As for new stuff, the pitching model sounds entirely different and no longer just the simple button press; in continuing with modern sports games trying to make use of the right stick, you can now pitch the ball using a circle motion with the stick – Brinkman says this feels like throwing a pitch more than just pressing a button (you may use the old method if you wish) and is a big advancement for the series. It will take time to get used to (Brinkman said around ten minutes of practice before veteran players would get the hang of it.) Along these lines, at the end of the call I was able to ask about “walks” and the lack thereof in most baseball games. If you have no fear of throwing a bases loaded walk then you aren’t playing baseball – just something that looks the part. Brinkman emphasized that with the new pitching model that walks are a bigger part of the game and that based on ratings it’s much harder to throw strikes with a pitcher with weak control. All we can do is wait – and hope.

We also heard about better framerates (especially on the PS3), two new batting swing types, better ball on bat sound effects, better fielding AI where players don’t always take the best angle, more motion capture animations, more minor leagues teams and stadiums (18 to be exact) and more playable camera angles – something that was sorely lacking in 2K7.

There is one area of concern, even though Brinkman said he and the team are really excited about it – and that’s the new “baseball card” feature. You basically treat these as achievements and unlock cards (or packs of cards – stale gum not included) and you can trade them online and even field a team based on the cards you collect and play online with them. Brinkman went on about this feature for several minutes, and while some might get into this sort of thing, it will be extremely frustrating if some baseball basics are still screwy and the development time instead went into trading cards. You hate to be skeptical about this type of thing but people just want to play a fun and moderately realistic game and features like this tend to raise a red flag with hardcore players.

Finally there was some talk of the Wii version, which Brinkman said was a lot of fun to play but will lack online play – and also lack the cards. “Gameplay is the focus” of the Wii version, so a lot of the bells and whistles didn’t make it into this version.

In the end, Mr. Brinkman said all of the right things. The game sounds like a vastly improved product from better on the field gameplay with a new pitching system and an enhanced Swing Stick to a deeper and more realistic franchise mode (even though it’s limited to four players) with even some extras like the cards thrown in for good measure.

How will it actually play? We’ll have to wait until it hits the shelves on March 4th.