Here’s a post that made me laugh and cry at the same time. I started up a new season in Franchise mode in MLB 2k12. Was playing opening day today, and in the game, I had Josh Hamilton dive for a ball playing a play in center. He came out of the game injured with a separated shoulder, is out in the game two months.

I looked at the injury report and thought “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at that”. Games are getting too accurate. :)

I’ve been a fan of baseball videogames going all the way back to the Atari 2600 in 1977 when I played “Home Run” there.  I’ve written about baseball videogames a few times over the years on this blog.  I’ve been a fan of the MLB 2K baseball series for awhile now, going back to the original Xbox, and it’s previous nomenclature as “World Series Baseball”.   While I enjoy the series, some of the minor nitpicks bother me.  Like the screen grab I just took from the new trailer released today.   They have the old Rangers Ballpark scoreboard in it.  The thing has been live for all of last season – and they can’t update that?  Sigh.

Still, the game looks good, and it’s not about a ballpark’s scoreboard as how a game rates, but I wish they’d pay a little closer attention to stuff like that.

Just saw a video clip on mlb.com, which aired on MLBN’s “MLB Tonight” show. It’s about Neftali Feliz being motion captured for the MLB 2K11 game coming out next month. Since MLBAM STILL doesn’t allow streaming of their video, I have to just link over to it.
Go check out Neftali in the video clip here.

Another trailer is out for MLB 11: The Show, and this one showcases how the stadiums in the game have their own individual scoreboards. They’re supposed to behave how the scoreboards in each stadium actually do behave.
To my surprise, they have the new scoreboard stuff for 2011 in this game already, which is definitely cool. Check out the embedded video to see it:

Another trailer for MLB 11: The Show is out now. It’s all Rangers and Angels. Has Rangers Ballpark featured prominently. I guess a World Series appearance will get you spotlighted in videogame trailers, eh?
Noticed Josh & Tom are in here as the TV voices. I wonder if they’re having stadium specific voices for games, which would be interesting coordinating all the various voice talent, or it’s just Josh & Tom in the game. Or it’s just them for this trailer. Haven’t found out a concrete answer for that. Either way, check out the video below:

If you have a Sony Playstation 3, then there really is no other choice for a baseball game.
The Rangers feature in this trailer a decent bit, although they have Taylor Teagarden catching Feliz. They also have Josh Lewin in there. Whether they’re just using Rangers footage, or he is doing voice work inside the game, is unknown. I’ll try and find that out. I emailed Josh about it a week ago, but he didn’t reply.

For a few years now, due to strange video game licensing with MLB, the only “cross platform” game that’s been available has been 2K’s MLB game (this year mlb 2k11). However, the best game has probably been a game called “MLB The Show”, which is exclusively a Playstation game. That’s because the strange licensing allows for companies to make MLB games for their own platforms, just not for ALL platforms. Word is the license runs out after the 2012 season, at which point, MLB will probably not renew with Take 2/2K, as there’s been quality issues all along. The Sony game is far superior, although I play the 2K game because of achievements on the 360. Anyway…

This year’s edition from Sony looks to improve on an already great game. The first previews are coming out, and today I saw a screenshot showing off some players. The one I saw today of interest was of Nelson Cruz. The shot looks pretty darned good. Check it out:

Thanks to Pasta Padre for the shot. A couple of years ago, I did a full review of the MLB The Show game, and while it’s not totally relevant to this year’s game, you can check it out here if you want. I’ll have more on this game (and the MLB 2k11 game) when they become available.

You can pre-order The Show via the link below. If you like baseball and have a Playstation 3, it really is a no brainer.

Saw this commercial on TV the other night, and laughed at it. It’s a commercial for the current iteration of the Take 2 MLB game, “MLB 2K10”. Made me laugh.

I picked up MLB 10: The Show for the PS3 on Tuesday (saved a gift card from Christmas for that), and started playing. The Rangers lineup is surprisingly correct. However, they have several older uniforms in there, going back quite awhile. They don’t have the sleeveless one from within the last five years or so, though – I rather liked that one.

Anyway, Vlad is in the game with a totally tarred batting helmet which I found amusing. Check out this screen capture below (he doesn’t stand that way in the box, I caught it in mid practice swing). One thing about the uniform, though. It’s an older one, but it had a “4” on the armband. So whoever put the uniform together for the game for the Rangers team copied it from the year they wore a “4”. Anyone know offhand who that “4” was for, and what year that was? Thanks. You can click on the thumbnail below for a larger version.

The red & blue mixed color batting helmet got mostly negative reviews at the press conference when the new uniforms were shown off. I’m kind of indifferent towards it, it’s not great, but it’s not totally awful, either.

I was wondering what happened to it during spring training. By all accounts, the players are wearing their names and numbers on the backs of uniforms this spring at the request of Nolan Ryan. That’s a move I really like – I never liked the fact guys didn’t have numbers on their backs in spring. To me, it reinforced the notion of “this isn’t real baseball going on, they’re not worthy enough to wear their real uniforms”. So I’m glad. I was also hoping to see the new helmet, but I haven’t seen that in any video clip or picture coming out of Arizona. Either they’re saving that for the regular season, or it’s been abandoned. Anyone know either way?

Edit: After I posted this, Chuck Morgan emailed me and said the batting helmet won’t be used until the regular season starts.

Edit 2: Since I posted this story originally, it was announced that the Rangers are now no longer going to use the two tone batting helmet. It’s being abandoned for just all blue and all red. I dunno, I kind of liked it in a “this looks weird” sort of way.
In a related note, last night I borrowed the new MLB 09: The Show for my Playstation 3. They have the new 2009 uniforms for the Rangers, although I did not see the red one. They did have the red and blue helmet. I’m including a couple of screen grabs from my PS3 below of Josh Hamilton (who struck out in the game thanks to my skill). Check ’em out: