The BIGS, a new franchise from Major League Baseball license-holder 2K Sports, is an attempt to boil down the essence of baseball to over-the-top action and simple-minded gameplay. Free to stray from tradition, The BIGS offers fast-paced arcade action with a heavy emphasis on fun instead of simulation.

Some people like their sports games to defy reality. Whereas I prefer NBA 2K7 and its commitment to simulation, others prefer the old-school NBA Jam or more recent NBA Street Homecourt, with its gravity-defying slam dunks and UFC-style physical contact. The BIGS is the NBA Jam of baseball, attempting to fill the void left by Midway's absent Slugfest series. Nothing within the game is meant to be taken seriously, including the roster of Major League players who all seem to be juiced up on Steroids with their hulked-out physical appearances, including players not known for their power.

There are several modes of play on offer in the PSP version, but when compared to 360 and PS3 versions, it comes up a little light, offering Exhibition, Rookie Challenge and Home Run Derby. You'll find the meat of the game resides in Rookie Challenge, as it allows you to create a custom player from a modest list of options. Once you have a player you like, you're off to the minors for a few games and a series of challenges that must be beat if you hope to advance. Challenges can take any number of form, from entering a game in the 9th-inning, down by one with the goal of turning the game around. Sometimes the challenge may be as simple as stealing a base or engaging in any number of training missions that ultimately allow you to spend points on your player, further increasing his key attributes. Certain tasks must be successfully completed before more tasks will unlock, usually culminating in the ultimate goal, beating a particular team through 5-innings of play.

In terms of graphics, The BIGS is a solid title on the PSP, light-years ahead of its nearest competition, MLB The Show. Players and stadiums are far more crisp, making it easy to see where the ball is going, which is critical on defense, though problems still persist, which I'll discuss in a bit. Animations are fluid and smooth and for the most part, all of the big-leaguers look like their real-life counterparts, albeit with about 100-pounds of additional muscle mass. Each of the stadiums are nicely rendered and sport a ton of details that pull you in to the atmosphere. A nice touch is the slow-motion effects that happen periodically, usually on a double-play or a collision at the plate, and really shine when a defensive player climbs the outfield wall and leaps like Spider-Man in an attempt to rob a homerun.

Graphics and presentation are great and all, but its the gameplay that ultimately matters, and it's here that The BIGS shows room for improvement, though this first attempt at a new franchise definitely shows promise for the future. First of all, fielding in this game is more challenging than I think it was intended to be. The ball tends to fly fast and hard, making split-second decisions a critical aspect of playing successfully, but this is easier said than done. More often than not, the ball is by your defensive player before you even know what is going on and this can be exceedingly frustrating.

The main mechanic of The BIGS is a point system - you earn points for just about every aspect of play, from through a strikeout to getting single, double, triple, etc. Just about everything you do can earn some points that slowly fill your turbo bar and an overall meter. The turbo bar is what you'll use the most, as it doesn't take many points to activate. But when activated, it enhances whatever aspect of the game you're currently doing. For instance, if your opposition has some power at the plate and you desperately need an out, activate the turbo and your next pitch will be truly wicked and nearly impossible to hit. Even better is when you've maxed out the overall meter, allowing you to activate the ultimate power which is good for a single at-bat. This almost ensures a homerun, assuming you can make contact with the ball. What tends to make this feature interesting is that you need to balance when and where you use your powers, as you'll want to nullify the opposition when he is attempting to use a power.

Both batting and pitching are very similar to MLB 2K7, which is a good thing in my opinion. It still retains some semblance of realism and offers up a good challenge without descending in to an overly simple game mechanic. Pitchers can lose pitches if they start getting rocked and this carries over in to future games, giving The BIGS a small semblance of simulation.

There are problems, however. Besides the aforementioned fielding issue that makes it more challenging than was probably intended, the overall options on offer feel a little light. Exhibition barely counts as a mode, as far as I'm concerned, and Home Run Derby doesn't have any bells and whistles to differentiate itself from the thousands of other Home Run Derby's you've seen before, especially when compared to what The BIGS offers on next-gen consoles. This essentially leaves you with just the Rookie Challenge as a predominant mode of play. Matters would have improved considerably if The BIGS offered up Infrastructure multiplayer, but it's nowhere to be seen, though local ad-hoc play is possible.

Ultimately, I had a pretty good time with The BIGS. The nature of game lends itself well to the PSP, offering a nice pick-up-play experience that doesn't bog you down with details or an hour worth of 9-innings. It's meant to be simple and quick and in this, it succeeds. In the end, though, you can't help but wish there was more on offer. I guess there's always next year.