Our hands-on experience showed flashes of the game's lofty goals coming to fruition. It's incredibly gratifying to make any routine play from your third-person camera view in the field - track the incoming ball, move into position, click the left mouse button to open your mitt and catch, then turn and fire an accurate throw to first base. We also got a kick out of working with fellow infielders to turn a double play or coordinating with a cut-off man. The camaraderie quickly builds amongst teammates and the general attitude of those online is very pleasant - everybody online shares the same passion.
The controls will feel comfortable to fans of baseball games. The cursor-based batting feels similar to the High Heat games of yore, while a variant on the now-standard meter interface handles pitching. Running the bases is completely manual; the WASD keys guiding your movements.
