cjlima22's Blog

 

Since the majority of pitchers and catchers have been or will be reporting to their spring training camps, we figured that, lost in all the hub-bub of moving and packing, baseball players might have forgotten to send their sweetie a Valentine's Day poem.

No need to fret, we've got it covered.

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

Just when you thought the circus might be over, baseball's two biggest numbnuts throw another clown into the ring.

According to the Associated Press and ESPN.com Barry Bonds and Jose Canseco are neck and neck in the race to become "Baseball's Biggest Loser". Bonds asks a Federal Judge to dismiss the perjury charges levied against him, while Canseco asks a Tiger for, well, basically he asks him for a bribe.

Canseco, according to a report filed by the FBI, asked Tigers outfielder Magglio Ordonez to invest in a movie project funded by Canseco. In exchange, Canseco said he would keep Ordonez's name out of his upcoming book, a sequel to his 2005 hit "Juiced".

Mags had this to say according to ESPN.com:

"I didn't want to press charges against him," Ordonez was quoted as saying. "I don't want any problems. He is probably desperate for money. I don't understand why he is trying to put people down."

Ordonez was not one of the players named in the Mitchell Report.

Continuing the ongoing drama between Bonds and the United States government, Bonds asked a federal judge to dismiss perjury charges against him Wednesday, arguing the indictment is "scattershot" and noted for its "striking inartfulness." (ESPN)

Bonds and his lawyers complained that the line of questioning was ambiguous, confusing, and too much for Bonds' over sized noggin to handle.

2K Sports announced that the latest installment in their baseball video game franchise will be released March 3, 2008. Gamespot.com interviewed Ben Brinkman, 2k8's Producer. In the interview, Brinkman discusses some of the game's new features:

"Well, to start we added 90 minor-league teams to the game, including authentic uniforms, many authentic minor-league stadiums, and a few generic ones as well. Going hand-in-hand with that, we had to do a ton of work on the franchise mode, so you can expect a better and much more complete experience there.

We've also added many new unlockable "special" teams incorporating both current and legendary players. We've also got a pretty cool new approach to unlockables in general. We've implemented a new baseball-card system, in which you can earn players' cards by completing certain tasks. You can then sell duplicate cards for credits to buy new card packs, which consist of 10 cards and may include a stadium or special team. But by far the coolest part of the card system is the online card battles. When you have enough player cards to fulfill the requirements of a full team, you can then combine your cards to create a team and take head-to-head against other gamers' card teams online.

On the gameplay side, the big push was for realism. One area we knew we could improve from 2K7 was the hitting engine. Why am I able to hit an opposite-field home run on a pitch that jammed me off the handle of the bat? This shouldn't be. So first off, we completely gutted and rewrote the hitting engine, and the results are outstanding. Along with this, we tweaked the swing stick from 2K7 to increase your control and give it a better feel overall. This is dubbed "Swing Stick 2.0." The idea was to give batting more "oomph" when you swing. Baseball swings consist of two motions: back and forward. Basically we took the power swings from the swing stick and made them the default way to swing, minus the loft and power boost. We think it makes swings far more responsive, rewarding. and natural. Everything from going the other way with an outside pitch to checking your swing feels natural. My favorite is ripping that pitch in down the line. There is just something extremely satisfying about that!

We've also designed an entirely new and unique pitching interface which is unlike anything that's been done before. The main input comes from the right analog stick. The execution involves matching a gesture to throw the desired pitch. This enables a lot more granularity from the input than a digital face-button approach. We'll reveal more on this later. I know this might be met with mixed opinions on the message boards, but do us a favor and wait for the demo before you rush to judgment. We've spent a lot of time and iterations on this and, frankly, I will never pitch using buttons again. I really love it.

Finally, there is also a new right-stick throwing interface in the field. While you may have seen similar mechanics in the past, we've put a new spin on it which we believe is pretty innovative in its own right. The biggest goal was to give more control to the user and have the results be intuitive and realistic, and we're really happy with it.

Having said all that, we will still provide the option to choose between the pitching, batting, and throwing interfaces from previous years, but we believe once you've used the new ones, you won't want to go back."

cjlima22

to cjlima22