A great baseball game with a great learning curve.
MLB '09: The Show is the most realistic sports game ever created, hands-down. The game features game modes like Franchise, Season, Manager Mode, Home Run Derby, Exhibition, Quick Play, and of course, Road To The Show. While RTTS Mode is the main attraction of MLB 09, the others aren't bad at all. In fact, I've never seen a deeper franchise mode. The online play is there, but it is completely unplayable. To play online you must first sign into SportsConnect and accept the user agreement, then you find a game, which will load up and allow you to play, but the servers are so bad that you can't pitch or hit correctly because of connection lag. In a game where timing is everything, this definitely isn't something you can 'manage'. This is a disappointment, but the online play isn't really what players are looking for in a baseball game anyhow. So now that I got that off my chest, let's get back to discussing RTTS, lol. RTTS is a mode where you create your character and start with awful attributes on a AA Minor League team. You play only as your specific player, and do not control anything with the organization. You try to reach certain goals so that they can promote you to the AAA League and finally, the Big Leagues. Don't think it's a walk in the park though, because just trying to advance to AAA takes a season or two, and once you reach there it is a long while until you make it to the Show. This game mode is great all around, and the only problem it has is the frequent but brief loading screens. So you're probably wondering about the core gameplay... Well, what I can tell you is that if you're used to ANY other baseball game series, you're in for a brutal learning curve. The pitching and batting mechanics are so much like the real thing that you will start out getting about 3 hits a game and losing miserably and finally progressing into about 8-12 hits a game and winning a good amount of the time. The learning process takes about 3-4 days of consistent playing time to get the hang of. To be honest, I almost took the game back to the store the first day I bought it because I was so frustrated at how bad I was doing, until I came to my senses and got used to it. For a video game, this takes realism, tremendous graphics, awesome game modes, insane depth, and accurate rosters and mixes it together to form MLB 09 The Show.