MLB ’08: Spring Training Already Underway

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It’s that time of the year, the development team for MLB 08 The Show is hard at work trying to again create the most authentic and realistic baseball experience available. I’m Chris Cutliff, Director of Production for the MLB franchise, and I’d like to give you a little insight on the dev team’s priority objectives for THE SHOW this year. For all you hard core fans, you will be happy to hear that we are working diligently to deliver not only the best baseball sim on any console to date, but also, our goal each year is to be the best sports game in the industry.

Yankees' Alex Rodriguez

Specifically, from a graphical standpoint, our primary focus this year was to incorporate a dramatic improvement to our environment lighting, player lighting, and textures in general. The MLB franchise is already considered by most as the most authentic baseball simulation available, but this year, we are aiming for an even more lifelike representation and with the addition of depth of field, improved environment lighting, new cloth techniques and enhanced facial textures, we are approaching photo realism. When comparing MLB 07 THE SHOW to MLB 08 THE SHOW, you will be extremely impressed with the overall graphical improvements. We’re very proud of our achievements in this area (check out the screens embedded in this post).

With regard to gameplay and features, we are building on the solid franchise foundation and continuing to push the envelope. The dev team has been hard at work constantly adding to and tuning the AI decisions, pitcher/batter strategy, controls, animations, presentation and audio. Each year our approach is to immerse the player in everything that is baseball and this year is no different.

Look for future post topics to include insight toward Road To The Show v. 2.0 (including an improved create player interface), all-new pitch and batter analysis, the Replay Vault, detailed gameplay enhancements, Progressive Batting Performance…aka batting streaks, My MLB Music, SportsConnect and much more.

It’s time to play ball… well, it will be soon.

Boston's Dice K

Boston's Mike LowellTexas' Michael Young

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