Tag Archives: gaming

MLB 12: The Show…Full Features List

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Less than a month from release of the premiere baseball game every year, SCEA has released the full list of features and improvements for MLB 12: The Show. There were many complaints about last year’s game with the majority of them being how little the game had changed from ’10 to ’11. To an extent, those who complained were correct.

However, the game is already one of, if not, the best sports simulation available anywhere. It laughably crushes the game play of 2k Baseball and rivals what many consider the greatest baseball game ever made, EA’s MVP 2005.

Thanks to two of my favorite sites, Operationsports, and Pastapadre for breaking this news. As of this writing, I have yet to find it anywhere else.

You can full the complete list of features from those sites, but I’ve broken down what I believe are the most significant. I’ll skip the PS3/Vita combination functionality because everyone knows about that. I’m also specifically talking about the PS3 version of the game.

TRUE BALL PHYSICS: Essentially the ball itself will bounce realistically. We’ve seen how “true physics” works in other games and I have not been impressed. Let’s see if SCEA does this right.

TruBroadcast Presentations: It’s already one of the best around, and they claim to be making the biggest stride forward in the history of the series. I can’t wait.

Diamond Dynasty: It’s not a direct copy of Fifa, Madden, and NHL’s ultimate team…but it’s very similar.

Full Move Support: Now you can play the game in a different and MUCH LESS accurate way. Hooray!

Zone Analog Batting: A very welcome addition and something that I know the community was clamoring for last year.

Pulse Pitching: The video was released last week. Just another way to pitch…I believe this makes 3.

Franchise Improvements: These improvements are all pretty minimal. I expect to be disappointed when it comes to the final result.

Road to the Show Improvements: Last year was quite the RTTS makeover. This year, like franchise improvements, I expect to be disappointed.

Situational Collision Awareness: Hopefully this isn’t over done. These are exactly the kind of features that sports games add, only to see them exaggerated or used way more frequently than would happen in real life.

My persistence prize, courtesy of MLB 11: The Show.

Challenge of the Week is now free: I was fortunate to have won a COTW in last year’s game. I won a Buster Posey autographed World Series jersey. I also had to pay a pretty penny to get it. It really didn’t allow for everyone to have a true chance at a prize. For me, it took several tries to get the hang of each week’s challenge and you were only given one free chance. This levels the playing field, but don’t expect the prizes to be as nice.

New Tag Animation System: This feature is LONG overdue. I cringed nearly every time I saw a play at the plate and the catcher doing that exact same tagging animation. I expect to see much more realistic tag action this year.

SimulView™ Functionality with PlayStation®3D Display: Now THIS is interesting. I don’t have a 3D TV, nor will it ever be a reason I buy a certain television. However, for those who do play 2 players on the same screen, you can understand the frustration of seeing where the other will be pitching the ball. This eliminates that problem completely. In fact, each player sees something completely different on screen.

New Pick off logic: This needs overhauled as well…I hope it is done properly. In fact, I’d like to see base running as a whole be changed as I believe that is the weakest part of The Show.

14 New umpires: More tendencies is always a good thing. There are over 100 MLB umpires and they are all somewhat different. The Show is trying to replicate that.

Co-op available in Season and Franchise modes: This 1000%. You have no idea how easy this should have been to implement last year. It’s such as welcome addition. Now make it so you can have an online franchise with a friend. How is this not a standard option in all sports games?

I am disappointed to not hear of the bunting system being fixed. Perhaps it is, but I wouldn’t count on it.

I’d also like assurances that online play will be lag free. This is the down side to only being available on the slow and choppy Playstation Network Sony Entertainment Network.

Overall, I like the new features and hope they make for an even better product than MLB 11 offered us.

NBA Jam: On Sale Edition

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Xbox gamers can get the sequel to an overpriced and mediocre game a little bit cheaper this week. NBA Jam: On Fire Edition is dropping the price from 1200 ($15) MS to 800 ($10) MS.

Team fire, tag mode, and vastly improved AI are a couple of the changes made to this XBLA download. If you were turned off quickly by the $50 version of the game and haven’t checked out “On Fire” for that reason, now might be a great time to get reacquainted with the series. I assure you, this version is superior in nearly every way.

Bioshock Infinite Ending a Mystery to Everyone

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According to an interview in the latest issue of Playstation 3 Magazine, Ken Lavine, director of Bioshock Infinite, isn’t revealing the ending of the game to his team.

This idea behind this is to get their reactions to it as they progress through the story.

Lavine told PSM3, “Keeping people virgins to that content is really important because you never get that reaction from someone a second time.”

The Founding Fathers will sick Big Daddy on anyone who spoils endings.

The story has been an overwhelmingly big part of the Bioshock, and Bioshock 2. It has always been full of twists, turns, and surprises. It appears Bioshock Infinite will be more of the same…in a good way.

The prequel, set in 1912, and in the sky rather than the underwater city of Rapture, will be released later this year. You can be certain there will be more and more information on this blockbuster as the weeks roll by.

Miami Marlins Ball Park in MLB 12: The Show

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Check out MLB 12: The Show’s trailer for the brand new Miami Marlins Ball Park. It shows a very detailed stadium, complete with the large monstrosity just beyond the curved left-center field wall.

It seems that just about everything is consistent with the real life stadium. My favorite feature is the giant aquarium that is part of the backstop.

The Show has always been good about being accurate with stadiums that have yet to host a game. Target Field is a great example of this from the past two years.

The Simpsons Arcade Game Arrives on XBLA, PSN

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Xbox Live Arcade and the Playstation Network have been bringing classic arcade games to a new (and older) generation of gamers for the last few years, but one game was at the top of the list almost unanimously…The Simpson’s Arcade Game. Earlier in the week, The Simpsons was added to XBLA and on Tuesday it will be available on PSN. The cost is $10.

This means all of the “Big 3″ arcade classics will be available to play on current consoles using the original ROM. The other two, of course, are Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and 6 player X-Men.

Having only played the demo, my thoughts on the release are similar to those of the other two. It’s not going to be as fun as you remember it. The demo gives you the first of 8 levels to play through. I completed it in roughly 3 minutes. Yes, this is absolutely the same game you played 15-20 years ago in the arcade.

Need money? This guy probably has a few hundred of your quarters from years ago.

As with TMNT and X-Men, this is most enjoyable when playing with the maximum amount of players, in this case 4, whether it be on the same console or online. Playing with multiple gamers allows you to do special moves and makes for great double teaming. Of course there are more enemies and bosses are harder, but that’s to be expected.

It will get boring rather quickly however, as you aren’t actually pumping real quarters into the machine as you did back in the day. It’s just a matter of pressing start to give you another credit and off you go. Thankfully there are multiple game modes where you can have “40 quarters” as a group and that is all you get. It makes the game much more challenging. You can also change the difficulty level to what you desire as well.

I highly recommend at least grabbing the demo, just to re-live the glory days of high quality arcade games.