Review of OOTP4
by David Luciani
Published March 14, 2002

Over the years, a number of you have written me to ask me to recommend a product for sim leagues, and most readers will notice that until now, I have been noticeably silent on making such a recommendation, partially because I believed that each of the popular sim games out there always left out an important element.  It's rare in these pages that I review any product and rarer still that I give a glowing one.  Having said that, with a large population of our readers being those who take interest in fantasy baseball, I could not help but conclude that if the goal of users is to simulate the role of a real life GM, that they would take interest in a new computer game that just came out a couple of weeks ago.  Though we have absolutely no affiliation with them (meaning that we don't make any revenue should readers order the product), the new game "Out of the Park 4" is one that I know many of our readers will love.

OOTP4 is a number of things but let me tell you first what it is not.  First, it is not a licensed MLBPA product, meaning that if you purchase it, you will not recognize any of the players that come with the game as they are artificial.  Having said that, the game is good enough to overcome this weakness and there are a number of fan sites that offer fan-created rosters that are up to date to include the 2002 rosters.  Readers do need to be warned though that the inclusion of real MLB players is not a feature of the game.  Secondly, it is not a graphics game in the sense that there is any fancy animation.  Players are mapped on a stadium background with a simple player photo and basic information and you will never "see" a diving catch or animated strikeout.

With that warning, let me tell you what OOTP4 is.  It is, without question, the finest and most addictive PC baseball simulation I have seen and better emulates the role of a GM than any other game.  Whether you play solitaire or assemble a league, think of OOTP as the new century's computer version of the old Strat-O-Matic games, but better.

Basically, the game allows you to simulate a career as a GM, modeling a franchise over many seasons.  How you build your roster will affect attendance, which will affect revenue and potential payroll.  If you use one of the historical databases, available for free from a third party, you can begin your simulation at any point in the history of baseball, take your favorite franchise and build it from the ground up.  If you are playing in a league with a number of opponents, there are easy reports created for Internet upload so that your league can have its own site.  Players age and their skills improve and decline over time in this game.

Whether you choose to actually manage the individual games is also an option and if you decide not to be hands on, you can "quick sim" the games.  If you are managing the games, you can handle the bullpen, the lineups and basic strategies such as when to steal, hit and run, etc...  One excellent feature, only possible in the computer era, is an out of town scoreboard that is actually simulating the other games around the league while you are playing.  No game has better captured a pennant race than when you are playing one game and watching the scoreboard with anticipation to see whether the Yankees are leading in the 8th inning in a completely separate game you're not directly involved in.

A new feature that no other game has tried is a simulated "email" system so that players, their agents and your scouts are sending you emails on different topics.  You might get an email from a player telling you that he's decided to retire at the end of this season.  Your closer might not like that he's been moved to the starting rotation.  Your scouting director might write to tell you that your top prospect at Single-A is ready for Double-A.

Indeed, that's one of the really nice features about OOTP4 is that it simulates an entire farm system, right down to simulating the minor league games for three different levels.  Whether you import real players or use the artificial ones included with the game, it is an exciting thought to draft a player (and there is an amateur draft in the game, complete with newly created artificial players), assign him to Single-A and watch him work his way up the ranks to become a star on your team.

The trading system is excellent and unlike other games, it actually allows you to put a player on the "trading block" which sends message to other teams, including any managed by the computer, that the player is available.  In our tests, we even put players on the block and received messages from that the players letting us know that they "weren't happy" to "not be wanted."

And should you think that happiness in a simulated world is meaningless, perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of OOTP4 is the free agency model, which simulates the signing process of free agents.  You put in bids to free agents and a number of factors can affect whether they sign with their team, including their loyalty to your team, how much they want to play for a winner and how much money you offer them.  This game handles this aspect so well that it dwarfs many of the bigger market games, who simply do not have a free agency model.  You can even negotiate contract extensions with potential free agents before the season ends and this is handled extremely well here.  Once a player does declare free agency, they can even lead you along, implying that they're going to sign with you only to stun you at the wire by going to the Yankees or Braves (this exact event happened twice in our simulations before writing this review)!

If you can overcome that no MLB players are included with the game (and fan sites like OOTPWorld.com make free MLB player sets and photos available made by amateur users) and if you don't care about the lack of fancy graphics, I can also tell you that in our preliminary tests, OOTP4 gave us more accurate statistical results than any of the other so-called text based games, which was a bit of a surprise.

Without question, this is the best text based simulation I have seen and it will not disappoint.  Therefore, for readers who have asked me over the years to recommend a product (and you know that I've remained silent about some of the other better known products in this vein), I strongly endorse and recommend OOTP4 as the game you've been looking for.  It is this century's answer to Strat-O-Matic and as a solitaire game in particular, can't be beat if you really want to pretend what it's like to be either a baseball GM or manager.

OOTP4 can be purchased and downloaded online at http://www.ootp4.com .  In no way is Baseball Notebook associated or affiliated with this company and products reviewed by Baseball Notebook are purchased at your own risk.