Recently I got a chance to speak with Brandon Justice, Director of Game Design for Quick Hit Football which is a free-to-play football game. Quick Hit Football brings gamers a very unique experience combining strategy with RPG elements in a MMO space. The small team that created this game is compiled of people who worked on MMORPGs, strategy games, and console sports titles. Although this is new territory for the crew, everyone brings in a unique perspective and it definitely shows in the game. During my conversation with Brandon we talked about some new features recently added to the ever-growing title and we also discussed the future of the title.

For those who don’t know what Quick Hit Football is, do you mind giving us a quick rundown on the game and maybe some key features that set it apart from other football titles?

Brandon - Quick Hit Football is a free-to-play football strategy game in which you don’t control the players but instead you coach them. As you play games against the computer or another user you gain points which are called Coach Points (CP) that can be used to upgrade any player’s abilities on your team. During the game you will be picking plays and the actions are carried out by the players so your goal is to utilize the strengths on your team while trying to exploit the weaknesses of your opponent. Everything in the game can be earned though simply playing the game or you can purchase CP from the store. You also have the opportunity to add NFL Legends to your team if and when you have enough CP.

When creating the game we wanted to tap into the free-to-play market where there aren’t many players in the sports space. 5-8 million people buy Madden every year, yet 20 million people play fantasy football and 40 million people watch it every Sunday. It’s a small amount of people who play football games and even smaller gaming online. What we wanted to do is find a way to tap into the 20 million people who play a very stat based football product but won’t ever get on Xbox Live or PSN but love football. With Quick Hit we wanted a game that was accessible, intuitive and at the same time authentic. We tried to make the game less about being good with the controller and more about knowing the game of football. If you get the basics of what football is about and the chess game behind it, then this is really the game for you.

Was it difficult to create a football game with the mindset that you won’t be able to use the NFL License?

Brandon – When we first started we did a lot of surveys of users and obviously using the license will help. We found in these surveys that a lot of people, especially with the younger generation, care less about the license and more about the fact that it’s a free game and an authentic experience. We are rapidly approaching or just past the million user mark in less than six months. I think the work that we’ve done so far proves that theory and it wasn’t a random sampling of people who were trying to be nice. Obviously there is a challenge but they don’t call it the No Fun League for nothing. The license can often times be creative handcuffs and what we have is the opportunity to build whatever we want. In the short term, for us, the hardest thing is rethinking how the game of football is played, how to make it more casual, more so than worrying about the license.

When I first started playing Quick Hit, I noticed there were some ads mainly during time outs and in between quarters. Since then there has been the addition of ads whenever you are waiting for the opponent. Is this something that can be disabled with a paid subscription?

Brandon - We’re in the process now of doing some testing of what works and doesn’t work for the users. We’ve actually increased the frequency, decreased the frequency but increased the display time and now we working on making more event driven like after touchdowns, during time outs, after first downs rather than seeing them all the day. Free to play for sports games is completely new territory. We want to make sure we are able to monetize the product and keep it free but by the same token we don’t want to annoy the gamers playing the game. Subscriptions are something we are looking at and a lot of our customers are asking for that as well. We are looking at different options, what we want to do with it and what will a subscription entail. Would it just be add free or would there be special subscription services only available to subscribers? We are basically looking at different packages and focus testing all of those trying to figure out what makes sense.

I understand that you guys were able to meet with former Steelers coach Bill Cowher to get some insight about coaching. What was the one thing you learned from him, and more importantly, how intimidating is he when he’s not on the sidelines?

Brandon – The chin is legendary and I’m a big Cincinnati Bengals fan in real life and I made sure to give him the business but honestly Coach Cowher was a class act. He was very friendly very receptive and the one thing I really appreciate about him is he is a consummate professional and wants to be great at what he does. He’s just a very genuine guy and he’s very hard working. Everything we threw at him he just took it like a champ and put everything he had in him to do it well. In that sense if he ever came out of retirement and wanted to coach the Bengals I would have a little bit of a problem with it but I’d get over it. As far as what we learned from him, I think we learned a lot in our short time with him. Every single conversation we had he gave us good insight about what it meant to be a coach what it meant to build a cohesive unit as a team, how to evaluate talent and how to take that talent and make your team effective. In a lot of ways those themes is really what Quick Hit Football is all about. I’ve worked with a lot of different folks throughout the years that were cover guys for products and I would have to say working with Coach Cowher was probably one of the most insightful experiences I’ve had in my career.

Is a Facebook- or Twitter-type of integration something you are looking into adding to Quick Hit?

Brandon - Right now we are at a crossroads with the product, we’ve obviously got our first version up and there is a lot of different opportunities for us. For us finding a way to get on Facebook and to get more people is definitely what we are looking at. There aren’t any majors players in the sports arena in Facebook, there are folks like EA trying to get into that space but it’s a lot easier for us to get into that. Their entire market is based on disc based games. If you look at the reaction they received from micro transactions they tried to add in their games it’s much harder for them to establish themselves with that strategy having already established the disc based game. For us getting on these social networking sites is something we always wanted to do and not only that our product is free, just like these sites. The big challenge for us is what are the things that we can add to or take away from the game to make it a bit more appealing to the people who are only used to playing games like Mafia Wars or Farmville. We have some cool ideas for how we can do this but I can’t really get into that right now.

The best part about flash games like Quick Hit Football is being able to jump in and out of a game. Right now there isn’t an option to quit a CPU game and complete it at another time. Is this something that will be added in the future?

Brandon – That’s something that we are definitely looking at. In the interest of a short experience we are looking at training modes, mini games, sudden death mode and shorten quarters. We are looking at all of those things and seeing what makes sense. The ability to save the game and pick it up later is kind of a no brainer when we get into a season mode or franchise mode or ever tournaments. I think it’s something you’ll see from us.

This game seems like a fantasy football fans dream come true, and I’m sure I’m not alone when I say I would love the ability to import a fantasy league to Quick Hit and play it out in real time. With the EA exclusive license this isn’t an option but if that were to expire would this be an option in Quick Hit Football?

Brandon - That’s something that honestly we’ve already gone pretty far down the line in terms of designing it out and how we do it. It’s one of things were EA has the license but if that agreement ever came up and we had the opportunity to do that I think it would be something that would be mad cool.

After our interview we went into a game and Brandon showed me some new features recently added to the title. The first thing  gamers will notice when they sign in to Quick Hit is the Team Page. This brand new profile page will show you everything you need to know about your team. You will see expanded stats, player info and you have the ability to access other Coach’s profile if you want to scout your opponent. This new Team HUB allows gamers to access the best coaches on the leaderboards and see how they train their players, what plays they pick and try to learn from them by looking at their stats. Along with that they also added daily rewards. Every day you log in you will get free CP, you can earn anywhere between 1-50 CP points, giving you an incentive to log in every day.

In terms of gameplay there are a ton of improvements and new features. During the game you will notice there is a FP Meter on the bottom bar now which will show you how much longer you have to go for the next level, in real time. It’s centered at the bottom of the screen and I hate them for doing this. Now that you can see, in real time, how far you are from leveling up you’ll just want to keep playing if you are only a few FP from leveling. Definitely something that kept me up at night in my WoW days and will keep me up when playing Quick Hit. Play-by-play text display has also been added to the in-game hud. Since you are looking at the game from a top down point of view and the players names don’t show up on the screen, the play-by-play will tell you exactly who caught the ball and what the result of the play was. You can toggle this on and off along with the ability to chat in the same window. Again you are seeing the influences of the development team who has worked on MMOs.

There were also some balancing tweaks that were done for offensive and defensive lines along with improvements to pass coverage. The game itself is constantly evolving with updates releasing almost every two weeks, which can be found here. Brandon and Samantha (Director of Communications) stressed the fact that they are very hands-on with the community and they both actively play the game. In fact Samantha and Brandon are proud coaches of high ranking teams in the leaderboads. This is something I can attest to, as Brandon was able to mop the floor with my team.

The one thing I got from the conversation was the team at Quick Hit Football loves what they do and it shows up in the final product. When you have everyone actively playing the game and talking to the community like they do it’s no wonder the free to play title works as well as it does. Quick Hit Football lets fantasy football players utilize their knowledge of the sport and take it to another level. Being able to coach a team and groom your championship squad is something that I’ve always wanted in a football game. Quick Hit is quickly becoming by favorite football game on the market and for anyone who loves the strategy of football but can’t handle the complicated controls, this is the game for you.

I’d like to thank Brandon and Samantha for taking the time to discuss the title with us at Spawn Kill, and if you want to learn more about Quick Hit Football you can always visit their home page or you can head over to the developers diary for everything you need to know about the updates.

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MLB 2K10 was released earlier this week and has already ran into issues with online play. In the recent developers’ conference call, which can be found here, they stressed the fact that 2K10 is not going to be like 2K9. I’m currently in the middle of reviewing the title and I have to say that this year’s title is certainly not like the previous year’s. For one thing, it works, and it is very clear that MLB 2K10 is a big improvement. However the one area that isn’t quite working up to potential is the online play. In the first few days there have been many reports of games suffering from lag, disconnect issues and now players are unable to connect to ranked matches. I myself have not been able to connect to a ranked match and have yet to try to play an unranked game. For the many people who are experiencing this issue, 2K has officially released a “workaround” to this issue while a patch is being worked on. This is what you will have to do:

“Workaround One” Most Effective

When attempting to connect, make sure it connects to the first attempt the game tries. If it moves to another connection, then simply cancel and try again. This may take a little bit longer (about 2 minutes) than connecting via workaround two.

“Workaround Two” Effective

When you select a ranked game, it will say “loading online roster” and then “restoring default roster” and move on to connect to a player. However, after it attempts to connect to another user afterwards, it will sometimes say “restoring default roster” a second time. If you see the “restoring default roster” a second time, then the glitch will happen. Simply press “A” to cancel the connection and try a ranked game again.

You should only see the game say “restoring default roster” once. Anymore than one time will cause the glitch.

Now I can’t say I’m surprised as NBA 2K10 also suffered from online issues so gamers can only hope that a patch for this issue is released much sooner than the first patch that hit the NBA title.

[Source: 2Ksports.com ]

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The Blur multiplayer beta is set to kick off next week but Activision doesn’t want you to forget about it so they released a gameplay trailer to keep the hype going. I’m not sure what will be included in the beta but Blur will be the first racing game to allow up to 20 players online at the same time with objective-based racing events. There’s no word on how many of the 50 licensed cars we’ll see in the beta but the trailer gives you a good idea of how intense the action is going to be. Check out the new trailer below!

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Not too long ago FIFA Online started the first phase of closed beta testing. Those lucky enough to get a beta code were able to be the first to experience the new browser-style FIFA game. During the closed beta players were only allowed to play the World Cup tournament. Electronic Arts today announced that the second round of closed beta testing is now live and gamers will be able to try out a few more modes. If you were in the first beta testing you will be able to get into round two of the testing. Those who have still not been accepted you can sign up again at the FIFA Online website. Here is what you will find in Closed Beta 2:

• League Mode – Choose your favorite club and lead them to domestic league glory. Begin your campaign as the new manager with a mission to lead your club to greatness. Take on the challenge for turning around your team’s fortunes by winning matches, earning In Game Currency and using the proceeds to sign new players improve your chances of winning future games.Play offline against the CPU and measure your progress against friends. Showcase your football skills and management expertise and challenge friends to do better by earning Manager Experience Points (XP).

   

• Co-op Mode and Versus Mode – Join your friends in playing their league matches or challenge them to a 1 on 1 club match.

• Manager System – Slip on the old sheepskin coat and take control of your team. Man-manage your squad to get the best out of them. Select the first 11, choose the formation and make the key mid-match decisions that make the hallmarks of the next great club manager.

• 100% Mouse Play Controls – New fixes include:
  • New practice drills
  • More details in tutorials
  • New, intuitive controls for Through ball and Lob through ball
  • Mouse lock to window for windowed mode
  • Auto-Pause on Alt-Tab

• Inventory System – Earn special rewards at the end of each match in the form of Player Equipment. Improve your players abilities with boots that improve shooting, drinks that replenish fatigue and much more.

In just two weeks of Closed Beat 1, over 25, 000 matches were played in FIFA Online. With all these new modes I expect that number to double.  The closed beta will run till March 18th. As always stay tuned at Spawn Kill for our hands on impressions of Closed Beta 2!

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Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz was one of the first games I bought for the Wii. I stayed in line overnight waiting to get my hands on a Nintendo Wii  on day one and all I bought was Monkey Ball because I couldn’t get anything else. It turned out to be one of my favorite games on the Wii. Banana Blitz was able to show people the unique controls of the Wii and the effectiveness of the console to bring people together. Coming off the successful first Wii title, Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll looks to do the same but now with the ability to connect a Wii balance board to the experience. Unfortunately, Super Monkey Ball requires very precise controls you just can’t get from the balance board but without it Step & Roll still offers the same amount of fun you come to expect from the franchise.

The formula for the sequel remains pretty much the same. In campaign mode you’ll take control of a monkey and roll through 70 stages collecting bananas and trying to get to the finish line before time runs out. Though it might seem like you’re controlling the monkey ball you’re actually moving and tilting the stage to navigate the ball. For those who still can’t picture it, think of the Labyrinth Wooden Maze Game but instead of a steel ball it’s a monkey in a plastic bubble. There are seven worlds, each with their own theme and each containing 10 stages. I really liked the look of each of the worlds including the background music that changes depending on which world you’re in.

In Banana Blitz players had the opportunity to jump, and at the end of each stage there was a boss battle. This time around that was all removed, which isn’t a terrible thing, but fans of the first one might miss it just a bit. The big draw to this year’s title is the ability to use the balance board. You’ll have to calibrate it every time if you back out to the main menu, which is a pain, but it only takes a few seconds to do so. Once you’re set you’ll run through a quick tutorial presented to you by the amazingly annoying Jam. Right away in the tutorial course you’ll find out what sounds great on paper doesn’t work in practice. Even Sega knows that using the balance board isn’t easy. They made it so the stages are just a little easier when using a balance board. I’m sure if you practice at it you could get really good but so much energy is put into navigating that ball that in the end it’s not worth it. It gets very frustrating because Monkey Ball requires so much precision, something you can’t get with the balance board.

I completed all the worlds using the regular Wiimote because that is my preference and it just feels better. The first time I played Monkey Ball with the motion control it was perfect, in fact I can’t even imagine going back to stick controls. The stage reacts almost precisely to every movement you make using the Wiimote. Even without the jump ability and boss fights I still found some of the stages very challenging, especially the portal ones. You can go through each stage via co-op in similar fashion to Mario Galaxy. The second player has a crosshair on the screen to shoot at anything in the way of the ball. Because your partner needs to pave the way to the finish line, the levels will have more obstacles in the way than when normally going through the campaign alone. Although this gives you another way to experience each world, oftentimes the camera becomes an issue for the shooter because the stage moves so much. Once you do get to the end of each world, you are greeted with a credits screen and a song. The songs don’t bother me as much as not being able to skip them - making it incredibly frustrating to have to sit through it after every world. You can go the Marathon route and play each stage back to back with a break after every tenth stage. You can actually sit in the break screen for as long as you like and when you’re ready to continue you can just hit A and move on.

As fun as single player can be, the multiplayer is where Step & Roll truly shines. Just like Banana Blitz there are a ton of mini games to go through with up to four players. To be exact there are 21 mini games but that’s down from the 50 found in the previous title. Among some of the returning games are Jump Rope, Monkey Race and my favorite, Hurdle Race. There are also some new games added to the mix which include Firefighter, Battle Pinball and Luge. With the exception of Luge, most of the games are played simultaneously; adding to the heated battles and most can be played using the balance board. Some games are easier with the balance board but the majority of them aren’t. Plus there are a few games that can’t be played with the board if you have 4 players. My suggestion is to not use the board unless you really want to. What is great about Step & Roll is the simplicity of each mini game. You can get really good at the games but it’s also easy for people to pick it up and play even if they have never played a Monkey Ball game before. But like its predecessor some of the controls for the games are not responsive and can be frustrating. One game in particular Ladder Climbing was very difficult. You are asked to hold the Wiimote vertically and move them up and down to climb. Objects will be falling around you, so you have to dodge them by moving them right or left but oftentimes it wouldn’t register correctly and you would get hit by them. Two of the players that played with me took 10 minutes to finish and that was after I took over after taking almost 5 minutes to finish. No mini game should take that long.

In the end, the mini games in Step & Roll are hit or miss. With 21 mini games it’s hard to make all of them fun but most of them are and the ones that aren’t are due to poor controls. Someday they will have to bring this title online, but for now I’m enjoying the split-screen action.

Overall, Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll is just what you would expect from the franchise, that’s if you don’t use the balance board. Those who were hoping the Wii balance board would change the title like the Wiimote did for Banana Blitz will be disappointed. There’s nothing completely brand new to the Monkey Ball formula but the cleaner visuals and some tighter controls in the returning mini games might be just enough to entice people who have the first one to pick up the sequel. Whether or not you are a fan of the franchise Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll is a lot of fun and continues the franchise’s ability to offer an excellent multiplayer complemented by a strong campaign.

Doin It RIGHT: - Excellent multiplayer.- Updated visuals. - Campaign is as good as always.	Doin It RONG: - Balance board doesn’t work that well.- Some mini games have unresponsive controls. - Not too different from Banana Blitz.
FINAL SCORE: 7 / 10

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MotoGP has a long history of creating a very exciting motorcycle racing experience though in the recent generation the franchise has struggled. The previous title lacked any sort of depth and gamers were left with wanting much more. With MotoGP 09/10 developers Milestone look to change that. The upcoming racing title will feature a very robust career mode unlike any seen in the MotoGP franchise. Players will take control of everything on and off the track. With the game only a few weeks away, Capcom has announced that gamers will be able to test drive MotoGP 09/10 this Thursday March 4 when the demo goes live on the PSN and XBLA. You’ll be able to check out three modes- Championship mode, Time Trial and the all new Arcade mode.

(more…)

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With only one more day to go, the follow up to last year’s best baseball title, MLB 10 The Show looks to once again provide gamers with the most realistic baseball game in the market. For those who haven’t been closely following the upcoming title or if you just missed something, we created a one stop shop for everything you need to know about The Show. What you’ll find in this preview are some highlights of key features and additions to MLB 10 The Show and all the videos released, and yes that includes the “Dear Playstation” commercial that we all love.

If you haven’t seen it already or even if you have, the commercial for MLB 10 The Show is hilarious. Check it out.

The realism that Kevin Butler is talking about in The Show comes from all the little subtleties in the game.  Last year I was blown away by how accurately they were able to capture certain player’s rituals or mannerisms at the plate or on the mound.  This year’s version will include all of that and will also bring a more realistic environment. MLB 10 will have real-time players in the dugouts and bullpens, fireworks, rally towels/tundersticks, working clocks and home run counters like the one seen in San Francisco. Of course you can’t bring a game to life without fans and this year crowd detail has also been improved. They will be much more active this year, reaching over the wall for foul balls, scrambling for home run balls and making more noise in pressure situations. This might seem like very small additions but brought together it helps bring the real game to into the virtual one.  Here’s the trailer showing off some of these features.

Road to The Show (RTTS) is one of the best modes of the MLB The Show franchise. It has been the leading sports title in creating a realistic and engaging “create a player” mode. This year in RTTS you’ll have much more control over what your player looks like and his accessories. Once you create your player you’ll be sent right to the Double-A season. While last year’s version had you start in spring training, starting in Double-A will give you a more realistic approach to working your way to the majors as most players don’t receive an invite to spring training until after their first year. Before you get into a game you now have the option to participate in pre-game batting practice or when you get called from the bullpen you’ll get some time to throw practice pitches. Just like batting practice and your time warming up on the mound, it doesn’t help you gain experience, but it will help you get ready for the game or at-bat. Once you are in a game you have full control of what you want to experience. You can play out every pitch/play in the game, only the last pitch in the at-bat, or just plays that involve you. Whether you are on the field or in the batters box there is a bigger emphasize on fundamental baseball. Throwing to the wrong bag, stealing when you shouldn’t be or failing to cover a base will put you in a bad spot with the manager. Lastly a huge emphasis went into gaining skill points and the flow of the game. New training modes have been added for both hitters and pitchers, and goals throughout the game will be shown in way as to not break from the pace of the game. You can also hit the D-pad to show the goals of the game in case you missed it, which is really nice.

To go along with RTTS you now have the full control as the catcher in the new Catcher Calling the Game mode. You’ll be calling for pitches and locations which includes 9 zones inside the strike zone or 8 zones outside. Just like in real life it is your responsibility to know the batters and your pitchers strengths and weaknesses. The pitcher might shake you off so you can pick another pitch but sometimes the catcher knows best and he’ll throw that pitch if you keep asking for it. You’ll have to also watch out for wild pitches and base runners, which adds to the difficulty of being a catcher. It’s a really cool mode and I’m excited to get a chance to call a game but then again, playing every game as a catcher might take it’s toll.

Making it’s return to the series is the Home Run Derby. Fans have been asking for this to be added to the game for some time now and we finally have it. You won’t only get the Home Run Derby, you’ll be getting the entire All-Star experience. During your franchise or RTTS season you’ll get a chance to play in the All-Star Futures Game along with the Derby and the regular All-Star game. Check out this trailer that showcases the new All-Star experience.

MLB 09 The Show suffered from very poor online play, mainly due to lag. Sony has been saying they have worked very hard on fixing that issue for MLB 10 and if they can then I think fans will enjoy the improvements to the Online Leagues. In addition to added customization when creating the league, people can now drop in and out of leagues during the season. If someone can’t handle the season and needs to back out, the commissioner can find a replacement to take over that team. Fatigue is also another factor managers will have to deal with as you will no longer be able to use your ace for every game. Here are some of the key features of the new online leagues:

·    Additional Commissioner Slot (6 total leagues now)
·    NEW Auto-resolve feature. Set to On/Off when creating a league and helps keep leagues progressing
·    Ability to Drop and Replace players within an In-progress league
·    Apply a Custom Slider to a league
·    League Invitation system upgrade
·    New My Complete Leagues list, showing a summary of all completed leagues, the winner and playoff participants
·    New League Round-up and League History tabs in Gamer Card
·    More emails and communication on league changes
·    Players Needing Leagues upgrade. Commissioner can now send invites directly from that screen
·    Additional information about users for a commissioner resolving a game
·    Quit a league at any time (commissioner or league member). No more being held hostage

Finally Real Time Presentation Mode is one of the brand new features to this year’s game. The new presentation mode should give gamers a further sense of realism by attempting to capture the camera angles and shots seen while watching a game on TV. Instead of going in-depth on how this new system works here is a short video displaying the Real Time Presentation.

There is a lot of detail put into every offering of The Show and I don’t expect MLB 10 to be any different. If you want to learn more about the game you can read the full preview here. I am extremely excited about the upcoming title and I hope that all of these new features can come together to bring us the realism that we have come to know and love from this franchise.

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Spawn Kill and several other gaming outlets were recently invited to join in on a MLB 2K10 Developer Q&A session. Ben Bishop, Producer of 2K Sports, Jonathan Rivera, Gameplay Designer and Sean Bailey, also a Gameplay Designer for 2K Sports were all there to answer our many questions about the upcoming baseball sim. While there were a lot of questions about the additions to MLB 2K10, everyone seemed to just want to know one thing: Is it going to be like MLB 2K9?

Throughout the call no one from the dev team was shy about saying how disappointed they were with last year’s title and mentioned that MLB 2K10 is much improved. Though we didn’t get to have an open Q&A session at the end of the call the developers were able to give us some insight on what they did to make sure they don’t repeat the issues from 2K9.

Here are some of the highlights from the call and if you are interested in listening to the entire call we got that for you as well below the questions. Enjoy!

How much of 2K9 was used in 2K10 and was the game rebuilt from the ground up for the new release?

Sean: We completely rewrote everything from fielding, hitting, pitching, the physics, AI, camera views, swapped up all the animations. We had a lot of work ahead of us because I don’t think any of us were happy with last year nor should we have been. So rather than just trying to touch up last year’s game we just made sure the new game included all the fixes that frustrated people as well as a new, rewritten game.

What new additions were made to the franchise mode and how wide of a range of options are available to the player now?

Jonathan: The biggest new addition is the 40 man roster in franchise for September call up. The draft happens in the middle of the year. Another new addition is the trade finder. You can essentially add any player out on the trade block so other AI teams can make you offers for that player. In addition to that we have compensatory picks for free agents. So in the off season when you’re trying to sign a player you might risk losing a first or second round draft pick and if you lose a high rated player you will also get a compensatory pick.

Since gamers and industry critics have noted that early iterations of MLB series have struggled with technical issues surrounding pitching, hitting and gameplay, was this a primary focus of improvement for 2K10?

Sean: It’s almost an understatement to call it a primary focus of improvement. We didn’t just want to improve, we wanted to nail it. We knew that the core gameplay experience needed improvements across the board but when it came to pitching and hitting we really went beyond focusing on improving. We created an entirely new experience starting with the cameras, different strikes zones, different swing types, different analyzers, different replays and the physics were all rewritten. It was a huge primary focus of improvements.

Has there been improvement to the hitting component aside from the defensive swings? It’s either been too easy or too hard to make solid contact as the big hitters would almost always turn a fastball into a sure homerun and an average player could barely get it out of the infield.

Sean: It has been out of balance in the past. Aside from defensive swing we have made it all about the timing. The days are gone when you can simply hold the influence stick and just paint where you want the ball to go on every swing. It’s all about timing, which is very satisfying. The balls that are hit with more velocity in real life are the ones that are pulled or the ones that a right handed batter sends down the first base line weaker are late swings to the opposite field. The timing was done in a very realistic way that takes care of a lot of complaints of the past.

What determines whether or not the Batter’s Eye feature appears? Is it purely based on their real world skills or are there other factors involved such as the pitchers skills? How often can they see the Batter’s Eye appear in a game?

Sean: When this originally came up the problem we were trying to solve is we were trying to make certain players better in the video game that are good in real life at reaching base and getting walks but didn’t have that skill set in the video game. So what we did was come up with eye rating versus lefties and righties and the batters eye rating drives the frequency of the Batter’s Eye. So the guys that take a lot of walks they have a very high eye rating so they’re going to see it more often. It also helps if they have good timing.

Why did you add the My Player feature in this year’s game?

Ben: It really seems like across the board in all sports titles that are out there right now career modes in general are becoming the popular thing and something that people are expecting to see. It was a big focus for us to be able to add the mode this year. A lot of our early build up and planning went into making My Player in this year’s version. At the same time we had NBA 2K10 come out with My Player and so that was a basis for what we did too. We really felt like it was a hole that we needed to fill with 2K10.

In My Player can you give an estimate on how long it will take to get into the Majors?

Ben: That can really vary there is so much flexibility you can do. You have a lot of flexibility in terms of how you want to play the game. When you actually do play a game you are just playing the moment that your player is directly involved in. You can play though a game in 5 or 10 minutes depending on the situations you end up with. You can also simulate games entirely, you won’t get as many skill points through simulation but if you can do that. Simulating the game might take you a bit longer to get the call to the majors. Playing all the games can get you to the majors in as soon as 10-15 games.

Framerate and online lag was a big issue for last year’s title. What was done to fix the issue s for the upcoming game?

Ben: This was something that was important for us. We felt that there was room for improvement from 2K9. We definitely made sure that we got the framerate up to an acceptable level. That’s a huge part of making the experience good and you are in full control. If you get a little lag or framerate drops, it can take away some of that control from you. It was certainly important for us to make sure we were as optimized in those departments as we could be.

Is there a PC version and how did last year’s response to the PC version go?

Ben: We definitely have a PC version this year too. You will get all the same features you will get in the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. I think a lot of the responses were similar across the board, just a lot of room for improvement and we definitely took a lot of the criticism to heart. The PC version just like the other versions is very much improved. The series in general is going much more in the right direction.

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At last year’s E3 there was one game that stood out and completely blew me away and it was from Disney Interactive Studios. Split/Second, the action racing game from Black Rock Studios is bringing us a racing game that we’ve never seen before. From the creators of Pure, Split/Second was awarded Best Racing Game  of E3 2009 from many critics.

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The ever popular side-scrolling shooter Metal Slug returns in the form of a PSP game titled Metal Slug XX. Originally released in 1999, the classic 2D run n’ gun shooter Metal Slug X is getting a bit of a facelift on the PSP. The high resolution 2D art brings to life all the stages in the game. Metal Slug XX will include the original stages along with adding co-op support via Ad-Hoc Wireless Lan and the popular Combat School mode. In Combat School you will go through 70 mini game challenges and if you do well enough you can unlock some fancy new weapons. In order to play Metal Slug XX’s Co-op mode you and a friend will have to have a copy of the game.

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In Episode 02 of The Away Team, Eric (The Herp) and Gabe (Lethalwraith) talk about what we’ve been playing which includes Bad Company 2 and Tiger Woods Online. We will also be previewing MLB 2K10 and the first round of the closed beta for FIFA Online.  As always we’ll chat about recent news in the sports gaming world and share some of our opinions on in-game ad support in sports games. This is a very interesting topic which we hope to get Stephanie (Tigresa) involved in for a future podcast so we didn’t spend too much time on it. For those of you who are also playing Tiger Woods Online, we have a group created called Spawnkill The Away Team Cast if you are interested in joining.

Of course you can follow The Away Team on Twitter and for you iTunes users you can download and subscribe to the podcast here.  Enjoy the podcast!

@Theherp80 @Lethalwraith

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MLB 2K9 suffered from a large amount of issues. The game struggled in multiple areas including poor framerate, annoying bugs and lackluster game modes. With MLB 2K10, developer Visual Concepts is attempting to bring this franchise back to life. In this year’s title, gamers will experience the new Batter’s Eye system, a slightly tweaked pitching mechanic and franchise mode along the brand new MLB Today and My Player mode. From what I’ve seen, the new modes are very similar to those found in NBA 2K10 which worries me. Visual Concepts tried to add way too much to this year’s NBA title which left them little time to work out the numerous bugs. Let’s just hope that isn’t the case for MLB 2K10 because this year’s version is adding a lot of features 2K fans have been asking for.

All reports, from everyone who has played the title, seem to be indicating that the framerate issue has been fixed. I wouldn’t get your hopes up yet, since early builds of the game are missing some features here and there. Still, it’s a good sign that the issue was looked at. Poor framerate can ruin a baseball game, so let’s hope that it is actually fixed for the final product. Another complaint that gamers had about last year’s title was the exclusion of pre-loaded throws. In 2K10 you will be able to pre-load your throw to turn quick double plays or to quickly get the ball back from the outfield. This also makes the animation look smoother as you won’t see the players stand there for a split second before they throw the ball.

Pitching and Hitting has always been MLB 2K’s strong point and this year they aim to keep it similar to last year’s title with a few small changes. In 2K9, players would have to select a pitch by completing a gesture using the right stick which led to many issues of picking the wrong pitch. The pitching itself hasn’t gone away from the stick controls but in 2K10 you select your pitch using the face buttons and the new pitch analyzer will let you know exactly what went wrong with the pitch. This was done in an attempt to make the pitching more accessible which it definitely was not last year. I’m sure those new to the title will still struggle with the pitching but at least you will see exactly what you are doing wrong.

At the plate they have added a couple of new features. One of them is Batter’s Eye. Depending on the pitch type and the skill of the player, the pitch will flash above the batter’s box. The camera angle has been lowered just a bit which I don’t like but it was done so players can see the text and the pitch coming in. There’s also a defensive swing this year that can be pulled off by flicking the right stick left or right. The defensive swing and Batter’s Eye should give players a more realistic approach at the plate by having longer at bats and running the count full. Here is a 9 minute gameplay video that shows off some of these new features to MLB 2K10.

The two brand new modes to the game are MLB Today and My Player. These modes were in Visual Concept’s NBA title and now are making their debut in MLB. MLB Today is a mode in which users can play out the entire season based on what is happening in real life. The mode will display all the games that are being played on that day. It will also upload current stats and rosters to adjust the in the game rosters and player ratings. The menu screen will also display all the current box scores and stats in case you missed a game or two. I really enjoyed this feature in NBA 2K10 but I can’t help but wish they could take this mode and integrate it into a season or franchise mode instead of it being pretty much a quickplay mode.

My Player is a game mode that is just like the EA’s Be a Pro mode or like the rivals Road to The Show mode. You start by creating a player and picking a position. From there you will work your way through the minors to your ultimate goal of becoming a Major League superstar. You can choose to play any position including pitcher and even a catcher; though as catcher you aren’t asked to do very much. The first task as a minor leaguer is to perform in a clutch situation. As a batter you’ll be asked to drive home a run or get on base. As a pitcher you will be asked to not allow the tying run. If you are able to complete the challenge you will be awarded with skill points. These skill points are used to upgrade a particular attribute. They can be gained in a number of ways, through the various drills or through in-game actions. In-game skill points can earned for doing normal things in the course of the game. For instance getting a sac bunt down will net you 15 exp points, driving in a run or getting a putout will net you 25 exp points. You will also get goals for every at bat which will also get you more exp points if completed. As a pitcher it works the same way, getting exp points for things like strike outs, a shut out inning or getting a win or save. One of the issues with NBA’s My Player Mode was the fact that players can quickly upgrade their stats to become unstoppable but from what 2K is saying the skill points will be dynamic. If you are a power hitter you won’t continue to get points for bunting or things that a contact hitter would get.

The road to the Majors still seems a bit easy though. Every player will have a menu that will display goals you must complete to get the call to the majors. For hitters its things like batting average and having your contact at a certain rating but for pitchers it’s all about getting your pitches and stamina up to a rating of 60 or above. There are a minimum of games you must play in order to get the call but that’s only 5 starts for a pitcher and 15 games for a position player. This makes it seem like skilled players will find their created player in the majors pretty quick, which some people will like. I don’t like that because that’s not realistic at all. Even the most skilled players in the minors will most likely spend a year or at least half of the year there until September call ups. Although that is my goal to get to the Majors I want to take the realistic route. Of course it will all depend on the team you choose and injuries but we’ll see how long it actually takes in the final product.

A few changes have been made to presentation and franchise mode but those are very minor. Presentation wise they added the option to play Hurry Up Baseball, which skips all cut scenes and extra animations. This is said to cut down the play time by half. You can toggle this on and off during any point of a game. Franchise mode will see a 40-man roster in spring training and you will have to break that down to 25 before the season. You will also have the ability to control every team in the league to edit the franchise to mirror real life, which is nice to have but I’d rather have 2K do it for me instead of me having to do all the work. You can also seamlessly go online from franchise mode and have a friend play against your team. Seamless online integration was a new addition to most of the 2K sports games last year and makes its debut in this year’s MLB. In terms of online play, online leagues have been tweaked to give commissioners more options including the option to allow only strikes, which is interesting. There will also be a website to track your league stats and trades. Just like every multiplayer mode it’s only good if lag is not an issue, something that 2K Sports games have always dealt with.

MLB 2K10 is looking to bring a lot to the table especially after seeing the high scores their rival has gotten in the last two years. The problem is Visual Concept did the same thing with NBA 2K10 and that game was flooded with issues. Only time will tell if they learned from their mistakes or if they will once again release a game full of bugs. For now everything seems to be going in the right direction for the struggling franchise and gamers should be getting a look at what they have been working on when the demo releases this week. As always, stay tuned for our demo impressions later this week.

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EA Sports had a good year in 2009, in terms of reviews. Even the struggling NBA Live series saw a nice improvement. Though most of their titles were very strong, NCAA Basketball 10 continued to struggle, receiving decent reviews at best. This year’s title brought an excellent presentation that any fan of college hoops or sports games could appreciate. Sadly the game suffered from some of the same issues as its predecessors. Coupled with the stalled negotiations over licensing rights and pending lawsuits over likeness rights, Electronic Arts has officially put the NCAA Basketball series on hold.

“We do not have an NCAA Basketball game in development at this time, and we’re currently reviewing the future of our NCAA Basketball business,” an EA Sports rep told GameSpot. “This was a difficult decision, but we remain a committed partner to the NCAA and its member institutions.”

When a sports title begins to struggle it is very difficult to right the ship. Much like we discussed in the first episode of our Sports Podcast, it is sometimes in the company’s best interest to take a year off to develop and reboot the series. Hopefully this means that in a couple of years we’ll get a strong NCAA Basketball title because it would be a shame to not have a college hoops sim to play during March Madness.

[Source: GameSpot ]

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The zombie survival mode in Call of Duty: World at War was a huge hit with shooters and zombie fans, so much so that Activision released an iPhone app based on Treyarch’s console version. Developed by Ideaworks Game Studio Call of Duty: World at War: Zombies gives gamers a faithful representation of one of the most popular online modes of 2009. The app which was released late last year is getting its first set of DLC. “Verrückt” (Zombie Asylum) map offers gamers a new location with new weapons, defenses and Perks-A Cola Machines. The map was originally released for the console version of World at War and now you can play it on the go.

The “Verrückt” map add-on can be downloaded now for $4.99. If you don’t have the original Call of Duty: World at War: ZOMBIES App you can download it, along with a free demo here. The iPhone/iPod touch game is a really fun adaptation of the console version and anyone who misses killing zombies when they aren’t at home should definitely give it a shot.

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Big news from the Battlefield camp – they’re happy to announce that the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 demo is on pace to become the fastest downloaded demo in EA history. The demo continues to dominate PSN and Xbox Live with over 2 million demo downloads across the two networks in the first five days of availability. Electronic Arts has been aggressively promoting the sequel by holding multiplayer betas and offering the multiplayer demo a month before release which has obviously been getting them some attention.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled to hear that Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is already in the hands of almost 2½ million gamers, and it hasn’t even shipped yet,” said Patrick Bach, Senior Producer on Battlefield: Bad Company 2. “This massive rush to experience the game early is proof positive that action gamers are looking for more. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 delivers on every front. This is intelligent, strategic warfare that our competitors simply cannot replicate.”

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 complements the Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer with a greater focus on squad-based multiplayer in which gamers must play as a cohesive team to be victorious.  The sequel builds on the successes of its predecessor, offering more weapons, more vehicles, more destruction, and more kills! Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is set to release on March 2^nd in North America and March 4^th in Europe for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The limited edition can be pre-ordered at no extra cost and if you get it from Amazon you can get a $20 credit towards a future video game purchase. We’ve gotten a chance to play through both the PS3 beta and the demo so be sure to check back for our BC2 Impressions.

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