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Mark Little flicks the joystick and opens a special developer's menu in Major League Baseball 2K12. The screen jumps to an empty ballpark, with a few lines representing the trajectory of a pitch and the timing of the batter trying to hit it. Little starts fooling with some ratings, creating a situation involving a high-contact hitter with not much pop. More »
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Major League Baseball 2K12 is widely expected to be in its walk year, the final season of a fat contract going back to 2005. Unlike a superstar in the big leagues, this is not a cause for optimism that fans will see an above-average performance. Not when the performer is the one paying the contract, and not when it has been notoriously inconsistent despite having the Xbox 360 all to itself. More »
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Boston first sacker Adrian Gonzalez holds down the box shot of MLB 12 The Show from Sony, breaking the two-year hold of Minnesota's Joe Mauer. Before Mauer, the last cover star for Sony's boutique baseball franchise was also a Red Sox, Dustin Pedroia, for MLB 09 The Show. Before him, it was Philadelphia's Ryan Howard. More »
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2K Sports is offering a cool million to the winner of a public, 8-person Major League Baseball 2K12 tournament… this April. From the MLB's Opening Day on April 4th (definitely learned something just now) to the end of that cheerfully prank-filled month, athletes (read: gamers) will be clawing their way to the top of the leaderboards, where a spot in the tourney awaits. More »
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Adam Larson, the artist behind the three custom covers for NBA 2K12, has also supplied the base art of the Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander for the cover of MLB 2K12. More »
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There was a time when console manufacturers made a point of having first-party sports sims on their machines but that era's long since passed. Sony's The Show franchise carries on that legacy and, after a few pitches in the dirt at first, the PS3 exclusive baseball franchise is enjoying a run of acclaim for the last few years. So, it's safe to say that next year's entry in the bat-swinging series is hotly anticipated. The screens above give a glimpse at the visuals from MLB 12 The Show, including looks at Orioles outfielder Adam Jones, Orioles third baseman Mark Reynolds and Blue Jays outfielder José Bautista. You'll also see Padres third baseman Chase Headley, Padres starting pitcher Mat Latos and Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramirez, too. More details about game features and modes are surely forthcoming but, for now, bask in the sunny splendor of these virtual ballpark heroes. More »
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"Well played, Mauer," appears to be finished as a catch phrase for MLB The Show with today's naming of Boston's Adrian Gonzalez as the cover star for next year's edition of the game. He displaces the Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer, who held the packshot for the past two years. More »
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Justin Verlander, the Detroit Tigers flamethrower who spun a no-hitter in a season evocative of hall-of-fame names like Koufax, Gibson and Carlton, will grace the packshot of Major League Baseball 2K12, 2K Sports said. More »
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Detroit's ace pitcher Justin Verlander registered a once-in-a-generation performance this year. Still, even that magnificence may not be enough to overcome some baseball writers' biases against awarding the Most Valuable Player award to a pitcher. But a video game—Sony's acclaimed MLB 11 The Show simulation—suggests anyone who votes against him is flat wrong. More »
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SI's Chris Ballard and Kotaku's Owen Good have teamed up to tell the story of minor-league pitcher Jack Swift, whose last-chance season and remarkable feats from 60 years ago are only now becoming known. You should go read it. [Sports Illustrated] More »
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Why worry about which sports game to play on your Xbox 360 when you can get baseball, hockey, basketball, golf, football, and other football, all in one handy Kinect game? More »
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At E3, I visited the 2K Games booth every day of the show. Every day I went there, I saw these two guys from High Voltage Software in the 2K "Sports Bar," sitting in easy chairs, playing Nicktoons MLB. As far as I know, it was all they did all day. More »
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Before setting off to claim a million-dollar bounty offered by MLB 2K11, Brian Kingrey did an analysis. He pored over batting averages, compared pitcher strengths and tendencies, examined the probable starters for the contest's opening day and the batting orders they faced, to determine what hurler had the best chance of tossing a perfect game. More »
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When 2K Sports vowed to declare a winner in its second Million-Dollar Perfect Game contest as soon as a winner could be verified, most assumed we'd have heard of a winner in April. Last year's inaugural challenge was won on the very first day, as a matter of fact. More »
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Baseball, the National Pastime. For 141 years, it is a game whose numbers and names need no introduction. Mantle. DiMaggio. .406, 755. Ren. Stimpy. More »
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About two weeks ago, someone uploaded a video purporting to show the final inning of a successful perfect game in MLB 2K11 which, if legitimate, will claim a $1 million prize offered by 2K Sports. In it, the player throws nothing but high curveballs, a strategy that wouldn't get you out of the first inning of a real game, but evidently an exploit in this one. More »
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Wax nostalgic with a sports gamer of a certain age and it's not long before he will mention, like a venerated religious text, the Three-Ring Binder. It was the original franchise mode. More »
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Just to make it official, Sega's MLB Manager Online had a beta launch earlier this month, not a full launch as some posts had implied. Moot point now as the fully-licensed sports management sim is now available. All 30 Major League teams and over 900 real players are featured in the game. Scads more details at the link. [MLB Manager Online] More »
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2K Sports has laid another seven-figure bounty on a perfect game thrown in its Major League Baseball game. Players have had about a month to practice with MLB 2K11's pitching and fielding; the chase for 27 straight outs officially begins at noon EDT tomorrow. More »
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It's not the return of MVP Baseball, the long lost and lamented Major League Baseball title that went into exile after 2005, but EA Sports has gotten back on the field with MLB in World Series Superstars, a Facebook game rumored to be in development that launched by surprise today. More »
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EA Sports, whose beloved MVP Baseball series went into exile when 2K Sports won an exclusive contract back in 2005, is working on a Major League Baseball-licensed property, according to ESPN's Jon Robinson. Before you get all giddy, a close reading of contracts leaves the impression this will be another Facebook game. More »
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Sitting there with my DualShock in my lap, I struggled to recall the last time a video game blindsided me this hard, much less at a point this early in playing it. I'd ranked up at a respectable rate, gained a fast understanding of my abilities and the situations in which they were useful. I was fearless and, I thought, indispensably valuable to the cause. The story of my success was playing out conventionally. More »
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I've seen the big leagues, son. I've squinted at the lights at Fenway as the sun makes a cotton candy sky behind the Citgo sign in left. But I ain't there right now. I'm down here chewing on grass, pitching in my third game in as many days, deep in the well of the low minor leagues, where the uniforms are washed every other day. More »
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MLB 11 The Show arrived on Tuesday, bringing with it a set of controls and options designed to include disabled gamers. The association for these gamers, begun by a 25-year-old college student, also launched on Tuesday and gets a plug from the PS3 game. More »
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MLB 11 The Show's third-wheel analyst, Eric Karros, completely telegraphs this burn of Roy Halladay, who graces the cover of Major League Baseball 2K11. More »
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Some ESPN personalities are known, and chided, for making product endorsements. Steve Berthiaume isn't in that crowd. Writing a 2,500-word guide on how to create, in MLB The Show, painstakingly accurate journeymen players from the 1970s is not being a lip-service pitchman. That is a bona fide roster editor. More »
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Kotaku may have kicked off a fad last year, with our post on how to make your video game baseball presentation conform to real life broadcasting angles. MLB 2K11 directly cited the work as an inspiration behind its new broadcast presentation. MLB 11 The Show was assuredly thinking the same thing when it introduced realistic camera views into its game. So how do they look, side by side? More »
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You can do a lot of crazy stuff when you win a million bucks. When he did, Wade McGilberry was approached by a long-lost relative with a pitch for buying into a pineapple farm. No thanks, Wade said. What he really wanted was a Harley. And with the dough he won from MLB 2K10, you're damn right he bought one. More »
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Trying very hard to make "Well played, Mauer" into a meme, or at least a theme, here's fake honcho Kevin Butler getting worked at clutch time by the Minnesota Twins' all-star catcher in a spot going up now for MLB 11 The Show. More »
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Baseball fans will fetishize any detail. This year, MLB 2K11 will make the real-life broadcast camera angles of all 30 major league parks the default view in its game. MLB 11 The Show will, too, and add even more customization. More »
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He'd given up six runs in three innings of work when MLB 10 The Show sent the manager out to remove him from the game. Even in a video game, the bad losses stick with you. They stick with Hans Smith a little more. More »
]]> http://kotaku.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5746736&view=rss&microfeed=true Brian Wilson, the eccentric, bearded reliever of the San Francisco Giants, hits the talk show circuit this evening to pimp MLB 2K11 and unveil a short film he's written. Queries as to whether "The Machine"/Pat Burrell would also appear were avoided outright. Whatever it is will be on "Lopez Tonight", midnight EST, 11 p.m. CST. More »
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Major League Baseball 2K10 got many big-picture details right, but still left me with a laundry list of demands for MLB 2K11, which I happily ticked off before getting a preview of the game this week. More »
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Roy Halladay and Dallas Braden threw perfect games last season, the first time two occurred in the same year. Joined with Mark Buerhle's perfecto in 2009, that's three in 365 days. What's Tim Lincecum doing in this MLB 2K11 spot? More »
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As you tour the 30 ballparks of Major League Baseball 2K11, you'll see games there from a center field camera view unique to each stadium. I can vouch for this feature's authenticity - because I did the work behind it. More »
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MLB 11 The Show will get PlayStation Move support but I wouldn't put high hopes on it. The only supported feature will be a Home Run Derby mode, shown here, and that weird floating bat just strikes me wrong. More »
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GameTrailers got a camera on MLB 11: The Show at CES, giving us a 90-second duel between Boston's Josh Beckett and Philadelphia's Ryan Howard. The hitter appears to be using the game's new analog controls. More »
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This "first look" trailer for MLB 2K11 is short on specifics, but says the game will feature improved fielding and new player models - illustrated, naturally, by the Giants' sui generis closer, Brian Wilson. More »
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Three up, three down, three times squared. Do that in a video game and you might win a million bucks. 2K Sports' mad Million Dollar Perfect Game challenge returns this year with MLB 2K11. More »
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