Major League Baseball 2K9 (Wii, 2009)

I usually don't write reviews but because most of the reviews for this item are out of place because foolish people choose to leave seller feedback on here, I have decided to offer an honest opinion from someone who has loved baseball and has played baseball video games all his life. The pitching in this game is amazing--I love it. Hitting on rookie mode is really easy but I was never able to make the switch to the next difficulty level--it was way too hard.

Things I found that were bad about the game:
1) The options for Franchise mode seem to be random..I selected a 5-7-7 playoff format (the standard format) for 2 of my franchise modes and both had 1 game series for each of the rounds in the playoffs--VERY FRUSTRATING.

2) Although you can edit the music preferences, you cannot save them. So you have to edit the music everytime if you don't want to hear some of the really bad songs (although there are a lot of good ones).

3) In Franchise mode, I completed my first season at 162 games..went through free agency..and the next season was 13 games long. Very annoying that I went through all that work and the settings just randomly switched.

4) As said by another reviewer, the stats are random. Dustin Pedroia, according to the game, hit 32 home runs in 2008 and had a batting average over .1000.

5) Although the rosters are accurate, the players ratings are not. Why is BJ Upton rated as an 85? Prince Fielder, who hit 50 homeruns, it rated as a 79. It seems the company rushed this game and didn't even put in the effort to update the player's ratings from the year before.

6) In franchise mode, you have the ability to set your lineups but when you actually play in a game and want to put one of your starters on the bench (to rest them because their durability is low), the game does not allow you to change players. It will continually make you play with the players you have set as your starters and won't allow anyone to take a day off (i.e. every player plays 162 games unless injured).

There are so many more problems with this game but I think I've offered enough. This game is so bad that I have sold it on ebay and have gone back to playing mlb the show on playstation 2 (which is an AWESOME game). If you are not a serious fan of baseball (i.e. a casual fan), this game might be ok for you. If you are a serious baseball fan and love statistics and having good control over the game, do NOT buy this game. The manufacturer thinks they can package up any garbage and sell it. Unacceptable. I only hope MLB the Show is available on WII next year.

I love baseball, so I decided to try MLB 2k9, as reviews suggested it was an improvement over the critically derided MLB 2k8. The game is very true to life in many regards, and has decent graphics for a Wii sports game. Rosters are pretty accurate, and it is terrific that they include top prospects in each team's farm system as well (albeit under altered names, since the players weren't in the MLBPA at manufacture time). Game play is smooth and enjoyable, using the Wii motion capabilities intuitively. The regrettable error I've noticed is that the player stats, supposedly from 2008, are completely bogus. Players have higher than 1.000 batting averages, more HR than RBI, and seemingly random numbers for all categories. Thankfully, this doesn't influence the players' attributes, but it is still annoying and makes no sense whatsoever. Despite this complaint, it is a fun baseball sim, and a worthy purchase.

The updated batting control is the highlight of 2K9. There is a learning curve to picking it up, but it is well worth it. Fortunately the pitching control was not monkeyed with as I though it was the best part of 2K8.
Fielding control is faster and more fluid, and adds to the realistic feel.
Losing Joe Morgan's mundane and repetitive commentary is another big reason to buy this one and dump 2K8.

It takes some time to adapt to the game. I was kind of expecting to play it as close as possible to the real thing,similar to the Wii Sports game but I was a little disappointed that is is more of the old style console style. (No swinging and pitching). If you don't mind this it then will be considered a good game.

It was a much better deal than spending $50.00 for the 2010 version. Not much difference and not worth the extra cost. Always a good idea to get the previous version of a game. Typical Wii graphics; not as good as other game systems but OK. My 10 year old sports fan loves it and thats who it was for.