Out of the Park Baseball 4 (PC)
	Developer Markus Heinsohn Publisher Out of the Park Developments Version 4.0a patched Reviewed by Kevin L. Kitchens [Feedback] [Author Bio] Review Date March 8, 2002

Rating (out of 5.0) 4.0 out of 5.0*

Strengths Great attention to detail Stats are quite realistic Addictive game play Weaknesses User interface lacking Limited league configurations Many subtle but nagging issues

Screenshots MORE SCREENSHOTS

* Notes Gaming Voice ratings are based on the technical and/or gameplay merits of a given product as well as the developer's choice of features and delivery of same. Our rating is not an endorsement of the thematic content of a given title. Gamers and parents are cautioned to determine if such content conflicts or coincides with their values and beliefs.

Baseball simulations used to hover around the two extremes of strictly text-based field-management sims and visual, but action-centered, arcade games. While those two sides are still adequately represented, a different paradigm has emerged over the last few years, that of the front-office focused simulation. The trail blazed by Baseball Mogul is getting graded and paved by Markus Heinsohn and his Out of the Park Baseball 4. While the newest version adds a great number of new features, a plethora of minor annoyances add up to keep OOTP4 from being perfect.

That said, no developer has supported his products better than Heinsohn. Less than three days after the initial release of version 4.0, the first patch was released. Sure, some companies have patches available before their game has even hit the shelves, but the lead time for these developers from “gold” to release is typically measured in weeks, giving them plenty of time to fix issues while the game is being packaged. Heinsohn himself is a regular participant in the OOTP4 discussion forums, engaging his very supportive fans in learning what needs fixed or improved. At the time of this review a second patch is already in the works.

OOTP4 is essentially a text-based baseball simulation with front-office and field management aspects. You create a league, take control of a team, and then compete against other computer and human controlled teams over the course of the season. How much control you want over your team is up to you. You can allow the program to assist you in managing your minor league rosters, manage your team on the field, or even take care of your front office duties.

Season to Taste

The first thing you must do is create a league in which to play. Note that the word “league” is used to define the association you create (MLB), as well as the league within that association (American League). OOTP4 has a number of customization features for leagues, including setting the era in which the league occurs. By entering some basic stats about the era, you can change the outcome of the games your play. You also define the league structure (number of leagues, divisions, etc.), Here, however, is one of the first of many (albeit minor) disappointments. You can have a maximum of two leagues with up to three divisions in each. While this allows you to mirror the current structure of the major leagues, it does not lend itself much flexibility. The four-division league format has been kicked around for many years and the restrictions of OOTP4 make this format impossible to simulate. There doesn’t appear to be any technical reason why the league structure cannot be more flexible than it currently is – so why these arbitrary limits are there is a mystery.

Once your league is created, you select the team you wish to control. However, before you play your first game, there are a few steps that you must undertake. First you hire your coaching staff (to assist you with minor leagues, scouting, etc.). You will bid against the other computer (and if so desired, human) controlled teams for the services of the available coaches.

Next comes the initial league draft where you build your team with veteran players. In the first year of a league, the initial draft replaces the Free-Agent bidding process. Initially, you just select a player and he’s on your team – and you absorb his current contract terms. In the Free Agent period (for second and subsequent seasons), you will enter into a 30-round (days) bidding period, competing against the other teams to woo the best players to your team. You will receive feedback from interested players via the clever in-game “email” system to let you know where your offer stands.

After choosing your veteran players, comes the Amateur Draft. Five rounds of straight-out selecting of new talent to be added to your teams class-A minor league staff. Oh yes, did we mention that your team consists of not just a major league club, but three levels of minor leagues? The coaches you hired will manage these players and if you choose will handle the promotion of players from one level to the next when they are ready.

The last step involves Spring Training. Here all your players (from all four levels) are assigned areas to train to improve their abilities. Each player has 20 points to spend in four different categories – or spend five of their points to train at a new position. However, be warned: focus too much in a particular area and they will decline in others. The spring training screen is presented as an intimidating display of players in a grid with + and – buttons next to each category. Scrolling the list breaks the standard of the rest of the game. Instead of clicking on a scrollbar, there are scroll-up and scroll-down buttons at the top of the page that change entire screens at a time. Fortunately, you can ask your coaching staff who needs to improve at what areas and let the system set your assignments for you. Most gamers will find themselves doing this due to the number of players and user-unfriendly interface.

Play Ball!

After spring training is complete (and you’re given the option to see how your players improved or declined), you’re ready to begin your season. OOTP4 offers many options for actually playing your games. You can sim individual games, play individual games, sim out the current week or the current month, or sim until the end of the season. In addition, you can set different criteria and the game will stop the sim if any of these conditions are met. For example, you choose to stop if a player is injured, you receive in-game email (from another team, a player, a coach), a record is about to be broken, or any other number of options.

Unfortunately, this only works for the schedule-level simming and not the in-game simming. If a player, for example, has 499 home runs and you want it to pause so you can see him try for #500, the sim will stop and take you right into the game. The problem however, is that if he doesn’t get #500 in that at-bat, you have to either miss the chance of experiencing the moment – or watch the rest of the game. If he doesn’t get it in that game, then guess what? You get to do the whole thing over again the next game!

One interesting aspect is that when you select to sim a week or month, it sims the balance of the current week or month – not seven or 30 days from the current date. At first, I didn’t care for this, but grew to like it as it let me keep up with who won player of the week honors, trades, etc.

Speaking of trades, OOTP4 includes a fairly good trade algorithm that lets you offer trades to computer-run teams as well as receive offers from the same. You can even mark a player as being on the “trading block” to let other teams know that you’re shopping them around. The game imposes the usual July 31 trade deadline, but unfortunately does not include a waivers system to allow trades after this date. Expect to see a lot a player movement and trade offers around the end of July however. It’s usually a good idea to step through the end of that month day by day if you’re simming out games.

For those that prefer to play their games, OOTP4 is pretty basic in it presentation for field managers. The play by play is creative, but replete with typographical errors. There is no sound whatsoever in the game, which isn’t necessarily bad since it’s a text-based game, but should be noted. The interface shows the players in their positions on the field against a stadium backdrop. Batter and runners with their vital stats are also superimposed here. The game presents season, last season, and current game stats for the pitcher and each batter and the batting team’s lineup is shown. A nice touch is the box-score summary on the left side of the screen that tells you at a glance how each player is performing and if they’ve homered in the game.

All options are presented as menu choices if you’re batting or pitching. You can choose from different strategies, some of which present a submenu. The most common option for each is the first one, so you will be hitting the ‘1’ key for most of the game. Another oddity is that strategy choices will disappear or invoke submenus unnecessarily. For example, if you want to walk a batter, you select ‘intentional walk’, but still must select an infield positioning option. Likewise, with a runner on first and you fail to bunt, getting into a two-strike hole, the option for the runner to steal is no longer available.

The other downside of playing a game is that lack of pitch-by-pitch mode. The game sets up a count and shows you the result. This steals a lot of the finesse and strategy inherent in baseball. This type of game was fine a few years ago (or in board games), but a full-pitch mode should at least be an option, if not the default.

In your face interface

While the game runs in Windows (we played on Windows XP Professional), it is not a true Windows application in terms of look and feel. In fact, the main screen doesn’t fit in the window used and as such the top of each screen is cut off by about 1/3 a row. While you can still see what the options are, it is cosmetically annoying. (Note: the developer has indicated that you can workaround this by altering your Windows appearance settings to make the Windows title bar smaller, but since this affects ALL of Windows it is still a problem with OOTP4 that needs to be corrected).

The game’s overall interface is almost totally mouse-driven. There are very few hotkey options allowed in the game and this is quite a disappointment. You get some when selecting strategy in game, but that’s about it. When you want to visit your roster in the game, you have to determine if you are on offense or defense and then select the appropriate button. This isn’t brain surgery, but is not intuitive either. The two buttons would be better if one was labeled for each team and then let the program display the appropriate screen as needed.

The interface works however and you will quickly learn how to use it in spite of its abandonment of common user interface guidelines.

Stats galore

OOTP4 keeps track of a number of stats for each player including personal records, team records, league records, and per-game records. During the season, the major stat categories are displayed on the left side of the screen with the top three leaders for each.

The League Records screen is another example of the game’s cumbersome interface. Buttons presses are required for each category and the results are displayed as a static list of the leaders. The categories are also not intuitive as to which direction they sort. For example, for batting average, you more often than not want to see the highest to the lowest whereas for earned run average, you’re most likely to want to view lowest to highest. Instead of being aware of the default sort option for each, you have to manually toggle a ‘Direction’ button to switch between ascending and descending.

Additional observations

The following items are general observations about the game that didn’t make it into the body of the review.

• No option to see players on the trading block or injury status for all teams in a central location. The news shows when players become injured, but scrolling that to see who is currently injured is impossible.
• Cannot renegotiate coach contracts. You sign them and then they leave as soon as their contract is over. If you have a winner, you do not get the option to extend his term.
• When you argue a call and get ejected from the game, you lose control of your strategy options. While this is a clever add-in to the game, it’s not realistic as most managers are still able to dictate strategy while not in the dugout.
• The pause for email option is nice, but there is no ability to define which emails you want the game to stop for. Players wanting to extend contracts and other teams offering trades can email you but you can also get email from your financial officer telling you that your last promotion increased fan loyalty.
• Simming an entire season is pretty quick. About 10-20 minutes for each. I started with a league in 1992 and simmed for 10 years before taking control of my team. This gave me some league history right off the bat (no pun intended) as well as contracts coming due, etc.
• Record book option only shows the latest to achieve a record. If there are ties, then only the last one is shown. Would be nice to have this keep the top 5-10 in each category as least.
• Help file is well laid out, but does not cover all aspects of the game. Needs to be fleshed out more.
• News sections display in a descending date fashion. This means to see new news, you have to scroll to the bottom of the screen. Ideally this would sort in the opposite direction. News Headlines do show the most recent news first.
• No way to view career leaders except after they’ve retired. Would be great to see who hold the career record for most homeruns, wins, etc. Since the players are there and have their records stored, this seems like an oversight to have not included this. -- This feature IS included, but not easy to find.
• A player’s minor league records and post season records are kept for the current season only. Would be better to nice to keep their entire career.
• For some reason when scheduling a season, you enter the day the season should start, i.e. April 1, but then it still asks you what day the year began on (Monday, Tuesday, etc.) The game knows what year it is, it should automatically calculate the day of the week for 1/1/2002, 1/1/2003, etc. If there is some reason to override this (and I cannot think of one), then allow it, but otherwise every season will run the exact same days of the week unless you remember to go and change this. Ideally, you would specify something like “Season starts on the first Sunday after March 30 each year” or something and then let it go from there.
• Could not get interleague games automatically scheduled. I tried to simulate a four-division league by making two leagues of two divisions each, but the game wouldn’t schedule one league against the other. You also cannot specify how many games within a division vs. outside the division – it’s automatic.
• Created schedules give the teams the same off days and don't fit into the real baseball format -- series will start on Sunday and teams will be off on Fridays, etc.
• The game does not have MLB or MLBPA licenses. As such, you will not get real teams or players. You will get the real cities and fictional players. The OOTP community however frequently creates their own league files with real players, so finding one of these shouldn't be a problem.
• The game's financial model is pretty basic -- don't spend more than you bring in. TV contracts are automatically set and you control ticket price and can schedule promotional days that may increase attendance and fan loyalty.
• OOTP4 has support for online multiplayer leagues built in.
• I had the game crash only one time in the many seasons I played. However, I did have the game lock up if the Windows screensaver kicked on or if the computer was locked (CTRL-ALT-DEL). The only solution was to open task manager and kill the game.

Out of the Park Baseball v4.0 is definitely an addictive baseball simulation and well worth the $30 price tag. Its only problems are a collection of minor annoyances that individually are not a big deal, but collectively are like a finger full of paper cuts. However, Markus Heinsohn has proven that he listens to the gaming community and is committed to his project. So we give him the benefit of the doubt that he will address these issues in patches or future versions.