MLB the Show 08 is an improvement compared to the previous year. I have yet to play the 09 version which I hear is pretty good overall. MLB the Show 08 is definitely not without its flaws. Personally I prefer 07 because it handles a little better compared to 08. In order words, 08 is far less forgiving with its reworked controls and gameplay. I found myself in numerous situations where I completely had the upperhand against the computer, and out of the blue it comes back to win the game! Whether I was pitching a near-perfect game, batting up a storm, or had outstanding offense or defense performance, the computer would somehow win if by magic.

I chose the Dodgers to play as because they are my favorite team, and was doing pretty good overall. Leading in my division, had a strong batting order, and improved my pitching close to perfect. The bottom line is I had a great team, but no matter what team I played I could never hold a three game winning streak before the computer turned things around on me. I was in first place typically winning games I played overall, but somehow out of nowhere I had a four game losing streak which was in no way possible. I never had this problem in MLB the Show 07, but I do now. Now, I'm all for Next-Gen games to be challenging as they should be, but come on when you've got a huge lead and your in the later innings there is no way a scrub team can come back and win when they haven't played a good game all season. How is that even remotely fair?

Improved graphics but only slightly. This is PS3 after all, Sony could have attempted to make this an amazingly detailed game over 07.

Unique umpire personalities make for an interesting game, but sometimes even their personalities are far from realistic.

Fun but often times very difficult and frustrating when playing against the computer.

Improved sound quality, except for repetitive and rehash announcer comments, and a horrible music soundtrack which fortunately allows you to load your own music if you choose.

Often times plagued by unresponsive controls especially when batting. Entirely too many "check swings" or wrong location pitches.

I would have given this game a 3 1/2 rating, but it does manage to keep my attention and keep me hooked, even though I prefer the 07 edition. Looking forward to 09 when it drops in price. For now, I'll stick with 08 until it angers me enough to resort back to 07.

Get this game if you can find it for under twenty dollars which I did, or if you cannot afford or refuse to pay full price for 09.

This is the best baseball game I have ever played...great graphics, great game play and a ton of fun...just 2 minor issues that I see which prevent this from being 5 stars:

1. Your players tire too easily...if someone starts 2 games in a row, they are just too tired to start a third.

2. When the AI (computer) does not want you to win, it is very obvious. I was game 7 of the World Series playing with the Cubs and facing the Yankees and it took me 20 tries to finally beat them (yes, I would kill the game if it was obvious I was going to lose, what can I say).

One of the problems with reviewing sports video games is, by the time you have played it enough to give a fair critique, the current season is over, and nobody (hard-core sports games addicts, anyway) wants to buy LAST years game version.
However, after again playing through a full pre-season, regular 162 game season, and playoffs with my home-town Chicago White Sox (and winning it all, btw),here is my critique: I am concentrating only on the game as it pertains to those who buy sports games primarily to play through a full season with their favorite team, and are interested in not only fun, but realistic gameplay and believable statistics. I'll comment briefly on the Road To The Show,etc, but the below is mainly about playing a season mode.
I play on the Hall of Fame (highest) difficulty level, against the CPU, and rarely if ever simulate a game completely.
1- Graphics and animations: Undeniably the best looking sports video game on the current market, bar none. The upgrade from MLB The Show 07 is striking: player models and movements are spot-on perfect, and really add a lot to the fun of the game. Tremendous number of individualized batting stances and pitching deliveries, and the number/variation of animations have been increased tremendously, so the gameplay never seems repetitive. I got some 60 games into the season and still was seeing some animations for the first time. This part of the game is A++++.
2- Sound: spot-on crowd and stadium sounds, and much more in concert with what is going on with the gameplay than previous versions. Crowds make a lot of noise in tight game situations, and get quiet when the home team is getting drubbed, and the boo-birds come out at appropriate times, too. The only sound aspect that hasn't improved much is the announcers- still rather droll and repetitive: not a game-breaker, but could be done much better than it is still. The NHL videogames are a good example of how good this can be, and how much it can add to the gameplay.
3- Rosters: always a concern for baseball afficionados- the early release of MLB 08 caused the rosters to be rather incomplete, but this can be edited easily enough, and regular on-line updates are also available. More minor leaguers with real names, too. Also nice that players are fairly editable, too, though some things you can't change, even if they are WRONG (ie: Nick Swisher throws right-handed in MLB 08, when in reality he is a lefty- but for some reason you can't change that). One other very annoying thing: you aren't allowed to have expanded rosters in September, for some reason- so you have to resort to shuffling players up and down between the MLB and minors, rather than having the 40 man roster at the end of the year as in real life.
4- Stats: after playing about 200 games in total, the stats come out pretty accurately- nothing so unbelievable that you would get disgusted, but also still allowing for the occaissional unexpected year for any given player. For example, I managed to hit 194 HRs for the season with the White Sox, which is almost identical to what the real team did in 07.
Only stat that still comes out whacky (for gameplay reasons outlined below) is the # of walks- both allowed by human controlled pitchers, and gotten by my human controlled batters: way too low on both counts.
5- GAMEPLAY: the main thing most of us care about, though I must admit, it is a lot easier to overlook certain things this year simply because of the added fun of the eye-popping graphics.
A. Pitching: still too easy to pinpoint your pitches to the CPU batters, even with every slider adjustment to make this more difficult.
I play with the strike zone, hot and cold zones, and guess pitch all turned off, and the sliders set to make player controlled pitchers with way less command/accuracy than the default, and have even edited each one of my teams' pitchers (even their individual pitches) for less control- yet I still rarely unintentionally walked more than 1-2 CPU batters/game. What I would STILL like to see here is, even if you hit the pitch meter bar perfectly, that control of pitches still varies depending on your pitchers control ratings- with penalties of course more pronounced for missing the meter bar by a lot. As it is, its still too easy, and as a result, my team ERA for the season was 3.20. I gave up plenty of hits and HRs, but so few walks that the ERA stayed lower than it should have.
B. Hitting: again I play with all the options turned off, so its more like real hitting- and also have the CPU pitch speed set quite high, so I don't have a lot of time to react to a pitch. Biggest gripe here is the same as last year: its still too hard to tell borderline pitches, and the CPU throws a LOT of borderline pitches. As a result, I rarely got more than 1-2 walks per game. Strikeouts were about right, however, but my team BA for the season was .301. Didn't score that many runs, mainly because of the lack of walks. Only thing I'd like to see is some tweak in this to make it easier to tell borderline pitches- easier if you turn the CPU pitch speed down, of course, but then its just too easy.
C. Fielding: better animations, but still can't see that the throw meter bar does anything. Fielding is very perfunctory as a result. Could be way more challenging, and would add a lot to gameplay if it was. Errors seem to occur very randomly, unrelated to what you do with the throw meter bar.
D. Baserunning: still a bit difficult to easily control multiple runners at once, which results in a lot of lost runs. Not a gamebreaker again, though. One other thing, which I discovered a little too late in the season: if you set the CPU base-stealing frequency up too high (in order to make that more of a challenge when playing against the CPU), all the CPU simulated games will result in crazy stolen base totals for the season....as an example, though my roster players had reasonable steal stats for the year under my control, Carl Crawford wound up with 140, and Juan Pierre with 160+. Yeah, they're both fast, but not THAT fast. Too fix this, you just have to set the slider bar for steals lower, though that makes your games against the CPU a little less challenging that way.
E. CPU AI: pretty good overall, though the CPU still makes some odd moves with relief pitchers, often leaving in a clearly tiring pitcher for several innings, when there are plenty of other choices left in the pen. Also some whacky lineup decisions from time to time (ie: Vernon Wells batting 8th for The Jays, etc).

And finally, a sports video game that allows you to save games in progress (even though it is fairly easy to play a full game in a half hour or so). Also a nice option to simulate games from any point in the game, and to also stop a sim in progress and jump back in to play the game. Why all sports video games don't incorporate a save game feature has always been a frustration for me.

The Road to the Show mode (where you control a single player from the Minor leagues on up to The Show) is plenty of fun, though I haven't played that as much as season mode. Main complaint here is it can be awfully hard to hit some of the goals (ie: getting a lot of walks, for one), and the camera view while you are baserunning can make for a lot of baserunning mistakes (since you often can't see behind you, when a ball is hit in the gaps, for instance).

The manager mode would also be a lot better if the commands weren't so absolute: for instance, I figured if you gave your hitter a "hit away" command, that he would swing or take the pitch based on his attributes- but no, the dude swings no matter what. To make him take a pitch, you have to command "take pitch", and again, even if its 2 strikes and right down the pipe, the batter will not swing. As a result, I never play manager mode, but it could be fun with a little tweaking.

Playing against another human opponent is a ton of fun, mainly because the batter-pitcher aspect is a whole lot more variable than vs: the CPU. More walks, for one thing.

Overall, this is the best baseball videogame on the market, though still with room for some improvement. MLB 09, maybe??????