The moment you take the field in MLB 2K10's brand new My Player mode, the pressure is on you. Sure, you might only be playing in Double-A ball, but that doesn't mean that you won't need to perform. After you've created your player from scratch, given him a name, worked out his look, and chosen his position on the field, you're immediately dropped into a clutch situation late in a game. If you're a pitcher, your goal is to get a batter out and not let any runners on base score. If you're a batter, your goal is to--you guessed it---get those runners home and win the game.

It's not the end of the world if you don't come up big in the clutch. As a pitcher, I actually let a runner score but managed to send the game into extra innings, where my Tennessee Smokies eventually lost. But completing your goal will earn you extra skill points, which you'll put toward your player's attributes on his way to getting the call up to the big leagues.

My Player mode was included in last year's NBA 2K10 and career modes have become increasingly popular in sports games. As a result, including My Player in MLB 2K10 was a virtual certainty. And while there's little that's utterly new in 2K's version of a baseball game Career mode (beyond the high drama of your debut, with its slow-mo camera pans and tense musical score), the mode does look like a fun alternative to the more traditional modes in MLB 2K10, like exhibition games or Franchise mode.

Getting called up to the major leagues is any baseball player's dream, and in My Player mode, there will be very little mystery about what you need to do to get promoted. A handy menu screen will present you with the precise criteria you'll need to meet in order to earn your way onto the MLB roster for your team. For example, in order for my pitcher to get called up, he had to have at least five starts under his belt, as well as some very specific attribute and statistical goals. These included having two pitches rated at 60 or above, a composure rating above 60, a stamina rating above 65, and a pitching rating against both left-handed and right-handed batters above 60. There's even a meter that gives you an ETA on when you're expected to get the call up that is based on your current attributes--the more that meter is filled, the closer you are to getting the call.

Your first moments in My Player mode will put your on the spot in a clutch situation.

Depending on the situation of your organization, you might get called up earlier than expected--such as when a key member of the MLB roster is hurt. However, if you meet all of the requirements listed on your My Player menu, you are guaranteed to get called up. I haven't played enough of the mode myself to see if this means you'll get an earlier call-up than you might in the Career mode in Sony's MLB series, but it certainly seems that way in the early goings.

You can spend skill points on whatever player attributes you like--dumping all your points into one or two areas or spreading things around and trying to progress a bit more evenly. As a pitcher, you can spend skill points on your current pitches to improve their speed or accuracy. Or you can spend a big chunk of points and add an additional pitch or two to your arsenal (you start with three pitches in the beginning). Producers told me that an evenhanded approach to progress is probably best because if you dump too many skill points into a few areas in order to get an early call-up, your resulting deficiencies in other areas of your game might mean a quick trip back to the minors.

New position drills will let you focus on specific skills away from actual game situations. There are six drills in all:

- Control and velocity (pitching)
- Composure and stamina (pitching)
- Contact and power (hitting)
- Plate battle (hitting)
- Lead off and jump (running)
- Advancing and sliding (running)

I saw control and velocity, as well as contact and power, in action. With the former, you have to hit certain areas of the strike zone with a certain type of pitch. You have only so many attempts of a certain pitch type to hit that target, and the more areas you hit, the more skill points you'll earn at the end of the drill. With contact and power, your goal is to hit the ball either left, right, or center a certain number of times. To earn a bronze medal, for example, you'll need to pull one ball, hit two to center, and hit one to the opposite side. More prestigious medals will require more accuracy, and as with the pitching drills, higher performance will earn you more points to spend on your player.

You'll always know exactly how close you are to getting called up to the big leagues in MLB 2K10's My Player mode.

Both the pitching and batting drills illustrate the new mechanics that have been built into the pitcher/batter duels in MLB 2K10. When batting, a lower camera angle offers a slightly better look at the kind of pitch that's coming your way. There's also the new batter's eye rating; while not available for every player, those with a high enough "batter's eye" rating will get an occasional glimpse at where a ball is heading--left, right, up, or down. The system doesn't tell you whether the pitch will be a ball or a strike, but it does effectively train your eye on where to look.

In terms of controls, batting works similarly to last year--you push forward for a contact swing and pull back then push forward for a power swing. Defensive swings have been added this year; by flicking the right stick left or right you can perform a defensive swing designed to keep you in the batter's box during a lengthy duel with a pitcher. You can actually get on base with a defensive swing, but you'll more often simply hit the ball foul down the line. Between defensive swings and the batter's eye function, it seems that the rarest of baseball video game occurrences--taking a walk--might be probable… perhaps even frequent.

In MLB 2K9, pitching was mostly guesswork. You had a series of sometimes confusing pitch-specific motions you needed to perform on the right stick. The game, then, essentially guessed at what pitch you were attempting and graded your success accordingly. The result was often frustratingly inaccurate and simply not a lot of fun. While the pitch-specific moves are still in MLB 2K10, the system has been improved with a simple fix: Before you deliver from the mound, you choose the pitch you want to throw by pressing a corresponding face button. Then, once you deliver your pitch, you're judged on how well you performed the motion of the pitch you chose--no guesswork here. Different pitches have different break points, and you'll be able to see how much movement pitches have via a small arrow onscreen.

Elsewhere in MLB 2K10, the Franchise mode has gotten some attention, with features like an improved player filter, trade finder (where you can put a player on the block to see what other players will offer for him), an MLB.com front end that will highlight all the news around your franchise, a super sim feature that will let you quickly sim through games (on a batter-by-batter, half-inning, or full-inning basis), spring training, 40-man rosters, September call-ups, and a mid-season draft.

No skill points for that pitch.

More than all of the new additions in the game, the developers behind MLB 2K10 seem intent on proving that this year's baseball game will be a better experience than last year's disappointing effort. A full 11-month development cycle (compared to the eight-month schedule for last year's game, necessitated by the game's move to being developed in-house by 2K Sports) has made an impact. Between fixing all of the problems of MLB 2K9 and adding the new features to this year's game, it has certainly been a busy year for the guys at 2K Sports. We'll see how well those efforts paid off when MLB 2K10 is released on March 2. Look for the demo of MLB 2K10 to be available on February 23 on Xbox Live and on the PlayStation Network on March 4.