The Blog for the Sports Gamer Three guys who love Sports Gaming rant and rave about various stuff.

Glen’s MLB2K9 demo thoughts

After reading the posts over at Operation Sports and then hearing Dan's thoughts, I wasn't sure what I would think about the demo, but I was pretty impressed.

My game ended 1-0, when Philly scored the winning run when I made a bad throw into center when trying to throw out the person stealing 2nd.

Here are the things that stood out to me.

- The commentary is terrific.  The combination of Gary Thorne and Steve Phillips seem like they have been doing this forever.

- 2K seems to have really put forth a great effort into making it look like you're really watching a game.  I'm watching the demo mode right now and it really has a great flow to it.  I've seen the batboy come out to grab a bat after a walk.  People in the crowd dive to try and catch a foul ball.

- Personally, I don't think the ads are as bad as people say.  There is a banner behind home plate, but there is one of those in every stadium now, right?  It changes advertisements enough to make it look realistic as well.

- The demo really needed something to teach you the controls.  It's been way too long since I played 2K8, so I don't remember all of the little details.  I was trying to see how to pick off a guy on second, and ended up throwing an intentional walk.  A little annoyance, to be sure, but an annoyance all the same.

- As for the gameplay, I didn't have any luck like Dan did with crushing all kinds of homers... I was able to scratch out one hit in 3 innings, but I guess that just means that I suck.  In the pitching realm, I like the pitching system quite a bit.  It feels rather natural to use the 'pitch stick' to pull off your pitches.

I'll give a game a bit more time tonight, but I was rather happy with my time with the demo.