Review by: William Abner

When you reach 11 versions of a text based baseball simulation writing a review that discusses all of the neat features and technical doo-dads is pretty much meaningless. If you’re a fan of this series you know what you’re getting and if you aren’t then just know that OOTP is the most complete baseball package on the market.

OOTP 11 does in many ways exactly what previous versions did only in a more refined way. Is this edition of the game radically different than OOTP 10? No—and it also has some of the same frustrations found in last year’s sim. What’s important to know is that after you play version 11 there is absolutely no way you will ever be able to go back to version 10, and in the end that’s the most important hurdle for a game like this to jump.

The number one reason to upgrade is the game‘s newfound stability and speed. Last year’s game tended to chug along at a snail’s pace unless you ran a beastly PC. This year everything loads faster and runs smoother and if you run an online league this is reason enough alone to buy version 11 as it is hands down the best edition of the game out of the gate. Normally, each new release of OOTP needs several patches to iron out issues but v11 is rock solid.

This rings especially true for online leagues, which remain a fantastic way to experience this game. Just like previous versions you can import your old OOTP league into the new game, and this worked for our league (mostly) without a hiccup. In fact we ported our old OOTP 10 league to v11 midway through our current year and it worked like a charm and we finished our season without issue.

The new interface, while it takes a bit to get used to, is easier to navigate and the ability to select more than one player on your roster and move them around saves a ton of time – particularly if you micromanage your minor leagues.

Most of the “new” features this year are either under the hood (the sim itself is better) or fall into the minor tweak category. When playing games rather than simming them you can decide if you want a runner to try for an extra base – something the game has needed for years now. Drafted rookies sign signing bonuses which is another thing for aspiring GMs to keep tabs on. The ageing model is vastly improved. Defense is significantly more important now so starting a SS with a low defensive rating or playing a player out of position can spell doom over time. You also get more stats. All it needs now is Win Shares built in and we’ll be all set.