[psp] MLB

[mrwriter]

Wasn't holding out much hope for this until I read the IGN review - they made it sound pretty decent, so I decided it was worth a risk.

Just played one 'Quick Game' and am pleased to say they got it spot on. Looks great, plays well and moves at a good pace (they've not gone overboard with the cinematics which keeps things moving along, and suits the PSP perfectly I thought). Commentary is really good too, with the announcers calling the game accurately, and keeping you up to date with stats like what happened to this batter last time he was up... Feels very realistic.

Feels really natural to play too - I didn't look at the manual but managed to figure pretty much everything out on my own, even managed a couple of spectacular looking double plays and squeaked a runner out at second having used a relay fielder to get the ball there quicker. Phillies lost 5-4 in the ninth though :cry:

Anyway, if anyone likes baseball they should definitely consider it. It's ad-hoc and infrastructure too, but when I looked there was only one guy in the lobby and he didn't want to play (so why he was in the lobby I don't know!) - apparently it's too laggy right now anyway, but hopefully 989 will fix the servers soon...

[slick66]

ive been waiting for this for a while (or mvp, i wasnt too bothered) so have ordered my psp with this in tow from ncsx. posted on monday so should hopefully be here for thursday, looking forward to it since ive picked up a baseball fetish recently

[john316]

Shame there is no franchise mode on either this or MVP :(

Would rather they just stuck the franchise on a 2nd UMD so you can have an easy choice then!

[mrwriter]

Shame there is no franchise mode on either this or MVP :(

Yeah, although I don't miss it personally as I never play them - there's a nice season mode on MLB with trades and everything though... I guess I think of PSP games as ones to play for a little while, so a lack of incredible depth doesn't bother me - and that's not to say this is shallow, cos it doesn't seem it...

Not played it again yet - might go and sit outside, see how my PSP holds up in the sunshine (81 degrees here right now :nuts: :D )

[si2k2000]

I got this on Saturday and finally got round to playing it yesterday and I have had trouble putting it down since.

I dont know about everyone else but I find it quite hard even in rookie mode. Have only hit a homer once and that was with the bases loaded. I thought it was going to be pretty easy going from then on but the Angels came back and beat me 10-9

[Scruffy the Janitor]

This was one of the first games I got for my PSP. I definitely agree with what has been said above it is awesome!

As a brit I didn't think i would be too interested but I have to say that this is my most played game - leaving the likes of wipeout, tiger and FIFA in their cases. I am soo absorbed by the depth of strategy employed in Baseball. I am fiddling with my roster at the moment and trying guys out to come up with the best closeout pitcher for the Red Sox - sounds dull but over a 96 game season you have plenty of room to tinker.

The commentary deserves a special mention - it is VERY, VERY accurate - up to date and above all helpful. It helps to know that someone is known for nailing low and away homers or is dodgy on fast or curveball's really adds to the game.

My only gripe is that occasionally your superstars have a stinker and no matter what you do you can't put anything together, get outs or score runs. I even had one game (on the back of a 15-5 drubbing of the Yankees) where i did not get ONE hit. Now i know perfect games are rare as hell is baseball so i am hoping this is a freak result. Didn't think I was doing anything different from the previous game where I batted in 15 runs but hey-ho, such is sport i suppose.

[mrwriter]

I'm still playing it a lot - not finding it all that difficult though, soon had to bump up the difficulty from rookie...

I'd advise turning the error frequency down a little bit - until you do that the game seems (and it may just be perception) to be a little biased in favour of the trailing team. If you're winning your players seem to make a lot more mistakes that allow the side that's losing some cheap scores - I'm not suprised for example to hear you say that you lost a game that you had been comfortably winning, you'll find that happens a lot :)

My only real gripes with it are that the online section is completely unplayable (or it was the last time I played it!), and that after a while the barebones presentation (no cut scenes, no automatic replays) makes it feel a little empty, but for a quick blast in the car or wherever it really does help make the time pass faster.

I'm glad I didn't wait for MVP - EA doesn't really seem to have gotten to grips with the PSP yet...

[Scruffy the Janitor]

I got this on Saturday and finally got round to playing it yesterday and I have had trouble putting it down since.

I dont know about everyone else but I find it quite hard even in rookie mode. Have only hit a homer once and that was with the bases loaded. I thought it was going to be pretty easy going from then on but the Angels came back and beat me 10-9

had me beat for a while but the thing to remember with Rookie is all you have to do is TIME the ball.

You will soon get the hang of which type of pitch you sluggers like to hammer. You will also get to realise that some are unhittable - rest assured you will (unbelievably) start to recognise a pitch type just by looking at it. As I said it is all about timing with Rookie. If you face a pitch that you want to send to (for instance) left field you logically have to swing very late if it is close to you to you and very early if it is away from you. Remember the bat swings in an arc the important thing is to make sure the meat of the bat swings through the part of the strike zone that the ball is going to.

This is not the case for Bunting - you can choose which side you bunt too using the d-pad (useful if you are buntin to get a man into first OR using a scrifice bunt to get a run in)

You can bias the elevation of the ball on the d-pad (fly or ground ball) but if you get it wrong based on the pitch (highly likely) you WILL get picked of by either the short stop or the deep centre fielder.

you will get the hang of it, honest.

[MR.COATES]

Mmmm.

I also have NO interest in Baseball at all but used to love playing the Allstar Baseball games (think Acclaim did them). No reason, just seemed to be good fun.

Might give this some consideration then!

[slick66]

ive been hammering this since i bought it, loving it at the minute.

i made the transition from rookie to veteran and it definitely took a while before my hitting improved but im more or less there now, probably win about 70% of my games so theres still a good challenge.

by far the best way to get good hitting is to learn how the pitcher throws and to guess the pitch type correctly to get the hitting bonus (although in veteran you also have to guess the location as well as the type which takes a while to get on with)

cracking game overall, ridge racer has hardly had a look in thanks to this

[si2k2000]

Its amazing how accurate they have gotten the various pitches of the pitchers.

It was quite funny because I was hitting Kurt Schilling of the Red Sox all over the place and then they replaced him with Tim Wakefield. I remember watching him against the Yankees earlier in the season and remembered he threw a knuckle ball (which is a real slow ball) and when I was watching I couldnt understand how none of the Yankees could hit him I kept saying to my mate that I reckon I could hit him out of the park. Anyway he came in against me and I promptly struck the next 3 innings. lol