Likes and Dislikes of ESPN MLB

One dislike is that Barry Bonds isn't even in the game. What the hell is that? Maybe that was part of the BALCO deal?

 

Barry Bonds isn't in ESPN MLB because he a greedy bastard who would allow his name or anything that resembled him in the game unless ESPN was willing to dish out some money to him.

 

Damn that sucks. Who else is missing?

 

I think just his greedy ass.

 

Sounds like Michael Jordan in his prime. Fun playing with the Bulls and #23 in NBA Live.

 

any player not in the MLBPA, i think.

the old mets pitcher (was in Pirates camp this spring) named Rick Reed probably wouldnt have his name. Neither would Benny Agbayani. (they were scabs in the strike games, and werent asked to join the Players Association as a result)

i know in past games there have been multiple players left out. not sure about this year, tho.

 

That's . I didn't realize Bonds was hard up for cash. :roll: LaVar Arrington, I mean Redskins Linebacker is an idiot too.

 

LaVar signed.

All I have to say about this game is wow. It sucks. I expected a lot more, and well, this thing might be available at my local gamestop next week as used. I am very dissapointed. MVP is soooo much better...just wow.

 

Are you talking about for next season because he sure didn't for 2K4, ergo Redskins Linebacker. You're right about ESPN Baseball though... it sucks compared to MVP but I'll keep it for the league though. I just have to forget MVP. I wish I had never played it that way I wouldn't know any better.

 

How is MVP better? ESPN ownz MVP in terms of gameplay... most of you just play MVP vs the puter... you should have played that crap vs a human opponent... not to mention their pitching and hitting systems were whack

 

I knew you couldn't resist. I played it online against human opponents. Not sure how much different you think the the pitching and batting are other than timing. It's the same way to select your pitch and aim with the rumble and all. Batting is similar with true aim. Not sure what you're getting at. One thing I wish ESPN had incorporated is the power meter for the fielders when throwing. I like the gameplay and presentation better in MVP but to each their own. :wink:

 

Pitching is all about the dumb meter.

Hitting is WAY different.. you held up to hit a fly ball and down for a ground ball and then just timed it....LAME

 

Just exactly is different again? There is left/right movement coupledwith moving the swing up and down. Same deal for hot/cold zones. You prefer one button on ESPN so what's the deal? :? You could interchange ESPN for MVP in the excerpt below and it would be almost identical. This is from the EA MVP website.

Batting Factors

Timing ? The better your timing, the better the chance you have to hit the ball well -- or at all.

We use audio as well as a Picture-In-Picture window to give feedback on your timing. The PIP will show a replay of your swing from above or the side and you can gather whether you were early or late, as well as if you swing over or under the ball.

Left/Right Stick Placement ? The old ?hit it where it?s pitched" adage applies here. Say you?re Albert Pujols and you see a fastball away. What do you do? Well, if you try to pull the ball, chances are you?ll roll over on it and hit a nubber out to the third baseman. If you try to go with it, chances are you?ll hit a nice shot the other way -- if, of course, your timing is right. Timing is possibly the biggest factor in how well you can hit.

Up/Down Stick Placement ? Think of Derek Lowe pitching. If his sinker is working, batters will have little success trying to hit the ball in the air. This holds true in MVP Baseball 2004. You have to try hitting the pitch as it was intended to be hit. That means if the pitcher is keeping the ball low, you should try to push the stick down as opposed to fighting the pitch and trying to hit in the air.

What you do with the stick also determines where the ball makes contact with the bat. Of course, you want to hit it on the sweet spot every time, but if your timing or left/right or up/down placement is off, it will shift the contact point on the bat, decreasing the contact quality and in turn creating an infinite amount of hit types, such as nubbers, choppers, dribblers, pop ups, bloopers, tailing and hooking liners, high fly balls and many more.

Batter Attributes ? Both power and contact are taken into account separately. We are using 0-100 for our ratings this year (as opposed to 36-100 last year), thus clearly separating AA journeymen from MLB All-Stars.

These attributes determine the size of his timing window. The higher the ratings, the larger the window, and therefore the better chance he has for high contact quality. They also determine how the batter matches up against the pitcher.

Hot/Cold zones ? These indicate how well a hitter has success in a given area in the strike zone over time. However, new this year is the ability of the CPU hitter to learn your pitching tendencies. If you are consistently pitching the ball in the same cold zone, they will adjust and rip you. Remember, just because you?re pitching in a cold zone doesn?t mean the hitter can?t hit the ball (and hit it hard), it?s just a representation of his overall trends of success in hitting.

 

ok in MVP you press up for a flyball... in espn you could still hit a ground ball when pressing up... likewise in MVP when you press down you get a ground ball whereas in espn pressing down will not limit you to only a ground ball

 

I'm still very annoyed that the swing after a button push is ridiculously slower online. With my first online game, the lag was visible in how some animations were choppy, like with the flags waving for instance. The second game I didn't see anything like that but still felt the controls were way to slow to respond. I played a game again tonight online and still, response times for me are delayed. I can't be the only one who's having this problem. I suck at baseball games but I can certainly tell that there IS a difference.

 

I have noticed a problem with pushing the button to swing. Sometimes the batter won't swing which is nice if you were going to chase a ball out of the zone but sucks for those big fat ones right down the middle. :x

 

You guys that are experiencing lag and button delays with the game online, what is the speed of your internet connections (both UL and DL).

Do a speed test at broadbandreports.com and let us know... I haven't seen any of this, I'm curious as to why you guys are.

 

I haven't experienced much lag at all...The only time that I did was against mike when we couldnt even start the game

 

Update on the monkey experience....

I finally got two games in... after another 8 attempts. I've gotten in 4 games out of about 16 or 17 attempts now.

Great game when it works...

I'm going to fight you all the way on the 2-button control John... and All-Star.

On pro the pitchers fatigue alot faster... or their accuracy depletes... makes it too easy and too many pitching changes...

All-Star seems to be perfect for me... my last two games were 4-2 and 2-1... I lost the second one in the tenth giving up a walk off homer to Cabrera....


FANTASTIC GAME.... Hope it lasts!!

 

Hey guys, I know with the older Sega games that there was something I personally did that would cause the batter not to swing. I don't have the new one yet, so I can't verify this. However, I would do something while batting in the World Series 2k3 game which would result in a no swing.

The problem is, I don't know what it was exactly and if this is the same problem some of you are having. It was either that I hit the button late and therefore wouldn't "let" me swing, or it had something to do with me moving the thumbstick and hitting the button at the same time which caused a no-swing. Anyway, it might not be lag but yet something you'll need to get used to.

Again, this might not be the case here, but thought I'd throw it out there to maybe help. If you're veterans of the Sega games, then this probably isn't your problem. But like I said, I had a problem playing multiplayer (obviously offline) with the other Xbox versions (WSB and 2k3).

Hope that helps or narrows down a problem.