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

One of those nights

After being married for 12 years, you'll run into nights where you are looking for a little bit of sympathy from your spouse.  Tonight was one of those, but she was having none of it.  Let me lay it all out there for you.

Here are all of the things that I wanted to try and tackle tonight before going to bed.

- Play a bit of Heavy Rain

- Play some of MLB2K10.  I was planning on playing the demo, but was shocked to see the UPS package on the front steps when I got home.  Who would have known I would get it that early?

- Watch the Women's Gold Medal hockey game between the U.S. and Canada.   (I'll comment on this tomorrow.)

- Watch the Wisconsin basketball game against Indiana.

- Try out Fret Nice for the Xbox 360.

By the time I was done watching the hockey game, in which the Canadian team dominated the U.S., it was already 8:45.  So, I sat down to watch the Wisconsin/Indiana game and saw that it was going to be ugly,  (Wisconsin ended up winning by 32... just an ugly game.  Indiana is terrible,)   and dove into a bit of Heavy Rain.

I see what people were talking about as far as the voice acting was concerned.  It's pretty lackluster for what could be a very emotionally charged game.  I'm only about 30 minutes in, and I won't spoil any of the things that happen, but I'm not disappointed with the game thus far.

After that I finally sat down to start working on MLB2K10.  Here's my biggest gripe about the game so far... I won't be able to play more of it until Sunday night.

This is not a perfect game.  If you're expecting it to be as good as The Show, you'll be setting yourself up for a fall there.  What I can say is that the game is greatly improved over last year.  You can see that from the demo, but it continues in the full version of the game.

The first thing that I sat down with was the 'My Player' mode.  They immediately threw my closer into a AA save situation as his first outing.  No spring training or anything like that.  You get your two pitches and you get to work.

One thing that I loved about that mode is the speed of the game.  Loading times are incredibly fast.  You're going game to game in a very short period of time.  No huge delays like you can see in the 'Road to the Show' mode from Sony.

With each batter that you face, you're asked to achieve a specific task (throw a first pitch strike, get a ground ball out, get a strike out, etc.)   What frustrated me, is something that bothered me with Sony's effort in this as well.  If it asks you to get a ground ball out and you get a line out... you get no skill points for it.  There should be degrees of completion for those sorts of things.  You didn't achieve the exact goal, but the end result was the same.

One thing that I did like is the fact that they don't subtract points from you if you don't complete them.  So, each thing that you're doing gets you pitching points that you can use towards improving your pitches, stamina, composure, or other attributes.

From my time with that mode, I think I'll spend a fair amount of time with it.  It's a great pick up and play option and I really enjoyed it right from the get go.

After that I jumped into a single game between the Brewers and the Astros.

The commentary impressed me right away.  Within the first inning or so, I heard them talking about how the Brewers would miss J.J. Hardy from the lineup despite his struggles from last year.   That sort of information was something that we just haven't gotten in a baseball game in the past.  It's not something that you'll pay $60 for, but exactly the type of commentary that makes the game more interesting.

One of the complaints that I had heard about the demo was that it was incredibly hard to get doubles.  I had no issues with that in the full version.  I had 2 doubles with the Brewers in the first game that I played.  One was a flair by Escobar to left that dropped over the 3rd baseman's head.  His speed allowed him to take 2nd in a close play, but it seemed legit.

I've seen runners moving from first to third on hits to right field.  I saw a few dropped pitches by the catcher.  I threw a wild pitch (that was entirely my fault due to a horrible pitching motion.)  So, it's safe to say that there were plenty of nice touches to see.

Not everything was perfect though.  The gameplay speed just seems off.  ( I am playing with default settings on pro, no slider adjustments whatsoever.)  Players like Carlos Lee seem to be running way too quickly on the bases.  Houston stole 7 or 8 bases on me and never once was I even close to throwing them out.  (I'm not entirely sure if this is because I'm not throwing quick enough... or if they're just getting such a massive head start that I find it impossible to throw them out.)  No check swings in the game yet, but the defensive swing mechanic is nice.  I had a few at bats where it bailed me out with a flair to the out field that scored a run, and had other times when I just nubbed the ball with that type of swing.

The fielding controls are odd as well.  The CPU takes control of the player... but only until they get so close to the ball, then they just stop and have you take them over... but there is no indication that it's coming and I've given up a few hits due to the fact that my player stopped when I thought he was just going to run to cut off a ball heading to the outfield.

Those are my early thoughts of the few hours that I was able to spend with the game.

I am heading out of town tomorrow afternoon and won't be back until Sunday, so if you have some questions and want to find out some things about the game, send me an email and I'll cover it next week.

Also, I plan on talking about the game quite a bit on my first podcast on Monday.  Between that and the men's gold medal hockey final, I think there will be plenty to cover that day.