Wining Husband, Tiger Boy, and I are all huge baseball fans. It’s kind of fun in our household because there are two different teams we root for. My husband is a huge Seattle Mariners fan, and Tiger boy and I cheer for the Oakland Athletics. It can get kind of loud in our house when the two teams play one another, but we generally have a game going on the television in the evenings and on weekends, regardless of whether one of our teams is playing.
When I was asked by Brad Cook of Out of the Park Developments if I might have any interest in testing the game for SoDo Mojo (a blog for the Mariners I was editor of for some time from 2012-2013), I responded with an astounding “Yes, but I no longer write for that blog.” He sent me the activation codes, and I gave it a shot. The game is a baseball simulation. On the website, it has been described the following way:
“Out of the Park Baseball (“OOTP”) is the most sophisticated and best-selling baseball simulation game on the planet. Since its inception, OOTP has won numerous awards, including multiple “Sports Game of the Year” awards, en route to becoming the most immersive, realistic, and customizable baseball experience a fan can ask for!”
I have to say that the game is impressive, and there are many customizable features – so many that even after a month, I’m still learning about things I can tweak and customize to draw out the reality of the game.
Before I settled in to play for the first time, I cracked open a bottle of Ancient Peaks 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon and grabbed myself a snack plate with cheddar, almonds, manzanilla olives, and salami. I started things up. I hit my first pitfall.
You see, none of the “managers” you could select were female. I wound up uploading my own picture, and getting the settings right. You can customize pretty much everything about your manager character. You can also select how much or how little control you would like to have over each of the different game features.
You get to choose your team; naturally, I chose the Oakland team. There were so many features of this game, that even after testing it for a month, I’m finding things I didn’t realize existed! I’m wondering if a tutorial mode might be a good idea. After all, many of my favorite simulation games begin with that. I remember Sim Farm and Sim Life (how are those for throwbacks to the 1990s?) had some really great tutorial modes that walked you through how to use all the different features. That was really helpful.
The game mode is fun. You can choose what you want your pitcher and fielders to do, and you can choose what you want your guys to do when they’re at bat. If it becomes too much, you can have the game finish it for you. Tiger Boy got a big kick out of the option to hit a batter. In fact, as you might expect from a 16 year old, he wanted me to choose that as my pitching option every time. Why? I don’t know…
In all, the game has a lot of great features. You can read about the “news” around the baseball league, trade players, set your ticket prices and work on your team’s budget, and much, much, much more.
I strongly recommend this game to anyone who is a baseball fan. You can purchase the game for $39.99… or you can try to win an unlock code here!
I have two licenses of the game to give away to a lucky winner. I bet you know someone who would love to play it. The giveaway is open to international readers, and it runs from 9/7/2014 until 9/15/2014.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Good luck!
I received a copy of the game for review, and no further compensation; all opinions are my own.
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Miami Marlins! 🙂
Thanks for the review! We are hoping to add a tutorial mode to OOTP 16, which will be out next year.
Excellent!
Toronto Bluejays