REVIEW: Out of the Park Baseball 12 (PC/Mac)
Out of the Park Baseball has been an evolving beast, even more so than when it debuted back in the halcyon days of 1999. As usual, rather than recap the review series, merely examine the first review of Out of the Park Baseball 2007 for the core game, then the reviews of Out of the Park Baseball 9 and 11 for how the series has evolved. Out of the Park Baseball 12 is the biggest update yet, and does it make 12 the best version ever?
Perhaps the one thing veteran owners will immediately notice are the contracts and negotiations, which have been made more realistic and engaging. When dealing with players during contract talks, players will now get feedback on the player’s attitude when horse-dealing. Players will get madder and madder if they feel they’re being cheated, so it’s less of a surprise and more natural when they decide to break off negotiations. Conversely, if the player agrees too quickly to your proposal, you will get the feeling you just got jobbed.
The other addition to realism that will be appreciated by owners is the injury system. Diagnoses will be slower, so that you won’t immediately get day one, “So-and-so is injured for 5 months.” As such, DL stints can be retroactively dated, and players will have to go into minor league rehab assignments before they can join the main team.
The most profound improvement, however, are the historical league replays. OOTP had always had a problem with accurately replicating historical season replays, despite concessions to factors such as the dead ball era, smaller rotations, and so on. Now, if you want to replay the 1936 season or the 1975 season, you won’t have odd results such as last place teams suddenly becoming 100 win powerhouses, and players will perform as they did in that season. Part of this is the option to have real-life transactions so that Player A was dealt for Player B and C on the same date that they were dealt. The inclusion of the reserve clause helps immeasurably.
Online leagues will notice improvements right away as well. Chiefly, the fact that updates are now mere patches instead of downloading the entire league files makes league updates a lot less of a burden. A lot of the stat handling has been improved. Commissioners can now easily advertise their leagues and find owners a lot more easily as well.
The game also continues to work on information display as well. The player development screen has been completely revamped to allow owners to see who’s improving and who’s regressing instantly, and to see the depth charts of which players are the starters of their minor league team. International scouting has been improved to where players can assign how much of the budget to devote to scouting countries, rather than just a lump sum towards “international scouting”.
Out of the Park Baseball 12 also includes the usual behind the scenes tweaking, such as trade AI, stat generation, managerial AI, in-game results, and so forth. Some of the more useful updates includes the oft-requested feature to save during a game in progress and the ability to lock a player at a minor league level while the AI controls the minor league system.
Out of the Park Baseball 12 feels more than just a yearly update. While there are some minor features that the game desperately needs, such as online multiplayer improvements including online human vs. human games and live drafting and trading for online leagues, OOTP12 has reached a new plateau, solidifying it as the best baseball game on the market. Mind you, that includes action titles like 2K Sports’ MLB 2K series and Sony’s The Show.
Gamers can download the entire game here. The game can be played as a limited demo without purchase, so check it out and see what the fuss is about.
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