MLB 12: The Show

Ron Gant? That's a name I haven't heard in a while.

garion333 wrote:

Ron Gant? That's a name I haven't heard in a while.

I loved that team. I played baseball all of the time as a kid. Hit two RBIs in the conference finals as a soph to go to state in American Legion. Loved baseball right up until the strike (yes, I'm one of those people). Randomly the only pro baseball I could get in the 80s/90s in rural Idaho was TBS and the Braves. So I became a Braves fan by default. Loved it when they made the run with Gant, Justice, Pendleton, Avery, Lemke, Bream and the rest after being down 10 games at the mid-season point.

DSGamer wrote:

I played baseball all of the time as a kid. Hit two RBIs in the conference finals as a soph to go to state in American Legion.

DS, when/where did you play legion ball. There is a decent chance we played against each other.

TrashiDawa wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

I played baseball all of the time as a kid. Hit two RBIs in the conference finals as a soph to go to state in American Legion.

DS, when/where did you play legion ball. There is a decent chance we played against each other.

Idaho. 91?

DSGamer wrote:
TrashiDawa wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

I played baseball all of the time as a kid. Hit two RBIs in the conference finals as a soph to go to state in American Legion.

DS, when/where did you play legion ball. There is a decent chance we played against each other.

Idaho. 91?

Idaho 91-93 here.

TrashiDawa wrote:
DSGamer wrote:
TrashiDawa wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

I played baseball all of the time as a kid. Hit two RBIs in the conference finals as a soph to go to state in American Legion.

DS, when/where did you play legion ball. There is a decent chance we played against each other.

Idaho. 91?

Idaho 91-93 here.

Whoa

I am finding my sweet spot to be all-star pitching, veteran hitting, analog everything, offset camera. The game's a bit homer happy there, but team ERAs and batting averages seem believable for me at those settings. I'm still losing a lot, particularly on the Vita (this game is just super hard on a bumpy subway) but it's competitive with room to grow.

I'm concurrently running my RTTS (bench player for the Mets), a Mets Franchise (7-7) and a 29-game Season mode with a fantasy draft Pirates. I picked Strasburg with my first pick, and boy is he fun to pitch with, alternating 100-mph heat with a nasty slurve.

Hmmm, so after skimming this thread, I'm getting the impression that The Show is now actually a decent game for people who actually like baseball? When the first one came out, I was pretty excited about it, until I read some interviews with the developers where they basically said they were not baseball fans, thought the game was boring, and thought that this video game managed to take boring topic and make it interesting. I lost interest at that point, but forgot to tell my wife, who bought it for me on the Wii for my birthday. It was as terrible as I had begun to suspect it might be after those interviews.

So ... have they finally brought in people who actually like baseball to design the game?

The Wii? MLB The Show is Sony exclusive.

absurddoctor wrote:

Hmmm, so after skimming this thread, I'm getting the impression that The Show is now actually a decent game for people who actually like baseball? When the first one came out, I was pretty excited about it, until I read some interviews with the developers where they basically said they were not baseball fans, thought the game was boring, and thought that this video game managed to take boring topic and make it interesting. I lost interest at that point, but forgot to tell my wife, who bought it for me on the Wii for my birthday. It was as terrible as I had begun to suspect it might be after those interviews.

So ... have they finally brought in people who actually like baseball to design the game?

This series is a Sony exclusive. Never been on the Wii.

Edit: And tannhauser'd

I think he's talkin about "The Bigs".

obirano wrote:

I think he's talkin about "The Bigs".

Yeah, I definitely mixed the two up, which, after more research, feels sacrilegious.

I suspect the only proper penance is to go and purchase The Show.

Oh, yeah, The Bigs was crap. Definitely.

If you want a "fun" baseball game, I suggest MLB Power Pros.

garion333 wrote:

Oh, yeah, The Bigs was crap. Definitely.

If you want a "fun" baseball game, I suggest MLB Power Pros.

I suspect that would be fun in small doses, but ultimately I prefer my ball players to have legs.

I stopped in at a Gamestop on my way home from work Tuesday night, something I had not done in quite some time. To my surprise, the place was pretty packed. I found The Show on the shelves, but felt silly bringing the empty box up to the counter, so just went to ask for it. There was one cashier helping people, and another 3 or 4 workers talking to each other animatedly behind the counter. One of them eventually noticed me and apologized, before asking me if I hard heard of Mass Effect. I said yes, and he asked me if I knew anything about Krogans. I affirmed this as well, and we went on to discuss the franchise a little bit; apparently he had always ignored it, but his coworkers had just begun explaining the backstory of the Krogans to him and he was now very suddenly excited to get into the game. We chatted about that and a few other gaming related items, I asked him for The Show. He came back with a box, and said "The Show, right?", and I confirmed. Somehow I ended up chatting with a few other customers around the store before finally leaving, feeling rather excited by having had a random positive social experience all about gaming. It feels like I rarely get to talk with anyone about anything other than work or mundane daily life 'things'.

After I popped in the disc, I finally noticed it was the wrong game (MLB 2k12). I hadn't bothered actually looking at the box, or I might have noticed it .. but in my defense (and the cashier's), they aren't all that different, unless you happen to know which player is supposed to be featured on which box.

The next night I brought it back, and the place was mostly empty, with only the cashier who had sold the game to me behind the counter. He clearly had no recollection of me, but having work a small bit of retail before, I can empathize with that. He took awhile, but eventually said that because it was opened they were not allowed to take it back, and insisted that this was the game I had asked for (while making it pretty clear his reasoning for this was because he simply wouldn't have made such a mistake, not because he remembered the transaction). We discussed it politely a bit longer before he offered to get a manager. The manager came out, and there was a lot of theater of closely inspecting the game, and a lot of time playing with the computer or just apparently 'thinking'. Finally he repeated the policy, I went through my arguments again, and there was another period of mostly silence. After telling me that he was breaking the rules again, he went ahead and made the swap. After that he asked if I wanted to pick up their $15 game point card thingy, and since the whole event could have been easily prevented by looking at the game box myself, I agreed and went ahead and filled out an online survey singing their praises.

It is the first sports game I've played in a long time (outside of Wii sports), and I'm clearly quite rusty. I'm getting adjusted to the analogue pitching fairly quickly, but I can't hit for crap. Even swapping down to the one-button-press style, I still can't get my timing correct. This led me to focusing on a pitcher in RTTS mode, which, while supposedly stale at this point, is a new concept to me. I was subject to the 'just one more game' syndrome Wednesday night ... and finally decided I should take a tap around 7 am.

Since I can do a quick comparison between the two games, I do have to give my vote to The Show. The mechanics feel more challenging to master, which I consider a plus. The Show looks much nicer, and MLB 2k12 seemed to have a lot of performance issues; the random stuttering and so forth was quite annoying, while The Show has been incredibly smooth.

I see reviews of Diamond Dynasty mentioning that you can only play random opponents online, and that sometimes game results do not end up registering. Anyone know if either of those things have been corrected?

Just a quick mention that what gives MLB Power Pros its legs is the RPG portion of the game, ie. RTTS. The first game you were in college and had to juggle everything while trying to make it to the majors. The second one, I believe, had you in the minors trying to make it to the big league.

Anyway, it's definitely cute in a Japanese sort of way, but highly addicting like RTTS, but with a lot more RPG elements. It's also much, much easier to hit in that game.

Hitting in The Show is probably the most difficult aspect. It takes time and patience. True patience while being at bat. My suggestion to you is to turn the pitch speed down so you get a split second longer to decide on swinging or not. Others might disagree.

I really like Diamond Dynasty. It feels like you're an old-time barnstorming team, touring the country and taking on MLB teams for bragging rights.

I want to post some pics of my Queens Kaisers but I'm not quite happy with my cap logo yet.

My Diamond Dynasty team, the Queens Kaisers. Still a work in progress, but it's sort of a mix of the Mets, Pirates, and a beer softball league.

IMAGE(http://i46.tinypic.com/2d9v0w4.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i50.tinypic.com/f2iw41.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i48.tinypic.com/291ylud.jpg)

Thanks for posting all this Slumberland. It looks sooo cool. I have to admit I've been playing MLB2K mostly waiting for a tourney to form and keeping my skills in order (plus it is easier and I love the pitching). But my first love is, The Show(I bought a PS3 because of, The Show:). I will be going over there and doing some Diamond Dynasty down the line that is for sure. Sort of reminds me of the consoles version of Out of the Park Baseball, or Baseball Mogul. Pretty cool. (plus for some reason I thought it was basically an on-line mode). Actually, have you played this on-line with someone? (or for that matter played any on-line games. Still wonky, or smoother on-line play)

I haven't played any online games, Diamond Dynasty or otherwise. When DD first launched I heard there were people disconnecting and denying the other person the win, so I didn't want to waste my time. Basically it's like a less cynical version of EA's Ultimate Team card-based team building modes. It's not balanced in a way that tempts you to spend real money on cards, and the packs of MLB players are really just there as support players (they have shorter contracts). Developing your own players is the way to go, and you can earn team cash to go toward development or new players either through online play or against the CPU, with a risk/reward system that gives you more money for wins on higher difficulty levels.

41-55 in my effort to get through a full season playing every pitch. The Nats are running away with the division. Haven't snapped any discs yet. The Vita version's been great.

That's impressive you've gotten that far.

garion333 wrote:

Just a quick mention that what gives MLB Power Pros its legs is the RPG portion of the game, ie. RTTS. The first game you were in college and had to juggle everything while trying to make it to the majors. The second one, I believe, had you in the minors trying to make it to the big league.

Anyway, it's definitely cute in a Japanese sort of way, but highly addicting like RTTS, but with a lot more RPG elements. It's also much, much easier to hit in that game.

While the double entendre wasn't completely accidental, I was more referring to the fact that it looked like the characters in-game didn't have any legs (much like Wii sports). It sounds like that game might have scratched the baseball itch though, if I hadn't already splurged on The Show.

garion333 wrote:

Hitting in The Show is probably the most difficult aspect. It takes time and patience. True patience while being at bat. My suggestion to you is to turn the pitch speed down so you get a split second longer to decide on swinging or not. Others might disagree.

That definitely helped me a lot, and I have been slowly improving there.

My attempts at analogue pitching were incredibly frustrating; all too often it would appear that my input would be left or right to the exact same degree that I felt I had pushed in the opposite direction. When I could tell that I had been inaccurate, that was fine, but when it felt like 'magic', I had to either risk throwing the controller around or switching away from analogue. I've grown rather fond of of pulse pitching ... the randomness there is expected, as opposed to what felt like unexpected randomness when using analogue.

Diablo 3 had been sucking up the majority of my gaming time, but having finally made it to Yankee stadium (though, somewhat sadly, the night before the subway series began), my need to poorly play virtual baseball has grown strong enough to put that aside. I've been nursing my drafted Mets through a third somewhat miserable season. I drafted far too many soon-to-retire players for the first season. I do have Pujols and Hamilton, however Hamilton went down with a broken hand on opening day of this season, and Pujols followed with a broken arm two weeks later. Maybe I'll give them a break, and start up an RTTS pitcher My slugging first baseman was on his fifth season before I switched back to playing franchise mode, but I played at rookie level all the way. After pushing my stats up stupidly high, its great for feeling like a godly player ... but maybe I need some more down-to-earth baseball fun now.

What I'm really trying to say, is that I'm stuck at work while I'd rather be home playing fake baseball

I don't think I would have played much of this game if it wasn't for the Vita. I constantly have it pulled up on there. I'm on the 4th or 5th year. I would say that I'm stuck with the Angels, but this year the team has a winning season going on, so I'm going to wait it out.

As a pitcher, my inability to turn a 3-6-1 double play is very annoying. To begin with, they like to swing the camera all over the place after a hit, and what direction the stick moves you in depends on the camera view. If they perform one of the dreaded instant 180 degree view change, your character will instantly try to stop to turn around and run the other way. Anyway, even when I manage to work beyond that, whoever is covering second will absolutely not throw the ball until my foot is on first. Inevitably this means not until after the runner has gone by. Sometimes they will decide not to throw at all then, but all too often they will go ahead and finally make the throw far too late, and occasionally of course, throw it over my head.

3-6-3 also seems to be impossible when playing at first base, as after you throw to second, you are frozen in place. That was mildly frustrating facing that, but definitely much more infuriating as the pitcher. The intartubes comments I can find tell me that this is a newly introduced problem this year that didn't occur in previous iterations of the game. Does anyone have a fix, beyond jacking up my starting pitcher's speed to 99?

50-63, 20 games out with no hope of anything but still quite enjoying myself.

I can't believe how good and full-featured (though I'd love for those historical stadiums to be included) the Vita version is for a first effort.

And games play faster too. It's a shame the crowds look so terrible.

Oh man, game 121, a Sunday rubber match against the Nats at now defunct Griffith field, down 7-2 going into the ninth. Yeoman's work from Jon Rauch going three innings for the ultimate win in the 12th.

Nice comeback. That was a terrible miff by the 2nd baseman.

Yup, that should have been the game. Two outs at the time.

In my Road to the Show game, I am playing a 2B in the Yankees organization. I just got called up to AAA when the Yankees traded Jeter for 2 minor leagers. The Dr. Pepper almost came out of my nose! The Yankees trading Jeter?? The moon would fall out of the sky first! There would be rioting in the streets that would make Rodney King look like a day at the beach!

Anyway, I hit a 3-run homer in my third at bat so I got a nice welcome to AAA ball. Now on to the bigs!