Step Up For the Next Evolution in Major League Baseball – Major League Baseball 2K5

by Louis Bedigian

“One of the biggest things you'll see this year is picture-in-picture baserunning.”

You can’t call your game Major League Baseball if it isn’t Major League Baseball.  I’m not implying that someone would refer to Madden as the next MLB hit.  But if a developer’s going to say that their game belongs in the world of Major League Baseball, it had better have major gameplay mechanics, incredible leagues, and several unique features that make it more than merely another interactive take on America’s favorite pastime. 

If you don’t have what it takes to be the best, don’t even bother trying.  And if you think you have what it takes to be the best, think again.  2K Sports is about to release the next evolution in sports gaming, Major League Baseball 2K5.   

It’s bold, it’s beautiful, and it’s got more people diving through the air than The Matrix.  Can you compete?  Or should you just give into their demands, play their masterpiece and leave the game creation process to them?  The answer is hidden within this article.  Put on your “hidden message” goggles and see if you can find it.

Don’t Be Such A Lag

Lag is a drag and these guys know it.

“[Lag] is something that is much improved over 2K4,” says Product Manager Chien Yu.  “To really sit down and play a game back-to-back, you wouldn’t notice a difference.  You might notice that maybe the cut scenes don’t come up just as fast, it’s probably a millisecond slower.  You kind of feel that.  But as far as latency goes that’s not something you’ll really notice.”

I Might Have Fatigue, But Please Hold The Vioxx

In a perfect world you could pitch forever.  We don’t live in that world, so why should our games pretend we do? 

Chien Yu: “[Player fatigue is] one of the first things we did with the online leagues.  We didn’t want everyone to use the same starting pitcher every single time.  We set it up so that you can bring in other starters.  So let’s say it’s a regular season game, you’ve got Randy Johnson pitching, and you started to bring in another one of the Yankee starters, [both he and Randy] would be fatigued the next game, so you wouldn’t be able to use those guys.

“It’s set up by the number of innings.  So if you went three innings with one he’ll probably be out a few games, and if he went six innings he’ll probably be out five [or six] games.”

Gaming Goodness Locked In

Major League Baseball 2K5 has dozens of unlockable features not available in ANY of the previous versions.

•  Unlock Classic Jerseys

•  Unlock Classic Teams

•  Unlock New Skybox Modes

•  Test Your Knowledge With MLB 2K5’s Trivia Mode

•  Around 90 Hidden Features, Unlock Them All!

Hey!  Who left a banana peel on the field!? 

You Don’t Need ESPN If You Have ESP

The ESPN license may have been taken away, but there’s hope for fans of Jon Miller and Joe Morgan’s stellar commentary.  Associate PR Manager Anthony Chau gives us a glimpse of their future with the series.

“We’re working that out,” he says, surprising everyone.  “I can’t give you a really good answer, but we’re working it out right now and we’re finding out that there might still be a possibility that we can get commentators who work for ESPN in our games.  That might not be the case, but we’re working to see who we can get.  We would really love to get Jon Miller and Joe Morgan back, no doubt about it.  There might be a chance.”

He then reaffirmed that while he can’t confirm anything, they are pursuing both Jon Miller and Joe Morgan for another season.

Playing Catch

It’s time to pitch our Qs to Chien Yu (Product Manager) and Anthony Chau (Associate PR Manager).

What makes the new control scheme innovative?  What makes it the superior way to play?

Chien Yu: As far as baserunning goes, one of the biggest things you’ll see this year is picture-in-picture baserunning.  I think that it’s innovative [and] cool because it really gives you a whole over view of all your baserunners.  We’re all familiar with other sports games where you have a little diamond in the corner of the screen that shows you where your runners are by dots.  I’ve always felt that that’s been confusing.  You don’t really know when you input a command to tell your runner to go to the next base.  You know, “Did I do that right?  Did I not do that right?  Is going to take that one base?  How come is he taking to bases?”  You know you never really got a good visual confirmation.

For picture-in-picture, we made the window so much larger.  So you can actually see if a fielder is close by.  You can also see, by just the direction/orientation of the window on the screen, how far you are away from the next base.  Is he close enough to slide, is he too far away?  It gives you immediate visual confirmation if you inputted the right command.  Before you wouldn’t know, you’d just press a few buttons and hope for the best.  Now you can actually see, “Yes, I’ve got him going to second, I’ve got him going to third.”  You can see that for each individual runner.

As far as pitching goes we really went all out this year with K-Zone Pitching.  The way that works is not only does it look great, but it gives you control over every aspect that a pitcher would have. 

He must be really strong to lift him with one hand like that. 

Tell us everything there is to know about the Online Leagues: tournaments, updates of other games in progress, the advanced messaging system, etc.

CY: You can sign up on Xbox Live or PS2 online, you can look for leagues, you can create leagues.  If you’ve ever played fantasy [sports] before, it’s pretty similar to that.  You know, how you would join the fantasy league.

You create leagues with your own rules, the number of teams up to you.  You can pretty much have a 30-team league or a 14-league, 15-league games.  At the administrator you can set it up so that if there’s a no show, you can advance that game and determine what went on with that, simulation-wise.

You’ll get e-mail messages from team owner within the league.  You can check stats online – it’ll look exactly like any sports page.  You can track stats, you can do write-ups.  It’s all there.  It’s like a combination of fantasy sports and video games.

You can't really know what a game is going to look like till you play it for yourself.  Help us visualize the final product -- paint a picture for us of the game's most breathtaking graphical moments.

CY: Some of the best I’ve seen deals with time-of-day lighting.  You know, you’re at twilight with sun flare in your eyes as you’re looking up.  Your outfielder is running, trying to chase down a homerun ball.  He’s looking up, he’s jumping, you see the clouds, you see the twilight of the sky, the sun’s in your eyes but you can kind of track where the ball is going.

Anthony Chau: One thing that’s really stood out when I played the game is the commentary.  You have a baseball veteran like Jon Miller and a favorite like Joe Morgan, sometimes I put the controller down and I just listen to a game called by then.  It sounds like a real game.  It’s really fantastic, how the chemistry works.  You really get a lot of immersion.

Secondly, I have to make a note of this because it’s probably one of the best animations I’ve seen.  Last night I was playing the game and there was basically a home plate collision where I knocked the ball from the catcher.  The catcher was knocked down, the baserunner was knocked down.  The catcher went and looked for the ball, and the baserunner crawled to the base.  It was probably one of the best animations I’ve seen in the game.  It was really, really cool.

It’s an awesome game and is much improved over last year and I think you’ll see that when it comes out in March. 

Thank goodness for Clorox Bleach. 

What kinds of techniques were used to achieve these great visuals?

CY: Yeah, all the animations in the game were motion captured.  I’d say it took about six or seven days, 12-hour days in a motion-capture studio with a bunch of actors.  Capturing fielding animations, batting animations, celebrations, cut scene animations, all that stuff.  I would say there’s probably, in total, with all the variances and various positions of the players, there’s probably 1,000 animations in the game.  New to this year’s game!

I’ve heard there’s a turbo feature being implemented.

CY: Yes.  There are two different ways to boost your speed.  One is for defensive purposes when you’re fielding.  That is used by holding down the right trigger.  You’ll see a turbo meter right below your fielder.  It’ll shrink as you use up your turbo.

The other is to give a boost to your baserunner.  Now I don’t know about you, but something I always thought was missing from baseball games, was that sometimes you have a player close to a base, and you just wish, “Man, if there was something I could do to make that baserunner hustle a little more.”  We’ve got it this year.  All you do is mash on that button to control the runner.  It’s like the old Track & Field games – if you wanna make him go faster, just mash that button and you’ll give him a boost.

Do the weather changes have a gameplay effect?

CY: Yes.  Wind definitely affects the direction of the ball.  So if you have wind flow into the stadium, homeruns will be harder to hit because the wind could carry it back into the stadium.  Likewise, if wind is blowing away from the stadium you could get a number of foul balls.

As far as field degradation goes, that’s a given for any weather condition.  Chalk line, grass, all that stuff visually degrades as the game goes on.  But what’s on the ground doesn’t actually affect performance.

Thanks to Chase at Access Communications and everyone at 2K Sports for having a wonderful conference call.