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Jason
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Posted: January 19 2006 at 9:31pm | IP Logged Quote Jason

So far I'm in love with this game. Granted, I've only played 3 games, but I haven't found anything I don't like yet. The animations have been improved and the controls feel tighter. It's also much smoother than MVP 2005 with no noticeable slowdown (unlike last year's game). MVP 06 is going to remain in my rotation for a LONG time.

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Brent
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Posted: January 20 2006 at 9:05am | IP Logged Quote Brent

I have no complaints as far as gameplay is concerened so far but there are a few things I do not like.

Graphics which I mentioned yesterday seem to have taken a step back from last year, which were not that impressive to begin with. The create a team feature and create a stadium features are way too limited for a game that only offers half the teams. I can't even come close to recreating Dan Law field (Texas Tech) because of the limitations of 3 styles of stadiums (small, medium and large). They should have added the ability to customize the stands, dugouts and change colors of these areas for your team. Plus add some school related signs and fictional ads for the fences. The custom stadiums simply feel baren and a large oversight in my book. Whats even more confusing is the only scoreboard with the video replay screen is the small stadium.

Also noticed you can't edit players height and weight. I know for many this will not be a big deal but as a fan of college baseball I wanted to try and get a few rosters (Tech/OU) correct.
 
It just feels rushed in the college aspect of the game. No chants from the croud, no rivalries, no fight songs as best I can tell. The crowd is simply a lifeless teetering blur. They should play some CH 2K6 and take note how crowds should be done on this gen.  Heckling is also a BIG part of the college experience and it does not exist.

I would have gladly payed $49.99 for a couple months more work and some extra elbow grease to give it even 1/4th of the college atmosohere of what CH 2K6 and NCAA 06 offer. I mean yea I love the ESPN college intro music but they even cut that short. It's a start and hopefully at the $29.99 enough people buy it so we can see a next generation version of a college baseball game.





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Ted
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Posted: January 20 2006 at 11:08am | IP Logged Quote Ted

This one's for Zeppo.  They second baseman finally covers the bag on a sac bunt to the first baseman.

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Ted
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Posted: January 20 2006 at 11:24am | IP Logged Quote Ted

I'm really on the fence with load and fire.  I was having minimal success with it and the worst part was the level of fun was diminishing.  I loaded up a game and used MVP 05 hitting and the fun came rushing back.

It took me a long time to get effective with the 05 hitting and I like it because I have time to judge if the pitch is a ball or strike and can also try to do something with the ball (pull, opposite field, sac fly). 

With the L&F I'm having a lot of trouble judging balls and strikes.  I think it is because I have to do too much while I'm still determining if the ball is in the strike zone or not.  When it is I'm not having any trouble making contact so that is not the problem.  I'm finding that I have to start the "load" part right at the time I can see the hitter's eye color flash.  A split second after the pitcher releases I have to start "firing" and by the time I notice the ball is out of the strike zone I don't have time to check.  It's probably just me, but I don't think I'm coordinated enough to use this system.  Also, the L&F controls change all of the baserunning and leadoff controls.  Going back to 05 system returns all the control schemes that I'm used to.  It's just too much to do and remember right now with L&F

I also fired up zone hitting in the mini game and liked it better than I thought I would.  I still don't fully understand how it works since the ball was going in directions and taking flight in ways that I didn't expect.  With 05 hitting I always understood why the ball did what it did.

I'm going to keep playing with zone and 05 hitting.  For now I'm sidelining L&F.

Still enjoying the new fielding and throwing.  The one thing I did was turn off the player names and icons as I found they blocked my view of the meter at the player's feet.  Much easier to see with those things off, especially the names.

Stealing is easier this year.  I can now have success with runners that are rated in the low 80's.  In 05 I couldn't steal with anyone below 90 and was hardly ever successful with below 95 runners.  Haven't seen the CPU attempt 1 steal in 6 games, but they do play a lot of sacrifices.  I haven't seen them hit and run either.


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Brent
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Posted: January 20 2006 at 11:39am | IP Logged Quote Brent

Ted wrote:

I also fired up zone hitting in the mini game and liked it better than I thought I would.  I still don't fully understand how it works since the ball was going in directions and taking flight in ways that I didn't expect.  With 05 hitting I always understood why the ball did what it did.


Just think of it like your hot/cold/neutral meter. 9 zones to work with. If you do not touch your left analog you are assuming a pitch straight down the middle.  It just uses logic when batting. If the pitch is high and away and you swing for right down the middle there is a good chance you will pop it up (since you are under the ball) or wiff.  If it is low and inside and you guess down the middle you will probably hit a grounder or a wiff. The farther away you are from the location the greater the chance for a wiff. If you select the proper zone then you have a better chance for a base hit. Of course you can control power and contact to better your odds based on the situation.

Zone hitting is a chess match and the closest thing to standing in the batters box. It factors in your ability to guess the pitch and location and/or hit the proper part of the zone after the pitch. Timing still plays a factor and you can adjust for power/contact for more control. Just like real life. When a batter steps to the plate the first thing he thinks of is what type of pitch is coming and where is this pitcher throwing it. You think a fastball is coming low and away, you setup to hit such a pitch. You get thrown an off spead pitch and you have to adjust what zone you aim at and still get good timing. Only Zone hitting captures that aspect properly IMO.



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Ted
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Posted: January 20 2006 at 1:08pm | IP Logged Quote Ted

I hate it when I do this. 

So I play the out-of-the-box exhibition game.  Florida @ Texas.  I decide to just bat both sides and use the L&F system.  Now I know both teams have good hitters, but they also have good pitchers.

Well Texas beats Florida 7-3.  I had 17 hits on the Texas side including a bases loaded triple to go up 6-0.

Florida didn't do much until the 9th inning when I added 3 hits for 3 runs including leadoff double, followed by an rbi single and a 2 run hr.  The hr was not using power button and the hitter was a 79 power.  A lefty too.  I had a total of 7 hits for Florida.

I only struck out a total of 7 times for both sides combined.  So this game tells me maybe I shouldn't give up on L&F yet.  The one thing that happend though was that I started to not have to think about what to do with the stick so maybe I'm getting trained to it.

I'm going to play two C teams against each other and see what happens.


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Brent
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Posted: January 20 2006 at 2:00pm | IP Logged Quote Brent

Pretty close to the final game of the CWS.

Texas 6 (10 hits)  Florida 2 (6 hits, 1 error)

Florida scored their runs late (7th)


I kind of miss the days of gorilla ball when you get those 21-15 shootouts. Not a single team in the 05 CWS tourney had double digit runs in game. Though they still pop up in the regular season and regionals.  I remember Miami (OH) putting up 35 runs last year in the regionals.


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Ted
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Posted: January 20 2006 at 3:33pm | IP Logged Quote Ted

Hey, that is a neat coincidence, Brent.  BTW Texas got their first run of the game off an earlier throwing error to first that put the man in scoring position, so my Florida had an error too.

I noticed there is a rule in the game about 10 run leads.  I guess that is sort of a mercy rule.

I found two C teams to play L&F batter only with.  Indiana v Kentucky.  I think a couple of guys around here have a big rivalry with those two teams.  I heard one of them is a bully too.

Anyway, both are B hitting teams with lower pitchers, fielding, and speed ratings.  Like most of the teams I am seeing in the game though, even bad teams have one ace on the staff so I had to bat against good pitchers with average hitters.

The most noticeable thing was that the hitters just didn't smack the ball like Texas and Florida.  Even when Florida lost last game they were still hitting the ball hard.  I had a lot of dribblers.  I was more patient at the plate this time.  I even logged every at bat to track my consistency.  I won't bore you with those details, but my plan of attack was to always take the first pitch and always take at least one strike.

The game ended up a 1-0 win for Indiana.  Indiana scored in the 4th on a single, stolen base, rbi single.  I did have runners on 2nd and 3rd with one out in the 9th for Kentucky, but grounded to short and then flied to left to end the game.

Both pitching staffs threw over 100 pitches.  I was able to get to Kentucky's bullpen in the seventh.  The starter left with 76 pitches and 0% stamina.  He must have low stamina.  Indiana brought the closer in the 9th after I led off with a single.  Their starter had 96 pitches and 25% left in the tank.

Indiana had only 3 hits and Kentucky had 10.  I struck out a total of 8 times (5+3) and I actually drew 3 walks (2+1).

Now I need to play with C teams and put their 3rd starters in to see if the average hitters have more pop against them.

I hate to be wishy-washy, but I'm going to keep trying with L&F.  For now.


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Posted: January 20 2006 at 10:38pm | IP Logged Quote Jason

Ted and I got a chance to give online play a shot and played 1.5 games. While we got disconnected during our 2nd game, the online play was pretty smooth and lag free.

We did not figure out how to change your lineup and starting pitcher for the online games though (a problem that originated in MVP 2004 and was fixed in 2005). Anyone know the secret to changing your starting pitcher online? Also, the umpire was not calling balls and strikes.

Other than those two issues, I was pretty happy with the online play, especially when you consider that this is the game's release week. EA usually works out alot of the online glitches within the first few weeks that a game is online. I remember how MVP 2004 was practically unplayable online for the first two weeks.



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Posted: January 21 2006 at 1:08am | IP Logged Quote Ted

I'm a bit disappointed if we can't change our starting pitchers before the game starts.

On a bit of off topic....I noticed at OS people complaining that the announcer only calls #'s and not names.  There may be a way to get names.  I wanted to change some of the players names in my dynasty since some of them look really silly.  When I changed a Bubba Saucedo to Brian Sanders and announcer in the edit screen came on and said Sanders.  Turns out there is a lot of names in the database.  If you edit the last name down to one letter you can then choose from a scroll list of that starting letter.  I don't know if it announces during a game yet, but I'll find out soon enough.

It's things like this that make me think they didn't have time to put some polish on the product.  At least there doesn't seem to be any major gameplay bugs so far so I'll take it this way, but look forward to a more polished product next year.


Edit:  Yup, if you pick a name on the announce list Mike Patrick says it in PbP.


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