bouncingsoul

I played a great game against the Yankees last night as Oakland. In the top of the 2nd, Mussina nails Eric Byrnes in the upper back. So, pitching with Rich Harden, I bean Sheffield in the bottom of the inning. The umpire warns both benches, but the damn Yankees won't give in. Later in the 5th Mussina throws right at Chavez's head, brushing him back, so of course I retaliate by beaning A-Rod. Harden gets ejected, but the Yankees....the Yankees keep pitching inside, and almost hit Kielty in the foot. Most likely it wasn't intentional (there's no way the AI is really that smart/vengeful), but nevertheless, I was fuming. So I nail Ruben Sierra in the bottom of the 7th, he charges the mound, and both benches clear. Sierra, my pitcher, and my shortstop get ejected. Awesome.

jdpatri

You guys are making it awfully difficult not to buy this game. Beaning ARod sounds like a lot of fun.

Has anyone simulated a number of seasons ahead to check the player development? I mean eventually the talent has to retire... and then are you left with teams full of scrubs?

Setzer

Sweet!

SpaceBoy

I picked this up, simply because of this thread. That and needed a baseball game. I got it off ebay though, for less than 40 shipped so I gotta be patient.. until it arrives.

nickdawgy

I tried that, and they always make contact with the ball. Usually a line drive double. If they don't swing it's because it's out of the strike zone, and if they do swing and miss, it's a changeup.

I obviously just suck ass at pitching if you can shutout the computer 4 times in a row with the Orioles and I am using the Angels and getting owned.

nickdawgy

I think I saw on the Gamefaqs boards that between the 3 games (MVP, ESPN, ASB), OXM gave ESPN the lowest rating, like an 8.1. MVP got a 9.1, and ASB somewhere in between.

namrfumot

I just changed the gameplay options. I game my team a 4 in both contact and power, and slightly increased my outfielders speed.

Played the Orioles and I lost 1-0, leaving a man at 3rd in the 9th

So either a 4 or 5 will even things out nicely.

nickdawgy

Only problem is that changing the sliders makes it so you can't earn MVP points I believe.

RUN-DvdMC

You guys are killing me with this thread because I loved WB2k3 so much last year and I'm afraid to try something different. Let the pushback of the ESPN game I'm not sure I can wait that long to play a 2004 baseball game. I'd try to pick it up used but it's so new that no one has turned it in yet. I guess I'll have to wait then decide later, but the wait is killing me!!!!

nickdawgy

Take the plunge, buy MVP!!

taylor34

Well, as a guy who played a lot of wsb 2k3 last year (and high heat), I can give you these opinions on MVP 2004 after renting it:

The good:
1) pitcher/batter interface is great
2) hr's are hard to come by, game is pretty balanced

The bad:
1) You have to 162 game seasons, no shortened options
2) Franchise mode player progression is broke, so in 2008 there still isn't a single good young player in the league.
3) The AI is terrible, esp. with fielding
4) The game is quite honestly the buggiest console sports game I've ever seen

It's a fun game, but is not a good choice if you want to play multiple seasons. If single season and exhibition games are what you desire, then MVP fits the bill.

Taylor34

nickdawgy

So I played again, on pro. The final game of a 3 game series with the Rangers. Lost 20-6. Gave up 28 hits, 17 doubles, 2 homers. One of their guys had 5 hits, everyone that batted on their team had at least 1 hit.

For all the cool stuff MVP has, it's %$#@ pissing me off that I can't pitch to save my $%$#@ life. This is so frustrating. I hear everyone else say "I can't hit homers, but I shut this team out, and threw a no hitter, etc"

I'd gladly trade my homer hitting ability to actually pitch a game where I gave up less then 15 friggin hits. Every pitch is swung at and is either a double, homer, single, ground out, or circus catch deep fly out.

I aim the pitch, let the meter charge all the way up, and nail the green area just right, and bam, homer. I try the same thing except let the pitch charge up a little less, bam triple. I aim somewhere else, homer. I try a different pitch, double.

I am obviously doing something wrong, because even when I played rookie, I was winning 17-10 type games. At least I was winning, though. Plus at least I had a strikeout or two in rookie mode. I can't imagine playing anything higher then pro, geez.

So please, you people that are owning batters, please enlighten me. Tell me exactly what you are doing, how you pitch, etc.

I am so close to just taking this stupid game and throwing it out the window.

nickdawgy

Jadakiss

Wow, that's pretty bad. I'm guessing you don't really watch a lot of baseball and don't know how you should be pitching.

A lot of casual baseball fans that I've talked to that have MVP pretty much just pitch to the "blue boxes", thinking that the computer can't hit when you pitch it to their cold zone. Is that all you do? Do you work the corners? Ever throw stuff outside of the strike zone? That's a must..you gotta mix it up to keep the hitter off balance.

None of the games I've played have been high scoring. I have lots of realistic scores and hit totals. But you have to tell us how you pitch so we could tell you what you're doing wrong.

Also, another big note: don't throw balls in the upper half of the strike zone. The computer usually crushes those pitches, just like I do when I'm hitting. Those are the easiest pitches to drive..I usually keep most of my pitches in the lower part of the zone.

namrfumot

I'll work a guy low and inside with a few sliders (maybe even a bit out of the strike zone) then i'll bust him high and outside with a fastball.

or work him with all fastballs, then throw a change.

constantly change speeds and locations!

nickdawgy

I watch alot of baseball, just never really paid attention to the pitches I guess.

Ok, I'll try that tonight. So no high ones, and throw outside the strike zone sometimes? I never really threw outside the strike zone, so I guess I should start. But I do try and get the ball half in the zone, half out. Do you have a certain button to pitch outside the zone, or do you manually aim outside the zone?

I had thrown the balls mainly to the cold zones, but heard somewhere that is just where the hitter is struggling, and if you kept throwing there, he'd wise up and figure you out. I heard sometimes people get k's in the red zones. I tried a red zone pitch, and the ball still hasn't landed yet

Do you press the button twice when pitching, once to aim, and then once in the green? Or three times, once to aim, once to do the strength, and once in the green?

Jadakiss

You have to manually aim the ball outside of the strike zone. Like what I'll do a lot of times is when I get ahead of a batter in a count, like if it's 1-2 or something like that, I'll throw them a high fastball that's out of the zone. They usually can't reach it but they bite on it and I'll get the strikeout. Try throwing a lot of junk pitches out of the strike zone when you get ahead 0-2 or 1-2 on a hitter, you'll see that they chase a lot of pitches.

Another tip is to check your pitch history. If you notice that a guy has 2 hits off of you already in the game and he's coming up to bat again, check the pitch history and see what pitches he's been hitting and try to avoid throwing that again.

Jadakiss

Was this a joke?

nickdawgy

Nope

Jadakiss

Oh, you were bashing the game so I figured you had read the instructions before playing it.

But you have to hold down the button and release it at the end of the meter, then press it again when it hits the green accuracy zone. Have you been just pressing the button this whole time instead of holding it down? That would explain a lot of things.

nickdawgy

Been trying a few things, so yeah

Maybe that is why I have been getting owned. I am about to play a game now, I'll report back with the results in a few.

nickdawgy

I just played 2 more games, and wow, what a difference. The AAA game I played, I won 3-2, gave up 6 hits. The pro game I played I won 1-0, gave up 7 hits. Had 5 k's in the game. I can't believe the whole time I thought I sucked, and it turns out I was pitching wrong LOL

I am liking this game again

The 1-0 game was great. It was scoreless until the 7th inning when Troy Glaus hit a solo shot to deep center for the games only run. In the 9th inning, with Troy Percival pitching, Edgar Martinez tried to leg out a double, but Garret Anderson threw him out. Percival then struck out the next two batters.

Thanks to you guys that gave me advice, and put up with my "this game cheats, this game sucks" rants

nickdawgy

I was actually wrong. MVP got a 9.1, ESPN a 8.1, and ASB a 7.2 from OXM.

nickdawgy

For some reason I can't earn MVP points. I have the legends allowed in dynasy mode off, I haven't touched the sliders, what am I doing wrong? I hit 2 homers with Troy Glaus my last game, and Escobar pitched a complete game, yet no points were added to my profile. This is pretty frustrating.

taylor34

Still laughin' at me now?

Taylor34