cut into their profits by using paper, put a PDF of the game manual on the website like Sega does.
One thing that I haven't seen mentioned about MVP that really annoyed me is that I had trouble playing strategic baseball simply because I had trouble finding out what attributes I was playing with. What I mean is that when I changed pitchers, there was no easy way to tell what the opposing team lineup was and who was coming up to bat. That made it hard to setup lefty/righty pitching strategy. When I had a runner on first, it was hard to tell how fast they were if I did not know their characteristics. In High Heat, you could always find out what you needed to know to make any baseball decision you needed to make. In MVP, I often did not know what type of pitch to expect, because you were not shown the types of pitches the AI pitcher was capable of throwing except when they first come into the game.
So that is one of the things i will be looking for in ESPN and ASB.
