A beautiful looking game graphically with some hideous bugs that hinder the Franchise mode to nearly no end.
Lets start with the good, and likely the mode most synonymous with the SCEA baseball series, RTTS. This mode just continues to get better and better year after year, and its has finally become difficult to get promoted to AAA, and ultimately "The Show". You have to focus completely on achieving the advancement goals set by your Franchise or else you'll be stuck spinning your tires in AA.
Two new features in RTTS are the Shop where you can buy 1000 training points for .99 cents (comes in handy after an injury), and a Trophy Rewards section where you can earn things such as max pitch speed and max pitch break, along with more arcade style rewards like super run speed, big head, big ball, etc by unlocking certain in game trophies.
Next up is a little game mode called Home Run Derby which is finally making an appearance on the PS3. Home Run Derby is a bit bare, mostly because there is no reply feature, but its still a fun pick up and play mode for when you're with a few buddies.
Online has been a yearly disappointment for Show fans. This year the lag has ceased a bit, but still rears its ugly head at some bad times. Along with the occasional lag there have also been reports of games not recording (has already happened to me) and apparently theres a glitch that allows players to freeze the game resulting in a draw or win, hopefully a patch can fix some of these issues.
Now we get to the real heart breaker of this game, the Franchise mode. SCEA made strides last year with improved salary arbitration, the Rule 5 draft, 40 man rosters, etc, all those nice Front Office touches are back again this year, but the trade logic is once again horrid, plus the player potentials are completely out of whack on account of the eye popping number of A and B potential prospects that demand large contracts and in-turn cause team salaries to sky rocket only a few years into the mode.
SCEA has already communicated to the public that another patch is in the works to fix these problems, but the patch likely won't be ready until April, or possibly even May which is a huge disappointment to many GM heads who feel as though they're stuck playing half a game until SCEA devs return from their post game release break.
All in all if a patch is released for the Franchise mode and if it fixes the glaring issues this game would easily be a 9.0-9.5, however as it sits now its a little more than a glorified demo so it'll get a 8.0 from me.