Some serious fielding issues detract from an otherwise amazinlgly well thought out game.
Just the look of this game is EXTREMELY decieving. Strikezones go from a players waist to his eye levelfor starters (thought it ends up feeling just about right). It seems like a Bacyard Sports simple rendition of baseball. Pete Wheeler and Pablo Sanchez have nothing on Jeter, Varitek, and real pros though. They're just urban legend folklore of the greats on the street.
There are a few really great touches in the graphics though that aren't in other games. One such example is upon hitting the ball there' s a little sign in the top right corner telling you the number of outs. The Pitching cursor even has it so the seems on the ball move realisticly to show you what pitch is being thrown so you can react quickly enough. I've found on numerous occasions I just want to play a speedy game of baseball and sure enough little visual ques like that help you think on he fly instead of spending 15 seconds between pitches thinking out what to do. The interface is clean and very intuitive. There's a certain liveliness to these character models, the fluecy of their movements feels real enough too.
Stadiums are modeled exactly like you'd see them in real life, save for goofy advertisements like "Orange Blue".(I didn't try to make sense of it)
The commentator has a tremendous variety of things to say. He has a few lines he falls back on-I guess similar enough to real life commentators- but then has comments on very obscure moments that other baseball games just don't include. After a player hits the ball he'll recap exactly what happened during the at bat and why it was a triumph or have some comments about a player being at his first at bat in the majors, there's an endless list of these little comments. The announcers tone is inconsistent, speech i choped up into to fragments clearly at some points, and his introductions when the game starts are very vague. Outside of that however there's not really much you can fault him with. The gameplay is generally meant to be frantic and his voice matches that.
Gameplay has genius moments, but simultaneously induces extreme frustration.
The pitcher-batter interface is simple yet extremely deep. You make it so simple that all you have to do is time your swing or so complex that you'll have to watch the seems of that ball and place your bat accurately where the ball ends up when you make contact. Swing slightly under it will pop the ball up, slightly over makes a weak grounder, you can even have the ball hit the tip of your bat which makes an extremely weak gronder. When pitching you can again just place the ball and throw the pitch and it will go exactly there, no complex meters involved. OR you can play on expert mode, which has a pitching interface similar to MLB 2k games of late, where you press the A button again when the circle closes in on the ball for the most accurate pitch. You can adjust the infield and outfield seperately depnding on where you plan on pitching to a batter. There's much more though. You can throw any crazy pitch including gyroballs, froshballs, shuutos, drop curveballs, and vertical sliders. To top that say a runner happens to attempt to steal a base during your windup. You can tap the Z button quickly and pitch the ball out. By doing this you actually give the catcher and extra split second to throw to the base. It's definitely an impressive little touch.
However not everything about the on field gameplay is stellar. The only area I can seriously fault this game is in the fielding. Specifically, there's no senstitvty in running, you either are running full speed or not at all. This makes catching pop ups involve MUCH more twitch work then should be necessary. It doesn't help that you only have a small radius to stand under to catch the pop ups. The same can be said for grounders only its more frustrating at times, because routine plays aren't so routine in this game. This is something you can get used to though, as dumb as it is. There's another issue though that seems impossible to get around.
To top that the computer automatically switches players for you and how they make the choice of which player you control is extremely baffling.A bloop pop pup right in front of third base with no men on, you'd expect the third baseman to step up and make the catch. Instead he gets shy and hangs back while the game switches-rapid fire- between the pitcher and catcher making very little progress towards the high pop before it falls. Once it hit the ground the third baseman was still the closest man to the ball..... Hits to the outfield always have a similar effect. Hits to the infield often having you control someone you wouldn't expect to be controling and combining that with the over running the ball. It makes for far too many balls that are missed that should not have been. That sounds like a massive deturrent and a great reason why you shouldn't buy this game. It si frustrating and in the first few games it will cost you a lot of runs. I was losing my first games by scores of like 25-3. Eventually I got the hang of it though and I beat the Yankees with a custom team 8-7. So it's just a matter of practice and having to ajust to the computer's system.
The real depth of this game however hasn't even been touched on. That is what goes on behind the scenes. Like how your players batting average will be different next at bat depending on what happened in the previous one. (mid game stat tracking something I haven't seen in other sports games at least to that extent). The way you manage players personalities, read their body language to determine fatigue, build your players skills through practices and make them bond with one another to pick up traits you'd like to see displayed by more players. (franchise mode) That last thing is actaully really interesting. In Season Mode you conduct practices, you can have players practice a tremendous number of different techniques and skills seperately or you can have players form bonds and make training that much more effective. For example say a pitcher has a great curve ball and another one has a great changeup. By having those two pratice as a group they will learn each others strengths and incoperate them into their own playing. This is a massive asset, a great tool . Practicing has never been so useful in a game.
Beyond that there's a practice mode which lets you run through every conceivable event in a game and keep drilling it over and over until you feel satisfactory with your improvement. So again there's a practice mode which improves your players skills but there's also a practice mode for you to fine tune every aspect of your skills too, and this mode is far deeper than anything I've seen in any other baseball game.
There's a simple little Wii Remote mode. And it's like Wii Sports Baseball. It's got a homerun derby or exhibition match. All you do is swing just like in Wii Sports or push a button and pitch, just like Wii Sports. Thought now there's an actaul bunt command. The one extra is that you make another throwing motion when the ball is in the field, thought you don't determine anything by doing this, you simply make the motion and the player makes the smartest play. When on offense you use the Wii Remote to run. This mode lacks 2 things from Wii Sports however.the first being the ability to waive the bat around when batting, a nice little extra. THE BIG OMISSION here though is that there's no way to determine pitch speed. Throw it as hard as you want its still going to be a regular fastball. So despite all the stuff it adds that one factor makes Wii Sports still the best Wii remote version of baseball. Home Run Derby is pretty self explanatory. Pick a player and hit as many HRs as you can.
Finally there's a vast number of extras and unlcokables. From player baseball cards I've already mentioned, which give an in depth look at the players. All the to buying new ball parks, new batting stancespitching deliveries for created players, getting extra money for your teams budget in Seasons Mode. A lot of stuff.
There's tournament leagues and any number of extras here that I havne't touched on much. But I gave you what's important here. I didn't stress this enough but this game could be played by your little brother and with a little tweaking in the options he could be a good competition for you. It really is as deep or simple and shallow as you want. Everything is there for a hardcore baseball fan to thoroughly enjoy this game