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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The best wii baseball game., August 26, 2008
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
First of all, this is the best baseball game out there for the wii. Plenty of game modes, including exhibition, batting practice, fielding practice, home run derby, 162 game season mode, a 6-team round robin league mode, and 2 rpg-like modes: MLB Life, and Success mode.
I spend about 95% of my time in season mode. There is plenty to do, although almost nothing has changed in season mode since last year. One thing in particular that I still like is the different simulation modes, where you can essentially let the computer play all the games, with the option to stop play before any batter and take control yourself. This can make it possible to play many games in a short amount of time each day. Season mode keeps stats in at least 50 different categories and allows you to sort by stat, by team, by division, by league...and also keeps all-time records. You can buy special bats and gloves, etc, to help your players practice more efficiently and raise their abilities between games (although progress takes time, a lot of time).
The batting practice mode is pretty cool too. You can customize the pitches that are thrown by pitcher, type and location, so you can work on hitting just inside curveballs if you want.
There are lots of frills like baseball cards with player bios and player batting and pitching stances/styles, and fictional stadiums that you can purchase with "frequent player points". There is the ability to create "arrange" teams with custom players, or to keep rosters updated. You can adjust the players abilities also and use these arranged teams in your season. I guess you could do this every year so that rosters are kept up-to-date. You can even create a 32 team league, and edit the team colors, uniform and mascot of a couple expansion teams.
I cannot comment too much on MLB life, and Success mode except that I found them a little tedious and frustrating. This is unfortunate because Success mode is the only way to add custom players, and there is no guarantee that the player you create will even "succeed" and be able to play on your season team. (It takes about an hour or two, and your success is based on maybe 3 games or 9 to 12 plate appearances).
So, here is what is still lacking, in my opinion (I hope the game designers are reading):
- The CPU never walks a batter. This is NOT realistic.
- The CPU never *intentionally* walks a batter. Players like Pujols, Manny, Arod, etc should not be pitched to with a base open late in a close game. It should not be too hard to add a heuristic here. I've seen it done in some other baseball games.
- The CPU makes odd managerial decisions. A pitcher will bat late in the game, only to be replaced at the start of the next inning.
- I've found that the stats are a little skewed to the extremes...good players are monsterous, and mediocre/bad players are terrible. Even after tinkering with the difficulty levels.
- You cannot set default lineups for right-hand pitchers/left-hand pitchers. It allows you to set default lineups for DH/non-DH, so why not by opposing pitchers' throwing hand?
- I would really like to see this game give you an "official boxscore" of the format found in newspapers and mlb.com. You should be able to view it throughout the course of the game. This would be neat.
- The play by play announcer is TERRIBLE. There are many many audio bugs where he calls players by the wrong name, and calls the play wrong too. I usually listen to my ipod and keep the game audio muted.
That being said this is still a great great baseball game that would be worthy of 5 stars if some of the bad things I mentioned were not so.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Still great but essentially no changes, August 8, 2008
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
I have to give this years version 4 stars only due to the fact that 99% of the game remains unchanged. While I can appreciate the developers taking the "if it ain't broke don't fix it approach", I still would've liked to see some additions/corrections. The game has all the elements that made last years a nearly perfect game, but, the same problems remain. The minor league system is still not done well, there are very few errors (especially throwing), and the computer throws strikes strikes and more strikes (good luck drawing a walk), and worst of all no online play to speak of.
Overall, the season mode is still great. The computer presents a strong challenge and the statistics are realistic. I would like to see a more expanded minor league system which might include AA and AAA rather than just a few guys that you can bring up whenever you feel like it. The MLB Life mode is fun for awhile but it quickly gets old when you have to conduct each at bat for your player over the course of 162 games with no way to skip ahead AT ALL!!
I hate to be petty as this is still my favorite baseball game, but I was hoping to join up with an online league or at least have single matches this year. Still a wonderful game with a lot of features, but not quite a 5-star delivery.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Game, September 8, 2008
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
Really fun baseball game, great physics, ability to alter difficulty to your skill level. Deeps stats, and of course, really cute players. Only downside is that roster updates would be nice.
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