Looks like major league baseball 2k8 is not going to be much better than the year Aaron reviewed one in the series.

People are saying it has truly horrible framerates and numerous other bad qualities.

I am hoping the Wii version will not have frame rate issues since it has worse graphics. Also hoping the controls will be good, but it's doubtful.

It even appears that 2ksports tried to keep people from reviewing it before the first day of release where they could get more money before the bad reviews started rolling in.

They even lied that a demo would be out in February and that is when I knew it would not be good.

My only choice is to buy the wii version or go yet ANOTHER year without a baseball game. The last great baseball sim was mvp 05!

rbi baseball was the last great baseball game.

I liked Bases Loaded and Baseball Stars but no real MLBers. I might rent 2k8 tonight

Only games I have liked are baseball stars, some of the world series baseball games for genesis and saturn, mvp 2005, and that's about it.

Maybe I will play more of power pros becuase like someone on the 2k site said... its fun to relax and NOT use movements also. So I can kind of see me playing this and power pros both.

Although many are saying now that this wii version is almost EXACTLY 2k6 with extra controls and Aaron sure hated 2k6. lol

Here's my post from avsforum for my review on this game:

LONG POST BELOW

I rented this and have only had time to do the home run derby, do the tutorial which consists of hitting and pitching but no fielding, and a full 9 inning exhibition game between the Tigers (me) and the Nationals.

I'll start with the Home Run Derby. I did this first to get a hold of the swing motion. I picked ARod and went to Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati. The HR Derby is customizable so I selected 20 outs. Fortunately it's real rules where you don't get called out on a pitch you don't swing at. The pitching comes fast as far as the windup as they don't mess around in between pitches. This is good if you're a non-patient hitter but if you're the type that looks to take their time waggling the bat then Thank God you can take the pitch. Once I got the swing motion down I was crushing them.

Let me get into detail about the hitting. I personally like the nunchuck connected and I'll tell you why. First of all the sensitivity is nowhere near as sensitive as Wii Sports. You do NOT see your batter warm up swings. In other words, if the pitcher is scratching his ass and you're just taking half swings getting ready, your player will do his personalized swing preparation instead. For example, Gary Sheffield does his trademark quick waggle and you can be not moving or swinging like hell and he'll continue as if nothing. However once the pitch is thrown, it seems that the swing is activated and then you may swing away. Did I mention that I'm lefty. There was no setting that I saw for making a guy lefty but it's a moot point. If you're using a righty and you're lefty, the swing still comes naturally and you still hit the ball like a champ. Remember, in HR Derby with ARod I was crushing them. That's why Wii Sports is more sensitive.

I hold the controllers but having the left side of the Wiimote touching the right side of the Nun. I wrap the cord around my hand AND Wiimote kind of like a one handed boxing wrap. This is so that I don't whip the back of my neck after a swing. Granted you don't feel like you're holding a Louisville Slugger but with the help of the cord keeping the hands together, you can get off a good swing. With runners on I can easily take a lead by hitting the Z on the Nun which is very accessible and hitting the B on Mote, also accessible to slide/walk back. Very handy IMO for any baseball game as I hated taking my finger off of the swing button to lead/return a runner. As a result, I would never steal in past games. Simply hit the D-pad for the base to advance to and drum the controllers for speed. I tried stealing with Guillen but I don't think he's much of a base stealer. However, the throw was close. Not sure if for drama or I got a great jump but with experience I'll tell better if it's programming or reality as far as the closeness.

Check swings are pretty good. I even had one that the 1st base umpire reviewed and I went to far. The only unrealistic occurence was when I check swinged, I think with Magglio, and the ball hit the LF wall. Did I mention I work out?

I did not attempt a bunt but in the tutorial you can attempt regular bunts and running bunts a la Juan Pierre. Plus you can pull the bunt to either side with use of the Nun stick, another nice feature.

Baserunning I didn't get a big attempt because I hit either singles or HRs. I did get to hit a few shoulda been doubles but you have to tell the runner to keep going or else by default he'll stay at 1st. Also you have to be careful with sliding. I slid going to 1st when I really wanted to advance. I'll play with that or welcome tips. I'm thinking of not "drumming" right before a base and just hit the D-pad for the base I want to advance to.

Pitching has already been described and the only issue I had, as someone else stated, was to try to intentionally walk. I think you just have to hold the Mote up and hold down the A and he eventually throws it. Kind of annoying but it was the last thing of the tutorial so the poster didn't miss anything else. Other than that, if I feel after a few games that the pitching is too easy, I'll attempt to mess with the sliders. I did have Verlander who had excellent control and while on Rookie mode so it was easy. I noticed that the speed drastically increased when I got close to 50% with my reliever which happened because Verlander had a freak injury and was "Out for 3 days". The reliever, I think Jason Grilli, had little control issue also.

One last thing why I like this pitching vs Wii Sports. When I play Wii Sports I go all out and will get sweaty. If it's like 11pm and you already bathed this game won't force you for another shower. The "break" of pitching/fielding is a welcome one in between hitting instead of the whole chore of pitching in Wii Sports. I think Nintendo made Wii Sports a 3 inning game to not tire out us fat Americans.

Fielding is very smooth. It's realistic too in the sense of momentum and throwing. I was fielding a routine grounder with Polanco and by mistake ran toward 2nd to throw to 1st. His weight had to shift off his back (right) foot to make the throw so it was close as it wasn't the usual infield bullet. It wasn't like older baseball games where you can pull a Favre and rifle it in there. The outfielding is very easy to get under flyballs and the Nun's stick is very easy to manuever your player sensitivity-wise. Plus the smart throw is a nice touch or you can just use the D-pad.

As for the game, I left it at Rookie mode and got a 8-0 lead after 4 and chased out John Patterson. Thanks to 2 Cabrera bombs while holding left and up with the nunchuck to pull and power the pitch. I changed the setting to Professional and proceeded to get owned by Jesus Colome for like 4 innings. Pitching was very simple for me so they only scored one run due to an error I made while testing the fielding.

My thoughts. I personally really like the game. My only thing is, and it has always been for baseball games for myself, is that 9 innings is pretty darn long. Mind you, at Rookie I did tear up the SP so that lead to time delays obviously. Other than that, this game was fun for me. I think the motion controls are very very good. I think it has just enough and not too forced. Face it, you sometimes look at your Wii and don't want to play Wii Sports just because you're too dang tired. I have a 2 yr old and pregnant wife. Sometimes I want to wind down and I don't have a big game library. Plus I love baseball and have been playing sports games since Bases Loaded and RBI Baseball. The game is realistic enough for me to further enjoy it. The good news is that the initial impression is a positive one. Let me nitpick now.

Please feel free to ask any questions.

This was awesome. You should post it in the reviews section and add the point ratings as well.

Thanks. I will definetly check it out.

Yeah, thanks.

The main thing that worries me is it is said by some to be "2k6 with wii controls" and Aaron doesn't exactly love 2k6. lol

If you do get a chance, you could add it as an official review. You could even just copy and paste it and then rate everything becuase I have it where reviews can be edited and ratings changed if your opinion changes over time.

It is probably going to be confusing how to add it though. I didn't originally make the system, but have spent 300-400 hours changing it. The part I haven't touched is the process of determining which category the review goes into though. And so it's a bit confusing.

If I write a review first it would be much easier to understand how to add becuase you would simply type in "2k8" on the first step of the writing process and it would then have the proper link already there in the dropdown.

So I dunno. If you feel like trying it, you can see if you understand how to put it in the proper place.

Also it has probably 20 things to give ratings for, which I also know is tedious, but I wanted to get as much info as possible and then wii games can be sorted by those categories, for example.

If you don't want to bother, that's cool. But at some point it would be nice to get some reviews because thus far no product at all has more than 1 review, so the averaging functions aren't even coming into play yet where I can be sure there are no bugs.

I am going to totally redo the beginning process of writing a review where it is much easier to understand, but I have to finish some things on the sports betting system within 1 week, so I need to concentrate on that for now.

Thanks for the review. I wish it had less bugs, but sounds like you agree with most that it has some very cool aspects to it also.

I'll posta review on this soon. I just have still been trying some things out.

Pretty definite what my opinions in general will be though. It would be to rent it first and that it is fun, but extremely extremely buggy.

Wow. Not only does this have bugs, but I just played my first season game with a fantasy drafted team and I won 15-1 on pro difficulty and arod went 4 for 5 with 4 homers and 7 batted in. The only time he didn't homer was because he didn't make contact... and struck out. lol

This game is getting so frustrating. I still play it a lot, but on the hardest difficulty I have given up 10+ runs in 7 straight games. I almost never get a good outing by a starter. Going down in difficulty makes it too easy to win too. Also tons of annoying things still, such as runners doing dumb things and getting thrown out and also too many CPU homers.