Likewise, players will need to vary their throwing locations, lest batters will hone in your preferred zones.īeyond a tracking system which offers an advantageous diagram incorporating each throw, players are given visual data of overused pitching zones as well as an indicator revealing a color-coded projection of success. Hurl too many two-seam fastballs, and the opposing team grows wise- lowering the effectiveness of the pitch with each additional use. With 2K12, each throw is measured against the man on the mound’s actual style, discouraging exploitation. Typically, players facing the CPU utilized a fraction of their arsenal, unrealistically relying on a few pitches to advance the inning. While a seemingly minor improvement, the addition of the Dynamic Tendencies System fundamentally changes the throwing game. Using the gesture-based pitching system remains engaging, as players twirl their controller’s analog sticks to fire off blistering fastballs or plunging sliders. Yet, the title also fails to impress where it ought to, exhibiting enough gameplay and graphical glitches to undermine its veteran status. Following nine seasons of measured improvement, the recent release of MLB 2K12 steps to the plate with an established grip on the fundamentals pitching, battling and even throwing are all proficiently articulated.
If the user notices the animation is happening, you’re not doing it fast enough.Hall of Famer Branch Rickey once remarked that “baseball is a game of inches.” Unsurprisingly, this quote could also be used to describe the Major League Baseball 2K series, where yearly iterations usher in minor adjustments rather than comprehensive revisions. It makes face customization more of a “let me tweak this to get it perfect” and less of the guess-and-check “eh I’ll set it here and see what happens – nope, let me try again…”.įinally, I’ll close with thatgamesux’s Golden Rule of Animation in User Interfaces (patent pending):Īnimate things when you want to show the user how point A became point B. Showing the face morph as the sliders are modified is a huge help.
MLB 2K12 PC CONTROLLER NOT WORKING HOW TO
The Tiger Woods series has always had some of the best player customization features, and this is a great example of how to do it right. A better comparison might be found in the following clip of EA’s Tiger Woods 2008 game (heads up I’m starting you in the middle of an EA-produced promo video for the game): Although to be fair, the changes in face shape are considerably more pronounced when there are only a few to choose from. It’s not perfect, but with Mass Effect 3’s face customization feature it’s way easier to tell what is changing. Thankfully, there are lots of other examples of create-a-player interfaces that get it right. Mass Effect 3’s “Commander Shepard creator” doesn’t offer quite the fine-grained control as MLB 2K12 – it uses a slider that only has a handful of different stops for different face types (aside: this might be an example of a poorly chosen control, because why would you use a slider here?) Check it out: When I make adjustments like this one, I want to know the results in real-time. The player creator in MLB 2K12 is a perfect example of when a simple animation could be massive in showing the difference between two states.
In fact, it wasn’t until I took some screenshots of the video on my computer that I could identify that this part of the game wasn’t actually broken.Īnimation is a great way to let your users know what is changing. And since the controls here make only very fine adjustments to the player’s face, it’s really hard to tell if anything changed at all.
That’s right, every time you move one of the sliders, your player disappears until you stop. But take a look at what happens when you’re adjusting these sliders: That’s a serious control for some seriously detailed customization. As I was building the San Diego Padres’ next superstar closer, I was excited to see the detailed controls for customizing the player’s face – there are two two-dimensional sliders that you control with both of your controller’s thumbsticks. When creating a player, there are all kinds of things you can customize – the equipment they use, what color socks they wear, and all manner of things about your pro-to-be’s body shape. While the animations are pretty, after you see them once or twice it’s easy to realize that they don’t offer the player any lasting benefit. This time, I’m here to tell you that in another case, the lack of animation causes a serious usability problem in MLB 2K12. In the last article, I talked about how the realistic use of animations in MLB 2K12 makes the game take way too long to play.