MLB 08 The Show for PSP - Baseball You Can Take With You

My ten year old son's favorite things are video games and sports, so when he received some money for his fifth grade graduation, MLB 08 The Show for PSP was what he wanted to spend it on.

In this game there are seven ways to play: Exhibition, Manager Mode, Career, Season, Home Run Derby, King of the Diamond and Playing Online. Exhibition mode is the simplest version as it is a one-game quick play game and the Playing Online is the most difficult as you challenge other players via the internet.

My son's favorite mode of play is Career Mode since he can begin as a minor league rookie and train to become a major league superstar player. Here, you start out in Spring Training for whichever major league team that you choose. At this point you can also choose your player's name, age, height, weight, number, attributes, position and whether you are lefty or righty. At the end of Spring Training, you are assigned to the AA team for that major league team and your time with that minor league team is spent training to move up to the majors, and includes goals from your managers that need to be met.

Once you go to the majors, you play multiple seasons, hoping each time to improve your skills. Just like in real baseball, you can be involved in contract negotiations, traded to other teams, and hopefully after a number of seasons, retire with enough skill to get to the Hall of Fame.

My son likes the fact that in Career Mode, he can fast-forward plays that do not affect his player. For example, if a ball is hit to the first baseman and your player is in left field, you can move the game along to the next batter.

I do no play baseball in real life, nor do I usually play too may PSP games (although that could be because my husband and children are always playing something so I never seem to get a turn!). Even so, I found this game very easy to play. To swing the bat, press the X button and to guess what pitch press the right trigger along with the button corresponding to the pitch you think it will be. If you guess correctly, you have a better chance of hitting the ball as well as hitting it further. To field, simply move the analog stick and make your player run toward the ball. You do not have to press anything to catch the ball, and simply press the corresponding button to throw the ball to the appropriate base.

My son basically sticks to the Career Mode of play, but on occasion will play some of the others. My daughter, who likes video games and watching baseball, but who has no interest in completing an entire season or more of video baseball games, plays in Exhibition mode, which is simply one game.

In Manager Mode, you watch a game as a manager who makes calls to the bullpen and argues calls with the umpires. In Season mode, you play one season's worth of games as a team that you have chosen, and conduct trades and play as each player on the team.

The Home Run Derby game is a good way to practice your timing of hitting the ball as your major league player tries to simply hit more home runs than your competitor, which is the computer. In King of the Diamond mode, you choose any major league pitcher and any major league batter in the system. Your pitcher pitches to the other team's batter, and vice-versa, and depending on how far the ball travels and where it ends up determines what his score is, from a single to a home run, or even an out. There are nine innings and two minutes per inning for hitting.

My son likes that he can choose to play this game with his favorite players and the roster appears to be complete as far as including the 2008 major league players. We are impressed with the graphics of this game and everything down to a player's eye color can be seen clearly. This game takes longer to load than we would have expected, but one you are playing, it flows with no problems or glitches.

Not only has my son been happy with his purchase of MLB 08 The Show, but my husband has recently begun playing it as well. Since they each have their own PSP, I think we may be purchasing a second game, and then they can play games against each other.