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!

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!

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!