Major League Baseball 2K8 Conference Call Highlights
Posted by Ramon Aranda on 02.26.2008
We speak to producer Ben Brinkman on what's on tap for 2008.
Late last week we had a chance to speak with Ben Brinkman on a conference call about all things Major League Baseball 2K8. Ben gave us some insight on the developmental process as well as what we can expect from the upcoming 2008 edition. Highlights of the call are below:
Added all new AI for pitching , batting and fielding. 90 playable minor league teams. Added card trading.
The goal was to add something completely new. They wanted to add right stick and they’ve made it so that using the right analog stick feels like you’re throwing the ball. More precision pitching as far as location.
The demo is on its way for the Xbox 360 and PS3.
The game will run at 60 fps pretty consistently. Much more fluid experience compared to last year’s version. A lot of optimization was done early on during development. The PS3 runs much smoother than it did last year.
The trading card feature was brought in to give you a reason to play over and over. The cards have specific challenges that you can take on which also earns you Achievement points as well as newer, rarer cards. You’re able to create a team with the players on the cards that you have and play online against other players. You’ll be able to create a new team based off those players with new logos and uniforms.
Runners will now make better decisions (AI). More realistic thinking process from computer runners. A ton of new animations have been added to the game.
One of the biggest challenges of working on 2K8 was making sure it was as polished as possible and making the ship date.
The level of difficulty seemed a bit off in last year’s edition but Brinkman stated that they’ve tweaked the balance of the game on the various difficulty levels.
The icons that tell you what to do such as when to dive have been removed.
Ben’s favorite part of the game is pitching. He says that the way it was developed makes pitching seem more natural.
For those that may not enjoy the new pitching mechanics, there will be a way to switch it back to button mapping so you won’t be forced to use the analog stick.
Depending on how good your infielders are, sometimes you’ll see them overthrow a ball or bounce the ball on its way over to first.
As far as the roster updates, there will be one around ship date, opening day and at least one around all-star break, near-trade deadline, after the trade deadline and around the post season.
Some new changes to Franchise mode is the addition of those 90 minor league players and other CPU managers will also go for some of the minor league players to bring them up to the majors.
Up to four teams can be player controlled during Franchise mode.
Minor league teams will be playable again during your season. There will be 18 authentic minor league stadiums.
The Wii version will not have online play but is a very fun game to play according to Brinkman.
Online matchmaking will be based off win-loss record as well as who your opponents were.
The sound effects coming from making contact with the ball will sound different depending on where the ball makes contact with the bat.
Ben mentioned that the swinging on MLB 2K7 for the Nintendo Wii felt much more natural than it did on The Bigs which featured a slight delay from the point you swing to the player’s animation.
With the Wii version, there will be no online features including updated rosters for this year’s version.
As far as the pay-off pitch, it’s a little more challenging now and the feature only received a small tweak but Ben thinks it feels completely new.
Major League Baseball 2K8, rated E for Everyone by the ESRB, will be available in retail stores in March 4, 2008 for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation Portable. The Nintendo DS version will be arriving in April.
