A natural successor to Front Page Sports: Baseball 98?

[Jonesy]

Hello to all,
Just back from holidaying in Chicago....went to see the Cubs blow it against the Dodgers on Thursday and have been transfixed by their win one lose two progess ever since!
One of my favourite ever sports games was FPS Baseball. I liked most the flexibility of the game that allowed for as much or little management as desired. From memory I had it set something like a shortened season, AI batting for me when in bat but with me selecting each pitch when fielding. I also managed fielding positions (deep, left, right handers), pinch hitters, sacrifice flys, bunts and stuff when at bat, rosters, batting and pitching line ups etc etc.

Whatever happens to The Cubs....well we know what will happen wont we ? .........it has re-kindled my interest in the game and I hope to find a game that could offer me the same experience as FPS used to.

There seems to be three to choose from....OOTP, Baseball Mogul and PureSim.

I realise that I am posting on a PureSim forum but I am already a regsistered Matrix forums user and was hoping I could get some unbiased opinion on which of the three could emulate and presumably improve upon the old FPS.

Other things that I loved about FPS included what at the time were lovely looking stadiums, animation of the pitchers, batters and outfielders collecting and throwing the ball, real life teams and players and as mentioned, the ability to reduce the length of the season.

I paid attention to the stats detail too so while I loved the visuals I was probably managing the sim more than playing it like you would a EASports game.

I hope you guys will be able to offer some guidance and hope as mentioned that no-one is offended by mentioning rival sims on here.

Cheers, Mark.

[slider15]

Hi Mark,
I'm surprised no one has answered you by now. As far as this being a successor for Front Page Sports, I am not sure I could go that far. This is an excellent game in fact in my opinion the best of the three you mentioned. I have played them all and this is the one that takes most of my time. Now there are some key differences the biggest being there is no arcade aspect to this game at all. You can watch them but you do not see any base runners, and the play by play is all text. However, so are the other two you mentioned. In fact OOTP doesn't even have ambient stadium noise. FPS was a unique game that competed more with High Heat and MLB style of games. That's at lest why they had the 3d stadiums and players. Personally I never thought the game side was very good, as it was impossible to hit unless you had the PC do it. However I do miss wathcing the games like I'm in the stadium. There was mention of there possibly being 2d sprites in a future release, think more Earl Weaver baseball.
Now to the comparison of the three mentioned. I'll start with the one I like the least. Baseball mogul. Now while there are more animations than the other two, at least from last years(I didn't bother with the latest version). I found it to be buggy and most of the stats were hardly realistic. OOTP is very good recreating realistic statistics, but its hardcore with the business model side as well. Free agents, up to 5 maybe more minor league teams(with full rosters), keeping scouts busy, dealing with player's morale and the fans. Sometimes I find it to be too in depth that it overwhelms me. That can take away some of the fun. Puresim I find to be the best all around. Not quite as complex as OOTP but enough to feel like you are eally running the tem. In fact you can even turn finances off completley. I also have found that the customization is extremely a plus side. If you have the time you can even create logos from scratch and use them in the game. The statistics are excellent without feeling like your staring at a spreadsheet during tax season. In addition the community here always has been friendly and there is lot of interaction with the designer. So a lot our recommendations and wish lists make it into the game. I do not see this happen with many games. At anyrate these are my opinions and you may not feel the same. There is still a demo I think available that I would suggest you try, then you can see for yourself if its what you are looking for. Hope my rambling has helped.

[LetsPlay2]

Hi Mark and Welcome !!

1 other aspect to add from my perspective is the updates and fixes. Shaun, the developer of PureSim, is excellent in keeping this game up to date with everyone's suggestions for wants and needs.
Patches and updates are frequent. I have not played the other 2 sims but I have played Strat-o-Matic for PC and Strategic Baseball Simulator. This game has MORE of everything!!
It is very realistic plus some surprises !! Try the Demo, as slider15 suggested. You will not be disappointed !!

[dneely]

Mark:

My two cents...

1. PureSim - by far the most fun to play, always new things happening, active community and realistic.

2. OOTP - playing is more like taking a class to get your Master's. Complicated and not intuitive.

3. Mogul - fun game, poor stats, decent support, more of an arcade game.

Hope this helps.

[Jonesy]

Hello again and thanks for the replies.
Slider, I know what you mean about hitting the ball in FPS, I never could do it and always used the AI to bat for me!.
 
Im slightly disappointed that there is nothing out there similar to FPS any more. As I said in my first post I was managing rather than playing the game arcade style but I just liked seeing the animations of the ball parks and players along with the often heard "you aint nothin'" cat call !!. Like you said Slider it did make you feel a bit like you were in the stadium!.
 
I'm not giving up though and as suggested I have installed demos of each game. Now I am not just saying it because this is the PureSim forum but out of the three my initial reaction is that it is the most appealing. I find OOTP to be quite bland and I can already see what you mean about needing a masters degree (and a 500 page manual too!!!), oh and no real teams. I thought Moguls in game animation to be horrible but the stat screens seem clear enough. PureSim seems more inviting and when I was in game and at the plate I noticed instantly the pane where I could click to take the pitch, bunt etc. Maybe the other two have the same feature but I didnt notice it.
 
I have only spent a small amount of time with each so it is unfair to judge so quickly but the signs are good!. Oh and I agree completely that a big plus is the developers interaction with the community, definitely a big plus!
 
See you later, Mark.
 
PS, how are the Cubs doing (I forgot to mention I am in UK).

[Nukester]

I can give you an opinion on PureSim and OOTP but not much Baseball Mogul. I tried the BBM demo before the initial release came out, ran into a few bugs (this was the beta demo), and never picked it up again.

Im a looooong time OOTP player, having played since version 2 (which is like 7 versions ago) and like the game alot (well the 2006 version was yucky). The game is incredibly in depth, BUT you can turn alot of the options off, or have the CPU handle them for you. For instance, yes you can have a Korean League, a Mexican League, and all sorts of level of minor leagues, from AAA down to rookie leagues. You can even create feeder leagues that produce the players for your other league, like creating a college league to feed players into your "real" league. This gives you a better understanding of the player than if you only see ratings after the computer creates the players for drafts. You can also turn off the things like expanded rosters, waiver rules, free agency, scouts, coaches, etc...you can turn off almost everything, including all finacials. Also, you can import any season from history into the game using the Lahman database (or user created variations of those), same as with PureSim, but OOTP doesnt have the database built into the game. You have to download it and point the game to it (its extremely simple). OOTP is a dream come true for a guy like me who like to have complete control over everything.

HOWEVER............OOTP is so extremely deep and complex, it is also very time consuming, with time being something I am getting less and less of to play a game as deep as that. For me and that very reason, PureSim is a phenomenal other option. Im actually finding myself playing PureSim more now since I joined up with an online league and am seeing some things that I didnt necessarily pay attention to before. For instance, I usually play in the deadball and early century eras, and very rarely get my sims past, say, 1930ish, so I never really got into the financial side of things, because I have financials off to "simulate" the reserve clause a bit. With the new league, I really got into the finacial side of the game, and was delighted at the ease yet depth it had.

None of the three games really have graphics or animations akin to a FPS:Baseball or High Heat though. For that, you might be better off getting MVP or something like that (thats about the only one I can think of for the PC), but the simulation engines in those type of games arent as good as the text based games engines.

Im sure Im missing or glossing over a bunch of things, but I thought Id give my opinion on two of the games. As I said, I dont think you can go wrong with either product, but for ease and fun, PureSim would be the one Id pick. For a super humougus baseball "universe" with players and league from all over the world, you got to go with OOTP.

Personally, I would probably play PureSim exclusivily if there was an option to switch finacials on once starting a league with them off.