These days, it's not too tough to be an Xbox 360 owner. With games like BioShock and Mass Effect, and a superior version of The Orange Box, Xbox 360 owners have it all over their PlayStation3-playing brethren -- unless, of course, they want to step into the next-gen batter's box. Sony's PS3/PS2/PSP-exclusive hardball franchise, The Show, has been the way to take the field for the past few years. 2K Sports has seemingly rebuilt its baseball sim from the ground up this season with the hopes of giving Xbox 360 gamers another reason to gloat. Unfortunately, while some of the bold new tweaks are impressive in theory, when it comes to the practical application, a lot of this year's innovations miss the mark.

The biggest move this year is to make the game almost entirely playable with just the analog sticks. If you've played EA's Fight Night or Skate (or the greatly underappreciated Robot Alchemic Drive, which I will mention whenever given the opportunity until everyone in the universe has played it), you know how interesting a gaming experience can be when the face buttons are given a back-up role to the sticks. If your thumbs have been wired to take the field with the A, B, X and Y buttons, you'll need to do some unlearning and relearning.

The primary innovation is in the game's pitching. Interestingly enough, I think this year's version of Sony's game was influenced by the last two versions of 2K's game. This year in The Show, there's a far greater emphasis on figuring out how a pitch is going to break. Recent versions of 2K's game were all about control on the mound. It made for the deepest console take on the pitcher-batter match-up and I don't think this was lost on Sony's development team. This year, though, 2K has gone with what it's calling Total Pitch Control. No longer is getting the pitch across the plate simply a matter of figuring out the movement of the ball and properly timing your button pressing. This year, just like throwing a perfect hook punch in Fight Night or nailing an impressive 360 in Skate, you have to be pretty sharp with your right-sticking skills.

On the mound, pitches are broken into two "gestures." You generally pull the stick in one direction to start the pitch and then push it another direction as dictated by an on-screen timing meter. Fastballs, for example, are straightforward. Pull the stick down and then push it forward. Curves, sliders and change-ups call for you to do more complex sticking motions. It does take some getting used to and you will be tempted to revert back to the series' old pitching interface more than once. Once you do get the hang of things, though, you'll find it has its good points and its not-so-good points.

On the plus side, there's an incredible sense of satisfaction when you can hit your spot with a curve or a slider in a pressure situation. You have to not only nail the timing, but the precise movement of the right stick. On the negative side, there's a decent learning curve with which you have to deal to get to that point. Initially, you will be relying on your fastball more than you probably should. The down, then up movement of the right stick is a lot easier to finagle than some of the more complicated motions you'll need to master to throw funkier pitches. You'll be able to get away with it as long as you're playing with flamethrower on the mound, but if you playing through a season and you're starting a finesse corner-painter like Greg Maddux, throwing straight heat isn't a wonderful thing.

The game could have been more forgiving with the new pitching scheme, but it isn't. Screw up the timing or the motion of the stick and your well-intentioned curve becomes a hanging meatball that -- more often than not -- gets drilled into the stands. Yes, I know that in the big leagues, pitchers pay the price if they slip up, but it's far too frustrating to go from feeling like you're in control of an inning one second to digging yourself out of a hole the next.

The right stick also rears its head in the field. 2K8 tosses the perfectly laid-out diamond configuration of the face buttons in the trash -- at least in the default setting -- and lets you throw to whatever base you want by using the stick. Unlike the pitching, this becomes second nature almost immediately. You can still go old-school and map your fielders' throws to the face buttons, but once you get used to the stick, you won't.

While the pitching and fielding have gotten more right-stick intensive, at the plate, things have been simplified a bit. Instead of having the option of taking a contact swing or a power swing, now there's just one type of swing. Pull back on the stick to step and then push it forward to swing. You still can push the stick left or right to either pull the ball or go the other way with it, but getting rid of the option of adding power seems like a step in the wrong direction.

Presentation-wise, the game has never been able to take advantage of the power of the system and this year is no exception. 2K's hoops game, which plays at a much faster pace, delivers a far prettier picture. Players are immediately recognizable and arenas and fans seem a lot more lifelike. On the baseball field, though, the game doesn't seem to have gotten a lot of love from development in the graphics department. Frame rate can be choppy, things don't flow as much as they should, and there are far too many eerie and motionless moments between plays. Player likenesses are also questionable. The first time Manny Ramirez stepped up to the plate I thought that I'd somehow unlocked a secret player and that Jonathan Davis from Korn was now batting clean-up for me. The game supports hi-defs up to 1080p (1080i if you've got an older Xbox 360 or are using component cables), which does make things a little nicer-looking.

On the audio side of things, while it's cool to have Joe Morgan and Jon Miller in the booth, what they're saying is virtually the same as what they said last year.

As far as game modes, not much has changed since last time around: seasons, franchises, home run derbies, online tournaments, etc. The big carrot that development is dangling in front of you this year is the potential to collect about a million different baseball cards. Riffing on the VIP SkyBox concept that let you buy and unlock new uniforms, stadiums and the like is the ability to earn player cards. Not only will you be able to view the cards that you've earned, but you can also trade them online.

Xbox 360 owners don't have much choice when it comes to baseball. Last year MLB 2K7 delivered a serviceable game, but couldn't compare to what Sony's The Show offered PlayStation 3 owners. This year, 2K tried to give gamers a novel way to hit the field. The shift in focus to a more stick-centric way to play was a cool idea, but it's still a work in progress. Hopefully, next year -- with a full year's worth of tweaking and fine-tuning -- the innovative controller scheme will give Xbox 360 owners yet another "must have" game to play.

This review was based on a retail copy of MLB 2K8 that was supplied by the publisher and delivered using just the right analog stick.