Overpriced hot dogs, the smell of roasted peanuts, watered down beer, bobble head night; none of these staples of baseball come with Sony's MLB 08: The Show. Instead, you'll just have to settle for it being one of the sweetest baseball games ever made. Sony's San Diego studio took an already great franchise and improved it exponentially, creating a stat-tracking monster that'll keep you entertained long after the final out in the World Series.

Right off the proverbial bat, you'll notice the game's remarkable presentation. Built from the ground up to harness the PlayStation 3's processing muscle, MLB explodes onto TV screens with well-designed and sweet looking menus, great music and phenomenal graphics and commentary. Stadiums resemble their real life counterparts, with thousands of people clogging the stands, playing with beach balls and attempting to snag foul balls. Players look excellent, animating beautifully and pulling out all sorts of impressive moves, from one handed grabs to shielding their eyes from the sun before making a catch; the more you play the game, the more you'll see all those little details that enhance the experience. In addition, commentators Rex Hudler, Matt Vasgersian and Dave Campbell continue their excellence in calling the games and offering insight.

That's not to say the game is perfect. Despite the crisp visuals, players have a tendency to clip through each other, and it's common for them to pass through walls or miss simple catches. Furthermore, although we dig the play-by-play, the announcing team still repeats their lines.

All of that matters little, however, when you take into account how much fun MLB 08 is to play. It retains its bread and butter gameplay, a mix of simulation and arcade, but Sony upped the ante with a plethora of new features, one of the most unique being your ability to save and quit, then return to the game any time, a mind-blowing feature that every sports game needs to have from now on. In addition, the game tracks every stat imaginable, letting you get up to date info on both pitchers (Adaptive Pitching Intelligence) and batters (Progressive Batting Performance). This allows you to strategize your brains out, as you determine what pitch a right hander loves to throw and the spot, while conversely, getting the jump on batters to see if they're in a slump or what sorts of pitches they are most likely to swing at. Hell, even the umpires have personalities and they call the games differently, forcing you to gauge their strike zones. Beyond that, you'll adapt to the wind, steal homeruns and study highlights of every play in an ongoing game. Naturally, casual players don't need to worry about these things to have a good time, but if you love baseball, no other game on the market will satisfy your cravings.

We could play Exhibition matches for hours, but those don't even scratch MLB 08's surface. Road to the Show 2.0 is incredibly addictive, allowing you to play both offense and defense to complete a variety of missions, from hitting a homerun to just getting on base, with your custom player's statistics tracked for the entire season. Then you've got Franchise Mode, the All-Star Game, Season Mode and Rivalry Mode, where you can setup rivalries (Yankees/Red Sox) with friends or the computer.

Online play, however, is another beast entirely. Yes, you can still receive news and scores, but now there's SCOUT (Sports Connect Online User Tracking), which lets you customize your profile based on the types of opponents you want to play, which the game automatically detects for you, so no more matching up with random people of different skill levels. Furthermore, MLB 08 has Online League Play for six to 30 teams, complete with tons of stat tracking the option to determine length of the season, among other things.

Little nitpicks, such as players' scary eyes, the aforementioned clipping issues and some animation hiccups keep the game from scoring a 10, but none of those problems hurt MLB 08's chances of being 2008's greatest baseball game. Sony did a magnificent job creating a user-friendly sports experience, so take the mound and pitch that no-hitter. A World Series championship awaits.

Related Links

MLB 08: The Show PS3 Game Guide