I had the opportunity to sit in on a conference call with Ben Brinkman, Producer of Major League Baseball 2K8. Ben was taking this time in order to give a deeper look into this year’s installment of their baseball franchise straight from the horse’s mouth. Now, while I understand the PlayStation 3 has almost been deemed MLB 08: The Show territory, I can also say with confidence that it probably wouldn’t hurt to take a look at MLB 2K8 as well. Here are the reasons as to why that may be a smart move on your part in order to find the best baseball experience available to you.

This had been Ben’s second year in development with the franchise and it happens to be part of his 3-year plan. For the second installment, 2K Sports has focused strongly on the developmental content of the PlayStation 3 console. Outside of revamping and updating all of the issues that came with MLB 2K8, they’ve dedicated themselves to also offering up a slew of new features that may interest the baseball enthusiast at heart.

One thing they realized going into this was that no matter how great the franchise mode was, or the trading card feature seemed to be, none of it would matter if the actual gameplay didn’t make those things worth doing. So that obviously played great reasoning as to why they decided to completely revamp the batting, base-running, fielding, and pitching A.I, to offer a much more realistic baseball feel. So if you were worried about a plethora of homeruns or a lack of them, you can be happy to know that Ben said there was going to be a happy-medium between the two.

Part of the batter intelligence is now the ability to actually simulate a similar hitting style to their real life counterpart. Now, by this, I do not mean the signature swing, instead I mean you can expect to see a lot more doubles and triples mixed in with those singles and homeruns that seemed way too frequent in last year’s release. On top of this, a ton of different hit variations have been added into the batting mechanics. You’ll no longer see the same style of at-bat over and over again. They’ve successfully added in squibblers, slow rollers, chipper hits, etc. With an ample supply of new hit possibilities it will bring the real life game to your television screen a lot more fluidly.

As for the pitching intelligence, you can expect to see a ton of new things, including the way you pitch as well. 2K Sports has taken a note out of EA’s book with the right-analog pitching. According to Ben, they saw how things worked in Tiger Woods and Fight Night and felt that would be a good match for their innovative pitching mechanic.

Apparently, depending on how you move the analog stick will not only dictate the accuracy of your pitch, but the pitch type as well. Poor timing will result in an inaccurate throw which could cause you to pay dearly. As for the actual intelligence of your CPU challenger, you’ll see an increase in intelligence from him as well. Pitchers will now dictate their style on which batter is at the plate , this will lead to a different pitching look with every upcoming player. On top of this, you’ll see a new variety of pitches, from balls in the dirt, to wild pitches at a much more accurate percentile.

Also, pitching towards the hot/cold zones is now going to play a huge factor. If you continually decide to try and hit the cold corner, every single time, the batter will eventually pick up on this and make you pay for it. So don’t think you’ll be able to walk your way to victory this way. Also, expect to see a lot more balls with the new pitching mechanic if you’re continually trying to hit corners.

One of the bigger issues in last year’s title was the gimmick pitches that were involved in online and offline play. El Duque was famous for this, when questioned, Ben said that he didn’t directly notice any gimmick pitches like ... (continued on next page)