MLB 09 The Show Sneak peek

[AJColossal]

I was wondering about the AI and whether they comeback or not, but my last two games were a 3 hit shutout 4-0 win by Ted Lilly and an 8-4 win over the Reds.

So I guess you can hold the CPU down, but it is tough.

[webdanzer]

I'm not having any trouble closing out a game or seeing any unrealistic comeback stuff when I play. (Just beat the Bosoz 8-1 yesterday,(HOF) in a game that 'lacked excitement towards the end' according to the announcers.)

You need to learn to adjust your pitching patterns, though, and pay close attention to the confidence stuff, as I think that's a little overdone. Late in the game, it rarely pays to leave your pitcher in to work through anything if he becomes shaken.

Given how all of those gameplay modifiers and sliders are intertwined, though, I wouldn't be surprised if the OS guys are seeing some very different results by playing with the catchup slider. I mean, seeing how it boosts and reduces CPU ratings, who know how that interacts with the boost the CPU normally gets when you fire up a legend level game? Maybe it overrides some things or something, making you essentially play another level of the game.

To repeat, though; I'm not seeing any sort of comeback problem with it off on all HOF defaults.

[jLp vAkEr0]

I've had some problem closing with K-Rod on HOF.

Not just 1 run leads. I've lost a couple of 3 run leads.

Mostly created by his apparent lack of command. I constantly start 2-0 3-1 counts with him.

I wouldn't attribute it to a catch up logic situation, but damn, I've blown like 6 games with him. His ERA is close to 7 if I remember well.

[Brando70]

More O.S. voodoo. They thrive on confusion, conspiracies and half-baked notions based on a "feeling" they had after one or two games.

LOL. Maybe we need to boil our MLB discs

[Brando70]

You need to learn to adjust your pitching patterns, though, and pay close attention to the confidence stuff, as I think that's a little overdone. Late in the game, it rarely pays to leave your pitcher in to work through anything if he becomes shaken.

That is definitely true. I am struggling to pitch so far, and I think confidence is a big factor. When the accuracy line disappears, you have to get out to the mound, especially if your pitcher is facing good hitters. If it disappears again, it's time for the hook, no questions asked.

The pitching variability is great this year. I walked 6 players in a 9-5 loss to Colorado yesterday, and I did it with multiple pitchers, not just one guy who got shaky. At the same time, there are situations where you do want to risk the walk instead of a big hit.

In my case, I also think the guess location hurts me more than it helps. I see that sector light up and I almost always swing, even if it's well out of the zone. After struggling to hit, I went with guess pitch type only (and only when ahead) and did much butter.

[10spro]

You need to learn to adjust your pitching patterns, though, and pay close attention to the confidence stuff, as I think that's a little overdone. Late in the game, it rarely pays to leave your pitcher in to work through anything if he becomes shaken.

That is definitely true. I am struggling to pitch so far, and I think confidence is a big factor. When the accuracy line disappears, you have to get out to the mound, especially if your pitcher is facing good hitters. If it disappears again, it's time for the hook, no questions asked.

The pitching variability is great this year. I walked 6 players in a 9-5 loss to Colorado yesterday, and I did it with multiple pitchers, not just one guy who got shaky. At the same time, there are situations where you do want to risk the walk instead of a big hit.

All good points, I just hate it when it's sort of out of your control, your pitcher is struggling and the guys behind the catcher not giving you the benefit of a doubt by calling close pitches Ball.

[lexbur]

All good points, I just hate it when it's sort of out of your control, your pitcher is struggling and the guys behind the catcher not giving you the benefit of a doubt by calling close pitches Ball.

This reminds me, in my game last night at Fenway, Dustin Pedroia was up and I threw him what was obviously a strike, but the ump called it a ball and the announcer said something like: "Well, I guess you get calls like that when your picture's on the cover of the game!"

[Brando70]

All good points, I just hate it when it's sort of out of your control, your pitcher is struggling and the guys behind the catcher not giving you the benefit of a doubt by calling close pitches Ball.

This reminds me, in my game last night at Fenway, Dustin Pedroia was up and I threw him what was obviously a strike, but the ump called it a ball and the announcer said something like: "Well, I guess you get calls like that when your picture's on the cover of the game!"

LOL, I think they had that comment or something similar for Ryan Howard last year. I also love when they criticize the ump for a call.

Saw something else that was cool last night. The Rockies hit a deep but high fly ball close to the wall at Wrigley. Milton Bradley had enough time to sprint to it and get it in his glove, but hit the wall and dropped it. He didn't bounce of the wall, but made contact enough to get distracted and drop it. The announcers even called it, saying he caught it and then no, he dropped it. It was ruled a hit, which was sketchy, but on the replay it was a very tough play and I could see it going to hitter's way in the stats.

[dbdynsty25]

I just played the Mets @ Citi field and got thoroughly embarassed offensively. A 1-0 win for Perez w/ Rodriguez getting the save. I pitched well with Jurrjens only giving up 1 run through 5 but I was effectively wild. 100 pitches through those 5 innings, striking out 7 and walking 4. I think I was 60 strikes and 40 balls or somewhere close to that. This is one of the first games I've ever played that has gotten that part about the game right. Laboring through 5 innings and still pitching fairly well.

[webdanzer]

The game really seems to have a element of 'streakiness' to it, which probably lends itself to all of that comeback speculation and whatnot. I've wondered about it in several areas, personally:

1)Pitching: When you start to go bad, you can get really bad and stay there. Likewise, start successful and it becomes somewhat easier (with the meter, anyway) to stay successful. Walks seem to be a little all or nothing too sometimes.

2)Errors: I go a week without seeing one, then see 8(!) in one game

3)Hitting: I've seen many mult HR games for a player, both for and against. It seems like early success can help in later at bats. Or maybe rattle the pitcher?

They almost all have to do with some sort of 'confidence' at some level, though who knows if there is really anything in the code that makes it more likely for teams to commit errors, or a batter to really tee off once he starts hot. None of this is really a problem for me, and who knows? Much of it may fade away into a larger sample size of games. (I've played a couple-dozen to this point)

I'm having an absolute blast with the game, though, having good contests on default HOF now that I've (finally!) adjusted to the new hitting timing.

[Dave]

Have you guys adjusted the throwing power slider at all? It seems like everyone is throwing rockets out there. I'm seeing a good amount of doubles, so I can't tell if the throws are actually too hard or if they just look that way.

[dbdynsty25]

Have you guys adjusted the throwing power slider at all? It seems like everyone is throwing rockets out there. I'm seeing a good amount of doubles, so I can't tell if the throws are actually too hard or if they just look that way.

I think they just look that way really. I'm not seeing anything out of the ordinary...however, I do seem to be throwing out a lot more runners than I have in the past, but I attribute that mostly to the CPU being fairly aggressive on the basepaths which is something you don't see in most other games.

[jLp vAkEr0]

Are you guys being picked-off constantly?

I don't mind the CPU throwing to 1st 7 times in a row if I get some kind of a lead with a base runner like Reyes, but jeez, so many times the CPU throws to 1st base and my base runner reacts late even though I MASH the button to get him back to the base.

It's gotten to the point that I'm reluctant to try to steal bases.

I guess the CPU doesn't mind this.

[Brando70]

The little details in this game do no cease to amaze me. I saw two awesome things last night, both related to bunting:

-- CPU bunted down the first-base line. My 1B fielded the ball and went to tag him. The runner actually avoided the tag, leaning toward the dugout a bit. It looked so cool I almost forgot to throw to first.

-- Another CPU bunt, toward third but close to home. My pitcher and catcher converged on the ball, but the catcher got it first. When he threw the ball, the pitcher dropped to a knee to give him a clear line of sight to first base.

I also hit my first grand slam last night, and it was extra sweet because I read a breaking ball correctly and made perfect contact. I've pretty much stopped using the power swing completely -- I'm hitting plenty of dingers and deep hits just using X.

[Brando70]

Are you guys being picked-off constantly?

I don't mind the CPU throwing to 1st 7 times in a row if I get some kind of a lead with a base runner like Reyes, but jeez, so many times the CPU throws to 1st base and my base runner reacts late even though I MASH the button to get him back to the base.

It's gotten to the point that I'm reluctant to try to steal bases.

I guess the CPU doesn't mind this.

It is definitely easier to get picked and pick runners off. I've gotten caught a couple times and also nailed a couple of guys.

If the CPU comes over two times in a row, I don't take the extra lead. I also only take that lead with guys who are good base runners unless no one is covering the bag.

[lexbur]

The coolest bunt thing I've seen is once I had a guy on first, I laid a bunt down the thirdbase line (yeah, we bunt in the AL too, once in a while, lol!), the CPU pitcher rushed off the mound, grabbed the ball, spun around toward first and threw the ball over the firstbaseman's head all the way down the rightfield line. The runner scored and the batter went all the way to third!

As far as pickoffs go, the other day I picked two guys off in the same game! I think I had one pickoff all year last year, then I get two in the same game this year. Kinda weird.

[XXXIV]

The coolest bunt thing I've seen is once I had a guy on first, I laid a bunt down the thirdbase line (yeah, we bunt in the AL too, once in a while, lol!), .

Yes we do. Im 5 games into my White Sox season and both times I sacrificed the annoucer told me its a national league play.

After screwing around in exhibition and getting the hang of the game on Veteran I finally started a season on All Star as the hitting was starting to get too easy.

So far Ive had good results and only seen one f***ed up play. I hit a slow grounder right to the second baseman who completely ignored the ball as he moved out of the way.
Funny watching Jim Thome running down the 1st base line. He looked like he was pulling a tractor.


White Sox 5 Royals 1
Royals 10 White Sox 3
White Sox 3 Royals 2
Twins 4? White Sox 2?
White Sox 4 Twins 3

Excellent game. Feels fantastic. Too soon for me to call it the best sports video game ever but another 15-20 games like this and its a done deal.

[webdanzer]

I have to say that after a bunch of games, there is something unnatural feeling about how the CPU often scores their runs. Rare is it for me that the threat level from the CPU seems even and consistent throughout the game, where maybe I give up a bloop and blast one inning, then maybe a couple of walks and a double a couple innings later.

While I don't think it's connected to any overall catchup code or anything like that, the game seems to go into like a defensive crisis mode or something, where you're like 'okay, here it comes.' Your pitchers get wild, and you know the CPU is going to smack you if you give it anything good. To me, it seems like how you negotiate these periods largely determines how well you'll do in the game.

It feels less to me like you are in trouble at any given time...it's more you can coast a little bit until you hit one of these moments of intensity, which you then have to survive.

It's more of an artificial feel than I've had in the past with this series.

Nothing that's going to make me stop playing the game, but I think I get why some OS'ers feel that something is not right on occasion. (HOF defaults for me)

[lexbur]

So far Ive had good results and only seen one f***ed up play. I hit a slow grounder right to the second baseman who completely ignored the ball as he moved out of the way.
Funny watching Jim Thome running down the 1st base line. He looked like he was pulling a tractor.

That's weird. Whenever Thome comes up in my game my second baseman is usually out in right field somewhere, they put that crazy shift on. It's even worked a couple times, Thome will smoke a hard grounder past my first baseman, only to have my second baseman snag it and throw him out from right field.

[dbdynsty25]

I have to say that after a bunch of games, there is something unnatural feeling about how the CPU often scores their runs. Rare is it for me that the threat level from the CPU seems even and consistent throughout the game, where maybe I give up a bloop and blast one inning, then maybe a couple of walks and a double a couple innings later.

Isn't that baseball in a nut shell, especially in the past 20 years during the steroid era. The consistent threat isn't really there...is goes up and down throughout games. To me, that makes the game spectacular because it does recreate the real thing.

[XXXIV]

So far Ive had good results and only seen one f***ed up play. I hit a slow grounder right to the second baseman who completely ignored the ball as he moved out of the way.
Funny watching Jim Thome running down the 1st base line. He looked like he was pulling a tractor.

That's weird. Whenever Thome comes up in my game my second baseman is usually out in right field somewhere, they put that crazy shift on. It's even worked a couple times, Thome will smoke a hard grounder past my first baseman, only to have my second baseman snag it and throw him out from right field.

OOPS....Those were two different thoughts. I should have seperated the two sentences with a blank line. Wasnt Thome who hit that particular grounder.

Ya and that Thome shift is killing me. I only have 2? hits with him in the 5 games.

Anyone else seeing alot of dropped 3rd strikes? Least one in almost every game Ive played.

EDIT: For bad edit. New edit coming soon.

[Brando70]

Have any of you guys messed with the sounds of the show stuff?

There's a couple of threads on OS, and some guys put some sound files togther.

Now I have the supposed real walk up songs for just about everyone, real bullpen music, and the homerun music.

It's actually pretty cool and not too difficult to do.

Pretty cool having Trevor Hoffman come in out of the pen to Hells Bells.

I finally tried this out and love it. It took me a bit to figure it out, but once I got it working, it added even more atmosphere to the game. The only downside is that once you start a season, you have to edit player's walkup music in your franchise -- it won't bring those changes from the general roster file.

I have the Cubs walkup music and now plan to do it before each away series for the other teams.

[webdanzer]

I'm a new PS3 owner who hasn't messed around with file transfers yet. What do you use to get the music onto the ps3, a flash drive?

[Brando70]

I'm a new PS3 owner who hasn't messed around with file transfers yet. What do you use to get the music onto the ps3, a flash drive?

Yes. Just put the walk-up music folders on your flash drive (after you unzipped them). Take the flash drive and plug it into the PS3.

The transfer is not terribly intuitive -- you have to go to the same menu as the files you wish to copy (videos, music, etc.). So go to music and you should see your flash drive. Navigate to the folders, press triangle, and copy the folders. You'll see the copy status window pop up. Do that for all the walk-up folders and you'll be all set.

When that's done, fire up The Show, and from the audio/video menu, go to Sounds of the Show. Add the tracks to your custom playlist first -- you have to do that before you can add them to the players.

The post at OS has detailed instructions, but basically you need to go into the music editor, pull up that file (which will cover three players), and drop markers right before each music sample plays (that's the time-consuming part). Then you go to edit the player, find their walkup music, and choose one of the three marks. So, a file might look like this:

Cubs_Lee_Soriano_Ramierez

In the music editor, you'll set three marks: Mark 1 at 0:00 for Lee, then marks for Soriano and Ramierez (the start time for samples varies with each file, so you have to play the sample to find them). Then edit each player, go to their walkup music file, and choose the corresponding mark for each player. For relievers, change their reliever entry music instead.

It's a bit confusing, but once you do a couple it makes sense. It'll probably take about 20-30 minutes for you to set the marks and make the edits for a whole team.

If you started a franchise, you have to edit the players from the Manager Roster menu in your franchise. It won't import that option from the roster file if you've already started a franchise.

[RallyMonkey]

FYI, Opening Day Rosters are up on SportsConnect.