blurredvision
Lifer
Holy crap, what a baseball game! Every year, I try out the demos, and I'm always disappointed. For some reason, for me to play a baseball game, everything has to be perfect, from the animations to the graphics to the gameplay. If anything is off, it ruins the experience for me.
However, this afternoon, I downloaded the demo on the PS3, and I am amazed at what they've done with this game. First of all, the graphics are spot-on. I'm guessing it's running in 1080p, because it's absolutely gorgeous. Next time I play the demo, I'll check to see what resolution the PS3 sends to the TV. The player models are, basically, the best I've ever seen in ANY sports game, period. None of the players that I saw looked weird or just "off", they were all 99% faithful to their real-life counterparts. Everything else, from the stadium to the crowd to everything else looks fantastic.
Next up, the animation is superb. It's hard sometimes to see the seams from one animation to the next (although it is there occassionally). The animations are varied, also. These players and umps do all kinds of stuff, mostly in between plays. I've seen an outfielder throw grass up into the air to check the wind, I've seen the second-base ump stretch his legs a bit while a batter was getting set in the box, I've seen the first-baseman talking to the guy on first in between plays...there's a LOT of stuff in this. There are so many details in the animation, also, like Josh Beckett wiggling his fingers behind his back while I was trying to figure out what pitch to throw (pitcher cam needed to see this, obviously). It all looks so real. I even saw one of my guys biting his fucking lip after he was called safe after a slide into second. He called for time, stood up, brushed himself off, and started biting his lip while looking around. These are the details I love.
I also noticed that whenever you see dirt on a player's uniform, that dirt came from a specific play in the game. I had guys come up to bat later whom I remembered had did something specific that would justify the amount of dirt and where it was on their uniform.
Other little touches I loved was that the crowd actually fought/lunged for a ball hit into the stands, and every now and then you'll see a beachball being tossed around. 1st/3rd base coaches scurry out of the wall of a hard hit ball their way, and I once saw Beckett take his cap off, scratch his head, and put his cap back on on the way back to the dugout after ending an inning. When players take their caps off, it's absolutely seamless, the animation is superb.
Oh ya, the game plays pretty well, too. I won't go into any details, though, since I'm not really the foremost expert on how a baseball game should play. The controls feel tight, I never felt like the game screwed me out of anything, which is a good thing.
So, who else has played the demo and is looking forward to it?
However, this afternoon, I downloaded the demo on the PS3, and I am amazed at what they've done with this game. First of all, the graphics are spot-on. I'm guessing it's running in 1080p, because it's absolutely gorgeous. Next time I play the demo, I'll check to see what resolution the PS3 sends to the TV. The player models are, basically, the best I've ever seen in ANY sports game, period. None of the players that I saw looked weird or just "off", they were all 99% faithful to their real-life counterparts. Everything else, from the stadium to the crowd to everything else looks fantastic.
Next up, the animation is superb. It's hard sometimes to see the seams from one animation to the next (although it is there occassionally). The animations are varied, also. These players and umps do all kinds of stuff, mostly in between plays. I've seen an outfielder throw grass up into the air to check the wind, I've seen the second-base ump stretch his legs a bit while a batter was getting set in the box, I've seen the first-baseman talking to the guy on first in between plays...there's a LOT of stuff in this. There are so many details in the animation, also, like Josh Beckett wiggling his fingers behind his back while I was trying to figure out what pitch to throw (pitcher cam needed to see this, obviously). It all looks so real. I even saw one of my guys biting his fucking lip after he was called safe after a slide into second. He called for time, stood up, brushed himself off, and started biting his lip while looking around. These are the details I love.
I also noticed that whenever you see dirt on a player's uniform, that dirt came from a specific play in the game. I had guys come up to bat later whom I remembered had did something specific that would justify the amount of dirt and where it was on their uniform.
Other little touches I loved was that the crowd actually fought/lunged for a ball hit into the stands, and every now and then you'll see a beachball being tossed around. 1st/3rd base coaches scurry out of the wall of a hard hit ball their way, and I once saw Beckett take his cap off, scratch his head, and put his cap back on on the way back to the dugout after ending an inning. When players take their caps off, it's absolutely seamless, the animation is superb.
Oh ya, the game plays pretty well, too. I won't go into any details, though, since I'm not really the foremost expert on how a baseball game should play. The controls feel tight, I never felt like the game screwed me out of anything, which is a good thing.
So, who else has played the demo and is looking forward to it?
