When I get a sports game, the first thing I do is have the cpu play both sides to check the AI a bit. It didn’t take long to see the nonsense. Opening day at Yankee stadium, Wang pitching. Had a rough opening inning, but it’s the top of the second and down 3-2. 2 outs and someone hits a 2-out double. No biggie right? Torre yanks him. WTF? I saw this repeated in every game I simmed. Starters never made it to inning 4. By game 5, all my relievers had endurance of about 25% from overuse. Game 5!

Changing the lineup is just insane. Whoever designed that should be fired.

Grounders are pure luck. More times than not it will get through because I couldn’t react fast enough after the camera switch.

To say there are too many HR’s in the game is an understatement. The Yankees after 7 games are averaging 16 runs a game. Opponents 21 runs! That seem off to anyone else?

Once again, we are taken to the threshold of greatness only to see the whole shebang thrown away for stupid crap that could have been fixed so easily.

Get this: to change the lineup before a game, you have to press X to change a player, Y to swap positions. Press A — oh, so sorry, GAME BEGIN!

What kind of batshit crazy idiocy is that? Most baseball games, you know, just use the A to swap players and START to begin the game. You know why? It’s easy, and it works.

I’ve seen some great AI, and some confoundingly bad AI. For one, an infield hit… the SS holds the ball. Runner rounds third, heads for home. SS holds the ball. Score.

I’m also sick of the fielders standing still on a ground ball. Just watch it. So many bleeders get through because none of the fielders actually attempt to field the ball. And God forbid your SS be required to charge a ball.

OFers are the same but less so.

Do developers understand that humans need time to react to a play?

The roster AI is even worse. God forbid you let the AI do anything - and if you don’t turn it on, you have to manage. every. single. tiny. injury. One day injury - you have to resub the starter a day later. On. every. lineup. (vs. L, vs. L w/o DH, vs. R, vs. R w/o DH.)

The trade AI isn’t much better. I’d love to know how Johan Santana ended up on the Red Sox, for one. But, the league information screen is so pitiful, why bother? You can’t even examine box scores of your team’s simmed games.

Oh, and A-Rod has 58 HRs… in July.

It’s too bad this game is so broken, because most of the game is very compelling. The pitcher/batter interface is perfect. The “payoff pitch” is great. There’s so much good that features a bunch of potentially gamebreaking features.

Too bad this game is an early beta for 2K8, even admitted by the developers and Ben Brinkman.

Note to Ben: get real beta testers like they used to. Gamers who are not in-house, like they used to over 10 years ago. But, those pesky testers may not tell you what you WANT to hear.

Just know this: a game isn’t ready if it’s bug-free.