But I absolutely hate your video game tendencies. Like, with a passion. I would never, ever play you under any circumstances.

When I play baseball games (and the last one I have is MVP '05, so I agree with you on the current franchies not being very good), I immediately tweak the AI so that there is a realistic amount of walks. I do what I can to drive starter pitch counts up as quickly as possible. I love it. I have never once found a walk boring: not in playing, watching, or playing a video game. But I'm the guy who, a few years ago, walked in 6 of 9 plate appearances during a baseball double header.

And in football games, I prefer playing defense. I just love coming up with schemes to stop the offense. It's too easy to do the 80 yard bomb thing. It's a bigger challenge and a lot more fun to find and exploit weaknesses in the offense.

I'm a new hockey fan (only the past 2 seasons) and haven't played a hockey game since the days when you could make a guy's head bleed for Superfan 99. Would you recommend NHL 08 for someone who understands the sport, but doesn't yet know all the intricacies of it?

I've always been a little more fast paced. i really liked "The Bigs" because I could literally turn it on and not worry about a franchise etc. It was very much an arcade feel too.

So far, I've played two games versus my friends and one game in my A's franchise. Once you get the pitching down (which took about a game and a half for me), it instantly becomes the most entertaining part of the game. Two thumbs and a mysterious third thumb up for the new pitching system. As for hitting with the A's... oh, me.

So I have some qualms with the batting interface. Mostly it's because in the book under 'Swing Stick 2.0', you can clearly see that there are supposed to be several swing options. A power swing, contact swing, check swing, 'fight-off' swing, and bunt. However, none of these controls work! At all.. I don't mean I can't get the timing, I mean if I pull back on the swing stick and release (not push forward) for a contact swing, the player doesn't even swing the bat. My only swing option is to pull back and push forward, which is listed as a 'power swing' in the book. I am supremely baffled by what 2k sports has done here. How could this happen?

The new defensive interface is better at times and worse at times. Crosby boots about two balls per game in the infield. I'm ok with seeing some errors, but something's not right here. It may be some minor control error on my part. Throwing to bases has been made about as enjoyable as possible with the addition of a throwing power/directional meter. Very different from the 'button tied to a base' throwing you're used to, but a very nice improvement.

There are too many passed balls! Kurt is having trouble stopping simple pitches in the dirt. I've give up 4 or 5 total bases in my three games to pitches that weren't all that bad, but somehow got past my catcher.

Baserunning is much improved! The new system of highlighting your runners with the left thumb stick and advancing them individually works just fine. This is a very important improvement over last year. Base stealing - against my friends, it's the easiest thing in the world. Against the AI, i'm one for one so far. Cheers to that. Last year's version made it practically impossible to steal.

My first franchise game against the Red Sox went a lot better than I expected (default difficulty for now)! Harden went seven strong, surrendering 3 hits and 1 earned run with 5 K's. I just want to reiterate that pitching is so much fun in this game! Beckett held me scoreless through his six innings, surrendering three or four hits. I blew the bottom of the 7th with some terrible baserunning and situational hitting, but should have squeezed across at least a run there. I was able to scrap a few more hits off of Delcarmen, but was unable to get a run across. The A's entered the bottom of the 9th down 2-0, and I was getting a bit frustrated with my inability to gather hits (I have a feeling this will parallel with the upcoming season). So the Sox bring in Papelbon and I'm pretty sure this things wrapped up - but Ellis leads off the inning with a double! I am now standing in my living room. Yea, that's right. Playing a video game. I will be unable to sit until the conclusion. Denorfia grounds out to the right side but is able to push the runner to first. Next up is Jack Cust, who.. hallelujah! A double! And I score my first run against the AI off of Papelbon in the bottom of the 9th, making it a one-run game with one out! I am involuntarily doing the Tiger fist pump. Chavy then grounds to Lugo, who bobbles the ball and there's runners on the corner, 1 out! This brings up Daric Barton with the chance to play hero. He smashes one in the hole on the left side of the infield, but Lugo makes a diving stop, sees he doesn't have time to make the double play, throws to fir...... NO HE DOESN'T. He fires the ball to home plate and Varitek applies the tag to Cust a FREAKING MILLISECOND before his foot touches the plate. I am shocked by this horrible twist of fate. I flip the controller onto the couch. I shout an obscenity. 1st and 2nd, 2 out. Dan Johnson pops up to the catcher and there's your ballgame. 2-1 Sox. Harden gets a quality start and I gather 7 hits with the A's offense vs. Beckett/Delcarmen/Papelbon. I am pleased.

And... my virtual game recap is longer than my actual opinion of the game. I need therapy.

..after MVP 2005. I've tried all the others, they're nowhere close. I'm not even interested anymore. I'll keep playing MVP 2005!

My oldest has one, and I wouldnt mind getting a new game for it. But I am curious if they have developed any of the "Wii features" for it. I don't imagine they have tried to let you do the actual pitching and hitting like they do in the generic Wii sports game, but it would be cool if you could try and do some of it yourself.

So stoked! However i seem to play way different that anyone here. See im ALL FRONT OFFICE. I make trades before the season even opens. The A's in the game are worse than the Giants so it wasnt hard to make the trades and not feel bad.
Worst part for the A's: NO GIO-GO and no CAR-GO! So the A's minor league system is horrible. I was going to trade off Chavvy and his contract for Evan Longoria but he isnt in the freakin game!
So my first big trade for MLB 2K8:
Chavvy, Street, Duke for Zimmerman and their top 2 prospects.....
Think Billy would be proud? I dumped like 12 mil in contracts in the process!
Im just stoked to go home and make for trades.
(word to the wise.... remember unlike last year you cant sign a free agent and trade him in the first year..... I guess to discourage trade baiting)

(Yes, yes, I know, tired schtick.)

I'm picking up The Show on Friday, but I also want to check out 2K8. I'm hoping that one of these games will have the create-a-team feature like Madden does. That's why I loved playing All Star Baseball; I'd create a team, have a fantasy draft and go through the season. Does anyone know if 2K8 has that?

Also, for those who have The Show, how far have you gotten on Road to the Show?

i tried the 2K7 demo last year because the videos looked nice, but i just couldn't get into it.
for some reason baseball (unlike football) just doesn't translate well to video games, imo.
i'll stick to call of duty 4 and rock band...

Probably will be getting 2k8.. got 2k7 last year and took the A's to a 100+ win season, and I wasn't on the lowest difficulty level. After you master the swing stick (which I love as opposed to just hitting X) it's almost too easy to hit home runs, even with the A's!

But I remember last year getting Cust from the minor leagues, and he wasn't too good, although I did get a few clutch home runs outta him. Interested to see how they rate him and the rest of the new-ish players this year.

And my vote for best game of this year (really last year) is Fifa 07. Can't get enough of that game, even for all it's shortcomings. Can't wait for Fifa 08 and also the Euro 2008 edition. Hopefully they'll add in the Earthquakes for this year.