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

MLB2K11 First Impressions

I too picked up MLB 2K11 for the 360 last night.  I kind of wish I waited considering I paid $60 for it and now see it for $32 shipped http://goo.gl/1LqNt 

As for my thoughts.  I jumpted right into My Player mode as well.  I created a SS with the Red Sox.  I'm going to assume that most of you know what My Player mode is or can do a google search so I'm not going to go into details on that.

My first thought is that it's much harder than 2k10.  Of course to be fair, I haven't had these kind of stats in a long time, but it definitly seems harder.  Pitches seem to get to the plate a lot faster.  Last year I could wait to determine the pitch type and see if it was going to be a ball or strike before deciding to swing.  This year fast balls are getting by me and if I try to guess fastball I'm way out in front of an off speed pitch.  I've played 15 games and am batting .250 or so without a HR yet.  Baserunning is about the same, but I am 1 for  1 in stolen bases.  Last year I went 0 for my first 100 or so it seemed.  I'm still having a hard time determining if a batted ball is going to be caught or not so I have gotten doubled off a couple times on line drives.

Fielding itself seems about the same, but throwing the ball is taking a bit to get use to.  I have to be aware of the throwing power this year or I will miss the 1st baseman and get a throwing error.  I have not tried pitching yet.

The part that's going to make this more difficult overall is that you don't get as many skill points for completing different actions this year.  The highest skill point value I have seen so far is 25 points.

I have seen a few nice touches that even after 7 seasons of 2K10 I didn't see.  I got an infield hit after hitting the ball off the mound and the ball changed direction and went behind the charging SS.  I have also been safe at 1st on a throwing error where the opponent threw the ball into the dugout and I was awarded 2nd base.  That was great.

I loved 2k10 and so far I'm liking 2k11 even more.