This will be the last report of the quest to make a perfect knuckleball pitcher.
After I loaded the game back, I did Frank event, cured Choke Artist. All things went well.
I went to the restaurant to eat something, then I got information from Marvin about a thief who we were trying to catch. I managed to find him few weeks and successfully catch the bad guy with a fastball to the head. I got money and points as rewards. I wasted a lot of time though.
I finally got promoted to an AAA team, the Golden Apples, with Marvin and Stiich.
During days before AAA season started, I ran into a Doctor's event, where her purse got stolen by another theft and I helped her catching that thief. I got him in 5 weeks and got a lot of good rewards including Secret of Pitching! I got Good Delivery from it. I also got a random event where a mad scientist offered me an experiment to improve my skills, giving me a full vitality and Good Small Ball Mentality ability.
I finished all Stiich's training course and get one custom pitch. I chose to have a curve ball that break more and named it "Lariat", weird but cool name to me.
After the season started, I didn't start the first game because I didn't have enough coach evaluation points since I used most of the time doing events after events. I had to dedicate all time available to practice every time the coach was there just to reach the points to be able to start. I finally collected enough points to earn a starter spot against the rival Galaxy Sharks. I didn't have to do anything much to win this match though.
The second AAA match against Guava Strawberrys also went well too, pitched 9th innings with a win.
I finally got level-7 knuckleball later before the game against MonMon Monkeys. It is freakin' great pitch! I can use only it to strike out anyone, almost. I almost blew it in the 4th inning where I loaded the base, but the knuckleball saved me at last.
The second match against the GalaxySharks, which is very important since you have to win to have another match, or your time in AAA will be cut short right there. My knuckleball still worked so well, got a lot of strikes, ground outs and easy fly balls from the pitch. With a combination of my custom pitch, "the Lariat", I earned an easy win.
And the big disaster came just before the biggest game against the Galaxy Sharks with the new addition of our old pal Stiich. I saved just before the match to play on the next day. But I accidentally opened the Success Mode as a new player! That means all the works on Rocky Iwata pitcher are all gone, F!!
I am very disappointed of myself, but it's very good experiment on this game anyway. MLB Power Pros 2008 is truly a fun baseball game for newbies that is easy to learn and play. It's still hard to master, like poker, though.
The Result
FAIL
See ya!
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
MLB Power Pros 2008 : Making a Knuckleballer (part 4)
After a while, I'm back to keep the project going. Today I will go through all AA games. I hope I can win all important games and get more coach and scout lookings to survive.
Finally, I had the first game as a starter for Green Apple versus Aegis. Time to try level 1 knuckleball!
Game Time! Wait... wait....... I didn't have to do anything! It just passed by and the game ended with my team winning. Wow, I wanted to try the pitch but the game didn't allow me to. Anyway, the result cheered me up a little bit because all coach's and scout's evaluation points I got were very high. All other ability points were high too.
Before the next game, I boosted up the knuckleball to level 2 and increased top pitching speed and pitching control for level G to F.
The second game that I hoped for was against WildJokers, the main rival in AA and Jonathan's team. In this game, I pitched so bad I gave up a 2-run home run to Jonathan at the top of 4th inning and was out right there. I got zero evaluation points and okay ability points at the end.
In the third game against team Burgers, I pitched better... not that much. I struggled to strike a Burgers hitters out in 4th innings and drained a lot of energy out of me. The CPU somehow kept hitting many foul balls until he popped a fly ball to the shortstop. The team managed to lose though.
I boosted the knuckleball to level 3 just after the game with Burgers, so I had more confident to face the fourth team Mach Socks. I played really well this time, caught one MCs base stealer and threw them into easy fly balls. But again, my team's relievers suck and the team lost.
The last game of my AA life is the championship match against Jonathan's Wild Jokers, which had Lucy on the line. If I win I can keep dating her for the rest of the game, otherwise she will be gone with Jonathan. On the top of 3rd inning I made a big pitching mistake that gave the Jokers 1-run lead. However, I managed to get a double play the next inning. That mistake proved to be costly and I lost both championship and Lucy all together. Sad....
At the end, here are stats just after the championship match.
I also got enough scout evaluation points for the next step.
AAA team is the next target. Keep on fighting, Rocky Iwata......
See ya!
Finally, I had the first game as a starter for Green Apple versus Aegis. Time to try level 1 knuckleball!
Game Time! Wait... wait....... I didn't have to do anything! It just passed by and the game ended with my team winning. Wow, I wanted to try the pitch but the game didn't allow me to. Anyway, the result cheered me up a little bit because all coach's and scout's evaluation points I got were very high. All other ability points were high too.
Before the next game, I boosted up the knuckleball to level 2 and increased top pitching speed and pitching control for level G to F.
The second game that I hoped for was against WildJokers, the main rival in AA and Jonathan's team. In this game, I pitched so bad I gave up a 2-run home run to Jonathan at the top of 4th inning and was out right there. I got zero evaluation points and okay ability points at the end.
In the third game against team Burgers, I pitched better... not that much. I struggled to strike a Burgers hitters out in 4th innings and drained a lot of energy out of me. The CPU somehow kept hitting many foul balls until he popped a fly ball to the shortstop. The team managed to lose though.
I boosted the knuckleball to level 3 just after the game with Burgers, so I had more confident to face the fourth team Mach Socks. I played really well this time, caught one MCs base stealer and threw them into easy fly balls. But again, my team's relievers suck and the team lost.
The last game of my AA life is the championship match against Jonathan's Wild Jokers, which had Lucy on the line. If I win I can keep dating her for the rest of the game, otherwise she will be gone with Jonathan. On the top of 3rd inning I made a big pitching mistake that gave the Jokers 1-run lead. However, I managed to get a double play the next inning. That mistake proved to be costly and I lost both championship and Lucy all together. Sad....
At the end, here are stats just after the championship match.
I also got enough scout evaluation points for the next step.
AAA team is the next target. Keep on fighting, Rocky Iwata......
See ya!
Thursday, October 2, 2008
MLB Power Pros 2008 : Making a Knuckleballer (part 3)
Today I continue for another attempt to create a knuckleballer in MLB Power Pros 2008. I will go quicker today since I now realize I may not write blogs every day as I want to.
My plan is trying to get level-2 or more knuckleball as fast as possible. There are many ways to reach it, but I need to keep myself away from any injuries also. If you get injured, you will lose a lot of practice points you try so hard to collect and a week or more to cure.
At the first week of 2nd month, my vitality was so low it's risky to practice safely. So, I decided to do Frank's side event. Frank knows the secret of what he calls "Broast ball". So, he led me and the glass-wearing good friend Marvin to eat a devil fish dish at a restaurant. It gave small amount of vitality, energy, and again Insomnia. Now I had to give away one week to cure this thing again, dang it!
And some how, I got another injury the next week during a practice, which has only 9 percent chance to happen. This time it was a broken fingernail. I'm so unlucky. I cured them all within two weeks, and then it was the first ball game where I met Lucy, the ex-girlfriend, and Jonathan, Lucy's current boyfriend and a catcher in a rival team. I got benched in this game, which always is since it's a part of storyline.
Now, I have to burn the rest of vitality out so I can refill it, so I went to met Stiich, a ninja boy and my team mate, at the lake. There, he will teach ninja techniques, which will improve my skills a lot. Another great thing about training with Stiich is that he will give you a secret skills for you if you finish all ninja courses. As for pitchers, he will teach a custom pitch that you can design and name it anyway you want. The first one is "dynamic vision", which you have to catch the real Stiich from two fake ones. The more times you successfully catch, the more skill points gain.
I did it 8 times. The 9th time is just impossible for human eyes. I also got Good Pickoff ability, nice!
After the training, I went to find Jaws, the private detective who provides jobs that have to be done in limited time with good salaries and random items in returns. I had to contact the first week he appeared or he will never be seen again. The first job is finding a missing dog, which I successfully found it in that week. The owner gave me a Surprise Bag as a reward.
The Surprise Bag, as the name says, gives you a surprising item, which is a random item including a rare one or a secret item that can't be bought from a store. The two most important items for a pitcher are Gambling Ring, which give you an infinite shortcut for all ability boosts, and Tge Secret of Pitching book, which randomly give you one pitching ability including secret ones such as Gyro Ball (giving a gyro-spinning on your fastballs). There is a trick to get certain items with your Surprise Bag following this steps: save before opening the bag, load it, open the bag, exit without saving if you don't get the one you want, repeat. It often takes half an hour or more to get it right. So, I will not do it this time. I opened it and got a candy, damn! My luck is gone, again!
That's it! I will stop right here and be back again next time. See ya!
My plan is trying to get level-2 or more knuckleball as fast as possible. There are many ways to reach it, but I need to keep myself away from any injuries also. If you get injured, you will lose a lot of practice points you try so hard to collect and a week or more to cure.
At the first week of 2nd month, my vitality was so low it's risky to practice safely. So, I decided to do Frank's side event. Frank knows the secret of what he calls "Broast ball". So, he led me and the glass-wearing good friend Marvin to eat a devil fish dish at a restaurant. It gave small amount of vitality, energy, and again Insomnia. Now I had to give away one week to cure this thing again, dang it!
And some how, I got another injury the next week during a practice, which has only 9 percent chance to happen. This time it was a broken fingernail. I'm so unlucky. I cured them all within two weeks, and then it was the first ball game where I met Lucy, the ex-girlfriend, and Jonathan, Lucy's current boyfriend and a catcher in a rival team. I got benched in this game, which always is since it's a part of storyline.
Now, I have to burn the rest of vitality out so I can refill it, so I went to met Stiich, a ninja boy and my team mate, at the lake. There, he will teach ninja techniques, which will improve my skills a lot. Another great thing about training with Stiich is that he will give you a secret skills for you if you finish all ninja courses. As for pitchers, he will teach a custom pitch that you can design and name it anyway you want. The first one is "dynamic vision", which you have to catch the real Stiich from two fake ones. The more times you successfully catch, the more skill points gain.
I did it 8 times. The 9th time is just impossible for human eyes. I also got Good Pickoff ability, nice!
After the training, I went to find Jaws, the private detective who provides jobs that have to be done in limited time with good salaries and random items in returns. I had to contact the first week he appeared or he will never be seen again. The first job is finding a missing dog, which I successfully found it in that week. The owner gave me a Surprise Bag as a reward.
The Surprise Bag, as the name says, gives you a surprising item, which is a random item including a rare one or a secret item that can't be bought from a store. The two most important items for a pitcher are Gambling Ring, which give you an infinite shortcut for all ability boosts, and Tge Secret of Pitching book, which randomly give you one pitching ability including secret ones such as Gyro Ball (giving a gyro-spinning on your fastballs). There is a trick to get certain items with your Surprise Bag following this steps: save before opening the bag, load it, open the bag, exit without saving if you don't get the one you want, repeat. It often takes half an hour or more to get it right. So, I will not do it this time. I opened it and got a candy, damn! My luck is gone, again!
That's it! I will stop right here and be back again next time. See ya!
Sunday, September 28, 2008
MLB Power Pros 2008 : Making a Knuckleballer (part 2)
So today I start creating a new pitcher for MLB Power Pros 2008 through Success Mode. He's gonna be the ultimate knuckleballer at the end, maybe. Let's try it!
It starts with a name input. I entered Rocky Iwata. Why not? I set him as a starter with an original 3-quarters pitching style, which I bought from the game's store earlier. It looks really cool.
Then the game started! I have played this mode for a while now and known a lot of tricks and tips already. However, there is something wrong about this time. Normally, every newly created player gets random stats, abilities and traits, even rare bad ones, and somehow my guy get "Imsomnia" from the get go! WTF!! "Imsomnia" is a curable trait which randomly causes a player to lose vitality, which is very important parameter for practicing, during the night. To cure this, I have to waste a week of practice to visit a hospital and waste the first 50 bucks, what a start!
Other than that, he got no other pitches. He also got good numbers on only non-pitching parameters, which is quite bad for a starting pitcher. There will be a lot of works to do.
Usually, the first month of the game is solely for a lot of practices. In this case, I would choose to do at least two breaking ball practices to get a knuckleball pitch early and so on, but it got robbed by that disease so I trained for one instead. On the 3rd week of the first Febuary, Frank, a good friend and a left-fielder in my AA team Green Apple, shows up at a lookout. Meet him, befriending and training with him will help later in the game, which I did, usually. I did an upper body training and got some strengh and breaking ball points. Sometimes training with Frank occasionally gives me an ability, but not this time.
At the end of the first month, I managed to get a level-1 knuckleball, which will be a very tough pitch for any hitters, even CPUs, in later higher levels. Right now, it is just another kind of changeup.
I will resume later, so see ya tomorrow, hopefully!
It starts with a name input. I entered Rocky Iwata. Why not? I set him as a starter with an original 3-quarters pitching style, which I bought from the game's store earlier. It looks really cool.
Then the game started! I have played this mode for a while now and known a lot of tricks and tips already. However, there is something wrong about this time. Normally, every newly created player gets random stats, abilities and traits, even rare bad ones, and somehow my guy get "Imsomnia" from the get go! WTF!! "Imsomnia" is a curable trait which randomly causes a player to lose vitality, which is very important parameter for practicing, during the night. To cure this, I have to waste a week of practice to visit a hospital and waste the first 50 bucks, what a start!
Other than that, he got no other pitches. He also got good numbers on only non-pitching parameters, which is quite bad for a starting pitcher. There will be a lot of works to do.
Usually, the first month of the game is solely for a lot of practices. In this case, I would choose to do at least two breaking ball practices to get a knuckleball pitch early and so on, but it got robbed by that disease so I trained for one instead. On the 3rd week of the first Febuary, Frank, a good friend and a left-fielder in my AA team Green Apple, shows up at a lookout. Meet him, befriending and training with him will help later in the game, which I did, usually. I did an upper body training and got some strengh and breaking ball points. Sometimes training with Frank occasionally gives me an ability, but not this time.
At the end of the first month, I managed to get a level-1 knuckleball, which will be a very tough pitch for any hitters, even CPUs, in later higher levels. Right now, it is just another kind of changeup.
I will resume later, so see ya tomorrow, hopefully!
Saturday, September 27, 2008
MLB Power Pros 2008 : Making a Knuckleballer (part 1)
I'm addicting to MLB Power Pros 2008 right now, and I don't even like baseball!
I'm a soccer fan since I was a first grader, then became a basketball fan right after I got into a university. There is absolutely no baseball in my good old home country. The only two big things in sport there are soccer, which partly because of massive gambling rings there, and boxing. Nobody plays baseball there, at least there still is softball. The only source of baseball is from Japanese cartoon in which does not help increasing baseball popularity a bit. I'm from that country and I'm still learning and still don't understand most of baseball technical terms.
Then there comes an ultimate baseball game for dummies.
While the graphic, which I don't care much, is not so good as other brands such as MLB 2K8 or MLB 08, I really enjoy this game. Pitching is easy to learn and understand. Batting is pretty hard but slowly get it after I play for a while. There are so many modes to play. Success mode, where you create a new player by playing through storylines of a young baseball player trying to break into the big league. I play this mode for some times and love it.
This time, after I learn about how cool a knuckleball is, I decide to make a new starting pitcher with the highest level of knuckleball. It's going to be pretty hard since you have to train right and clear some needed storylines while gaining enough scout points to survive.
I will try next time! See ya tomorrow, hopefully!
I'm a soccer fan since I was a first grader, then became a basketball fan right after I got into a university. There is absolutely no baseball in my good old home country. The only two big things in sport there are soccer, which partly because of massive gambling rings there, and boxing. Nobody plays baseball there, at least there still is softball. The only source of baseball is from Japanese cartoon in which does not help increasing baseball popularity a bit. I'm from that country and I'm still learning and still don't understand most of baseball technical terms.
Then there comes an ultimate baseball game for dummies.
While the graphic, which I don't care much, is not so good as other brands such as MLB 2K8 or MLB 08, I really enjoy this game. Pitching is easy to learn and understand. Batting is pretty hard but slowly get it after I play for a while. There are so many modes to play. Success mode, where you create a new player by playing through storylines of a young baseball player trying to break into the big league. I play this mode for some times and love it.
This time, after I learn about how cool a knuckleball is, I decide to make a new starting pitcher with the highest level of knuckleball. It's going to be pretty hard since you have to train right and clear some needed storylines while gaining enough scout points to survive.
I will try next time! See ya tomorrow, hopefully!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
First!
This is my first try on writing a blog. I don't know anyone would ever read this but I will do it anyway. Hope it lasts longer than a week :P
First of all, I consider myself a hardcore gamer, err.... not that kind of "hardcore" that means games with a lot of bloods, guts, head shots, explosions, etc. I have played many video games in many different genres in many different platforms since NES era. My specialties are strategy games and fighting/wrestling games. I also lived in the gaming generation that play all kind of games from both sides of the world; in English and in Japanese, and you have to play through all Japanese lauguages without knowing a word of it.
Currently, my console of choice is still PS2 since I don't have much money and time to spend on those new generation consoles. Also, there are also tons of good PS2 games you haven't tried yet. Most of them are Japanese games that will never be translated or imported. I also have Nintendo DS and I'm lovin' it!
After all, it doesn't mean I don't play mainstream games at all. I just don't like them that much.....
See ya tomorrow!
First of all, I consider myself a hardcore gamer, err.... not that kind of "hardcore" that means games with a lot of bloods, guts, head shots, explosions, etc. I have played many video games in many different genres in many different platforms since NES era. My specialties are strategy games and fighting/wrestling games. I also lived in the gaming generation that play all kind of games from both sides of the world; in English and in Japanese, and you have to play through all Japanese lauguages without knowing a word of it.
Currently, my console of choice is still PS2 since I don't have much money and time to spend on those new generation consoles. Also, there are also tons of good PS2 games you haven't tried yet. Most of them are Japanese games that will never be translated or imported. I also have Nintendo DS and I'm lovin' it!
After all, it doesn't mean I don't play mainstream games at all. I just don't like them that much.....
See ya tomorrow!
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