It feels a whole lot like games used to be. Damn it's so cool that every animation and slice of gameplay is so short, that's really shrinked down to 2D levels of swiftness. That's why many people can't stand modern 3D games. Another reason explaining that disenchantment is that sessions take a long time to do. With this, it's like in the arcade: sessions that take a few minutes, and then that you re-do over and over again to improve your abilities.
Haven't been hooked to a sports game that wasn't called Hot Shots in like... ages, maybe since the first few Links LS titles? Anyway this did the trick. It's the only game I have time to play nowadays (hardcore college finals giving you 2 grand hours of sleep per day and forcing you to do 16 hours-long studying sessions, issh).
Pitching and batting are simple to do, and are addictive to master. With any of these if you play well enough you can build momentum and fill up a bar, which allows for better hits that are almost guaranteed to result in home runs, etc... it works pretty well.
There's no season mode, but who minds. It has a few defaults. First, it's a bit too shallow for 60$. Second, the fielding is really awkward. One big fault of baseball games has always been that when you controlled a fielder, everyone moves in the same time. To counter this there are button icons on screen to allow to select individual fielders... except that sometimes the delay before you do the prompt makes you totally miss the catch.
The CPU also does way too many uncanny catches on the diamond. All in all it's not worth 60$, but once you pay a bit less for it, then it's worth your while. It even gave me the envy to try out MLB The Show on PS3.
