Exhibition mode is the game’s staple, letting those who don’t care about the rest of the baseball world dive in and get their hands dirty. All 30 Major League teams and their respective stadiums are available for use. The glory of all of this is the options, which can be tweaked and adjusted to make your experience exactly how you want it to be. Set the number of innings, a mercy rule, weather, injuries and even pitch speed, then rearrange your lineup as you see fit.

MLB Life mode is another role-playing avenue available in Power Pros 2008. Much like Success mode, MLB Life places the player in charge of relationships with players, staff and potential love interests, while eschewing some of the actual ball playing. Buy extravagant stuff, donate to charitable events and even get married, but keep your fans happy or you may end up being traded! Such is the fickle life and times of a multimillion-dollar slugger.

These modes are all auxiliary to practice, home-run derbies, league play and a shop where points earned during the game can be spent on baseball cards and other unlockables. There’s also an Arrange mode in which you can pick and choose players from pro teams and create your own ball club to dominate the competition. Wii remote functionality is here too, of course, but it’s only available for use in Exhibition and Home Run modes. It surprised me to not see more support for the waggle wand, as there is a plethora of menu-driven content here; navigating it would have been made a lot smoother with a wave-and-click interface.

Love it or hate it, the great American pastime is just as popular in Japan as it is here in the States. There might be a little more RPG than ERA in Power Pros 2008, but read the stats below and make up your own mind.