Out of the Park Baseball 2007 (OOTP) is the ultimate baseball "sandbox" game. The scope of this game is incredible as you can do just about anything you want inside the baseball universe that you create. Other games in the text-sim world cover certain aspects of the sport, like Diamond Mind Baseball's season replays or Baseball Mogul's front-office simulator, but OOTP combines the best of those worlds - and then some - with a ridiculous amount of depth, options, and overall polish.
OOTP has excellent graphics for a text sim. The game broadcast screen uses a vivid, colorful, screenshot of a baseball stadium as a background. The other screens are colorful but not gaudy, and are easy on the eyes. Parts of the interface are a bit cluttered with all of the information, but it’s definitely functional. The game also employs FaceGen technology to randomly create the portraits of your players, and their pictures even change over time (due to aging and changes in weight).
This game is all about choices. Do you want to create your own baseball world with any number of leagues and teams you desire, specific financial parameters, or an abolishment of the dreadful DH rule? Can do. Do you want to replay the 1998 season to see if McGwire and Sosa can match history by eclipsing 60 homers? Check. In order to use real historical rosters and teams you need to download the Lahman Database (http://www.baseball1.com) but it’s pretty easy to set up.
Do you want to try your luck at managing in the Japanese League, the Mexican League, or somewhere else in the world? It can be done with the click of a checkbox. Do you want to go back to 1901, and recreate baseball history to see who re-writes the record book this time around? Do you want to pick up where MLB left off at the end of 2006, and see if you can guide your favorite club to glory in the 21st century? One trip through the wizard and you’re there. To be clear, you can’t start a season with up-to-date 2007 rosters; they would be as of the end of 2006. You can play in "commissioner" mode, where you maintain control over decisions your team makes, or make decisions for all teams, or turn commissioner mode off and start out as a minor league manager, having to play the players you're given, with the possibility of getting fired or promoted based upon your club’s performance.
A game that has this level of depth, choices, and complexity must be difficult to run, right? For goodness sake, the manual is over 500 pages long! One might think so, but due to a very helpful game setup wizard and a much-improved interface, experienced simmers really won't have many problems getting things started. OOTP has a web-based feel and structure to it, with logical menus and shortcut buttons that make navigating this monster less difficult than you might think. At first, it can be intimidating, but after a learning curve of just an hour or two, it comes together nicely.
All of this customization would be for naught if OOTP didn't play a realistic game of baseball. The statistics from the current seasons, based upon the existing MLB structure, were well within the realm of possibility, both individually and collectively. The same is true for the historical simulations. The team and league batting averages seemed a tad low, but you do have the ability to adjust the modifiers and statistical benchmarks upon which the engine bases its simulation. Ultimately, the variances seemed possible in the real world, which is the most important factor for most hardcore fans.
Regarding the transactions, most CPU teams are active, and the decisions they make seem in line with their respective situations. Rebuilding teams trade pricey veterans for young talent. Contending teams trade to fill a need to make one final push for the pennant. Some trades involved cash, too. Managers are at times fired mid-season. Teams sign their players to extensions in-season, while some players go the arbitration route or are released outright. There are injuries of all kinds; some day-to-day, some season ending, and lots in between, including illnesses and teams call-up players from their minor leagues appropriately to fill the void. The only thing that seems slightly out of place is that the financial situation for most teams is a little too rosy. In one league, only one team tallied attendance less than two million, and only a few had projected cash flow problems. In MLB, there were about six teams that didn’t meet the two million fan mark in 2006, and if you believe the MLB accountants, many teams run on a tight budget.
You have the option of using the scouting and coaching system, where the accuracy of the ratings you see for players is predicated upon the quality of your scouts, and likewise, the development of your players depends somewhat on the abilities of your coaches. Or, you can turn those factors off, and view the true in-game ratings for the players. In either case, there is a nice variety to player performance. Some years, players will perform differently than you'd expect (especially players with average ratings), which makes the game less predictable and more realistic. The ratings will change with age as well, and some players continue to be productive late in their careers, while others just seem to lose “it” almost instantly. The ratings are also dynamic during the season, and your scouts will inform you of players that are streaking and players that are struggling. The only complaint here is that there needs to be some type of representation of a player's rating changes over time, like a line graph, as the game doesn't chart a player's development from season-to-season.
