Rob

One thing I'm really tired of in playing these games (I started late so I got a crash course and rented about 5 or 6 of them within a single month) is how they have a smattering of cool guitar tracks on the game disc and then if you want something better than the other pathetic pop songs included in the main game, you have to download them individually. It's their business model now to make sure the game itself isn't too good so you have to keep spending to have a quality product. This has kept me from buying any of their games. I just keep renting and sending them back after a week. If they want me to buy an actual game from them, they need to put more music in the main game that rocks and stop holding out on me by using so much filler.

I'm glad a game called "Guitar Hero" has decided the obvious in appealing to guitar fans. The focus needs to be on music that rocks. Not necessarily "metal," but certainly staying far away from Lady Gaga and Black Eyed Peas. 75 tracks that kick a$$ and take no prisoners. Classic rock from 1965-1995 should be the focus if they want to live up to their namesake. After that... music has gotten really watered down... with a few exceptions, of course, but to make a player feel like a guitar hero, the choices should be obvious.

Yeah, there are a few rare guys with excellent bat control. There are many good players who have some bat control and who have a chance to do that, but it is difficult. The old saying is that one of the hardest thing to do in all of sports is to hit a round ball with a round stick. Now how do you control where the ball goes when you are just trying to make solid contact with the ball traveling 90 mph towards you? Along with good bat control, you have to have a good eye for what type of pitch is coming at you too. I saw a game once where El Duque was pitching for the Yankees against the Texas Rangers. Alex Rodriguez was at bat for the Rangers. El Duque had been throwing his Eephus pitch about once an inning to buckle the knees of the Rangers hitters. It's a slow moving junk ball that starts about eye high and drops to about knee high as it crosses the plate at about 50 mph. He threw one to A-Rod and as usual, it was taken with no swing. Then (big mistake) he threw a second one in a row to see if he could catch A-Rod off guard again and A-Rod saw it the whole way. The ball ended up about 5 rows back in the left field bleachers. El Duque didn't throw it again during that game. But having just seen the pitch and figured out the timing and location of the ball, A-Rod had no problem sending that one out of the park. Ichiro has probably the best bat control of any current player. He will slash the ball into the ground between the infielders and use his speed to try to make it to first even though he knows they will get to the ball. He can control which side of the infield he hits it to. Between third and short gives him the most time to make it to base. BUT if that's not what in the best interest of winning the game, he will just adjust his swing and rope a line drive into the gap between the center fielder and right fielder. If they don't get to it quickly, he'll be standing in second without a chance to throw him out. He could hit for more power, but his game is to get on base and use his speed to make things happen for the power hitters behind him in the lineup.

Ok, that's probably more than anyone wanted to hear. Suffice it to say, there are players who have a very good chance of controlling at least which side of the field their hit will go to and with how much power they hit the ball.

Also, the pitching seemed easy to pick up in the demo, but it was hard to be as accurate as in past games. I think I might like that. It felt more realistic to have trouble hitting the exact spot I wanted every time. Hitting was tough though. It will take some getting used to. The camera angle is lower than I remember any of the previous games having, and I was having trouble making any contact at all. The timing of the ball reaching the plate was different from what I'm used to. I wasn't able to fight off any pitches with the motion of moving the joystick to the side, but I did finally get a base hit in the third inning with a contact swing. I never made any contact with the ball at all using the power swing. Most of my swings were at balls way out of the strike zone. I have no judgement of what is going to be a ball or a strike, the ball comes at you so fast and moves so much into or out of the zone. I have never been good at that though.

I just tried the demo and it seems to be the best iteration in this series yet. I've played the 2K Sports version since 2K6 on Xbox 360 was released. The demo had no commentary though as it was set up to be an exhibition game, but the gameplay was smooth, the graphics were good though still not on par with some of the NBA games I've seen. If this turns out to finally be the baseball game Xbox owners have been waiting for, that's good, but I hate to think it took them five tries to finally get it right.

From my experience talking to people about baseball over the last 25 years, the less they understand about the sport, the more boring they find watching it. When you think they are just standing there and that bores you, that's a sign that you don't know enough about what's happening. There is a constant tension in baseball, and every situation is an exciting moment about to happen. It doesn't always play out in dramatic fashion (obviously), but if you really see what's going on, you should at least not be BORED by it. There is always something going on to think about even when it appears that they are just standing there. It is too involved to explain in a message board post, but believe me, when you feel like you are just sitting there waiting for something to happen in this sport, you have probably just missed a bunch of cool stuff that you just didn't understand well enough. Baseball is probably the most cerebral sport we have, unless you consider something like chess a sport. Part of it is understanding some of the stats that are showcased in this video. I have never seen a baseball game on TV that wasn't full of stats like this, so I'm amazed that it has taken this long for a game to finally incorporate them into their commentary.

So I guess I won't be playing online anymore now that the cheat button configuration is available. The fair playing field was fun while it lasted. Thanks a lot EA.