Game: PureSim Baseball 4

Platform: PC

Publisher: Wolverine Studios

Developer: Shaun Sullivan

ESRB: E

Genre: Text Baseball

Players: 1

What's Hot: Lots of important tweaks to Puresim 3; TRU-Life transactions; great historical sim

What's Not: Interface takes getting used to; stats not displayed as well as other games; fictional play a weak spot

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Review by: William Abner

PureSim Baseball, now in its 4th edition, is a text based baseball simulation for the hardcore baseball fan that doesn’t need pretty graphics to enjoy a sport that is inundated with numbers and data. Like other games in its class (Out of the Park, Baseball Mogul, etc.) it’s a game that basks in the glory of baseball numerology—designed for fans of the game as well as for a growing number of people who love the numbers of baseball more than the game itself.

PureSim’s main competition is Out of the Park Baseball even though the two games approach the text based arena from different perspectives. OOTP is a world sim, throwing in tons of leagues, rules, complexity, and reams of data, while PureSim is a scaled back program that isn’t as intimidating and also runs a heck of a lot quicker. You have a smaller set of minor league players, no arbitration, Rule V drafts, no waivers, etc. One thing PureSim does have over OOTP – it allows for better game schedules as you’ll see teams ½ game back in the standings, which is something that OOTP can’t do for reasons I have never quite understood.

That’s not to say that PureSim doesn’t have other merits, it clearly does, but it is more a direct descendant of Baseball Mogul than OOTP, if for no other reason than PureSim is strictly a solo affair; there is no online league support at all. It’s you vs. the AI. Online aside, there are many different ways you can play PureSim: purely fictional with fake teams and players or you can opt to use current MLB teams and players and thanks to built in Lahman Database support any season from 1900 is also available at the click of a button.

This isn’t new to the genre, as many games do this sort of thing but what I love about PureSim’s replay factor is that you can activate a feature dubbed TRU-Life Transaction which will mimic your historical league exactly how it happened in real life. The rookies will enter on the proper teams, trades go down just as they did – this in effect places you in the role of manager of the 1927 Yankees and not the GM. It’s a brilliant idea for an historical replay sim and is by far the best way to enjoy PureSim 4.

This is aided by the fact that replay stats are very solid (one area that game like OOTP tends to struggle). Sticking with the ’27 Yanks – they are going to be a dominating force and the players tend to play tremendously close to their real life stats. So as a manager of such a team you are picking and choosing lineups, managing players, etc. without the worry that Babe Ruth will have an off year and only hit 21 homers or Gehrig will injure himself and miss the season.

While playing an historical replay is the game’s strong suit, fictional universes aren’t as compelling. After simming around 12 seasons in a fictional league a few issues remained constant. Each season witnessed too little hitting and too much pitching, the AI has a hard time managing its roster (sending good to great players to the minors to no reason), teams struggle to manager finances properly, some players will see their careers fall off a cliff in their 30s only to rebound and regain earlier form. My league, every year, sees 21 year old kids “retiring” for no apparent reason, 36 year olds in the rookie draft, and catchers who appear in 158 games.

In short, there are screws that need tightened as player development is so crucial to a game like this and it simply needs further tinkering, and despite the fact that I said it’s unfair to compare this to OOTP, the latter game’s ability to slap some eye candy around for fictional leagues is hard to ignore. PureSim 4 does look a bit spartan by comparison. For a casual baseball fan some of these are no big deal, but to the people to whom PureSim is trying to cater it’s terribly important that a text sim get this stuff right and right now it’s hard to recommend the game as a fictional universe builder.

As the game stands right now, PureSim 4 is an excellent choice for those who wish to replay days gone by – Mantle’s Yanks against Maz’ Pirates, or relive the glory days of the Gas House Gang, Murderers Row, the Big Red Machine or Dem Bums. I’ve had a blast replaying these old seasons as the replay engine is stellar. However, if creating fictional leagues is your game, or if you enjoy online league play, then it’s best to wait and see what OOTP 12 has in store.

William Abner is the Editor-in-Chief of GameShark . He is also co-founder of No High Scores and is a regular on the Jumping the Shark podcast.

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