Taking the excitement level down another notch or two is the fact that the game’s amazing catches don’t stay amazing for very long. That’s especially true for the over the wall grabs that happen on nearly every normal home run. The opponent’s outfielder will jump six feet over the fence to put a glove on the ball and either drop it for a home run or hold on to it for the out. It’s really cool at first, but with the frequency and lack of variety to the catching animations, it becomes an all too familiar sight after a while. The same can be said for the slo-mo double plays, too.

This repetition and lack of depth is what nearly kills the game’s most promising feature, the aforementioned Rookie Challenge. Here you’ll create a player and build up his skills over the course of a season. Unfortunately, the skill progression travels awfully slowly considering that every match feels more or less the same. So playing a full season is a tough hill to climb, but we will admit that this mode winds up being quite rewarding as you build your player into an MVP over the course of his rookie year.

But without a doubt The Bigs’ best attribute is its visual appeal, which still manages to look great on the PSP. Nearly every player’s face bears a striking, sometimes scary resemblance to his real life counterpart. That applies to the usual big names as well as a surprising number of lesser knowns. The over-exaggerated bodies are good for a chuckle, too, and the stadiums look absolutely fantastic.

It’s a shame, then, that the audio isn’t up to the same par. The announcer does a pretty good job, but his lines are recycled much, much too often. It won’t take very long before you have his entire repertoire of jokes memorized - we certainly have more than a few permanently branded into our memory banks.