I rented this from Gamefly and spent a couple weeks with it. I didn't even bother with the normal gameplay of single and season games, as I had no interest in that feature. The "Career" mode in MLB The Show has me spoiled for normal gameplay and I just cannot get into playing every single player on the field.
What I did find interesting and engaging was the GM and managerial modes in this game. It allows you to take the reins of any MLB team and guide them to victory on the field by managing the games in non-action format. The GM mode allows you to conduct a player draft of all players in the game, filling out your roster within a budget determined by the team you choose and the type of owner that is randomly selected for each team.
The "owner" gives you various goals throughout the season, such as getting rid of a particular player, generating an operating profit, working within a specified budget, etc. As you complete goals, you get boosts to your GM rating and your operating budget. The AI will propose trades or you can create your own and try to get the AI to accept a particular proposal. The AI is competent enough in this area.
You can play, simulate or manage your team's games as you proceed through each season. I chose to manage the games and this mode is pretty good, though incomplete in some ways.
The most notable shortcomings and "incomplete features" in the game are:
1. The game has pictures of most of the players in the game that you can see when you look at their stats and when they bat or pitch. For some unknown reason, the game lacks a picture of Tim Lincecum, the guy they have on the cover. How they could possibly overlook this is beyond me. It mades me wonder what else is missing that I couldn't see right away.
2. When managing a game there is no way to access the team's bullpen, to get someone warming up, during the offensive half of an inning.
3. I could find no way to make a double-switch.
4. When managing a game, if there is an injury to a player, the game automatically makes a sub for you and gives you no chance to make your own sub.
5. When the game makes an automatic injury sub, it also changes the lineups you have so carefully crafted. This is highly annoying.
6. There is no way to turn off the music in the menus, at least not that I could find. While the music is pretty good, there aren't many songs and they get old after a time or two through. Also, I just hate to have music in my game menus for games like this. It is distracting a waste of game development resources that could be put to better use in fixing the shortcomings and bugs in the game.
7. The game crashed on a couple times, locking up my PSP such that I had to remove the battery to get it to restart.
Overall the game is OK. It has some good points, but some bad ones as well. The on-field gameplay and career mode in MLB The Show is so compelling that it would be hard for 2K to keep up without copying that aspect. I tried the on-field gameplay in the PS3 version of this game and it was just horrible - bad graphics and bad controls - so didn't even bother with the PSP version's field play.
Overall I'd say the game is worth $10, maybe $15 at the most. I won't buy it at $20 and will wait for it to come down some more. Tim Lincecum is my favorite player in the Majors and I would like to have the game with him on the cover for no other reason than that, but I'll wait a while to get it at a price I think it is worth for a picture and a somewhat enjoyable GM/manager mode. Meanwhile, I'll continue to play my pitching career on MLB The Show and enjoy that far superior game with less warts and shortcomings.Get more detail about Major League Baseball 2K9.
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