Out Of The Park Baseball 15 Review
By Jared Book
There are a lot of great moments in Montreal Expos history. But also some that are not so great. Well, thanks to Out of the Park Baseball 15, you are able to go back and change anything you want thanks to a historically accurate simulator and customization options to your heart’s content.
I have been a fan of the game since it’s third version back in the early 2000s. This year’s version includes several new features, including it’s star which is 3D Ball Flight. Out of the Park Baseball (OOTP) is a text simulator, meaning the graphical aspects of the game are limited to logos and player photos. However, this year, the flight of the ball is shown on a field in 3D.
It is perhaps the start of integrating more graphical elements into the game. At some point, it may be possible to see your players turn a double play, or trot around the bases. But that is still far off. For now, it is another thing that leads to your immersion into the game.
The greatest asset that OOTP has is it’s many options to play the same game. You can start in 1871 and replay the entirety of organized baseball in the United States. You can also do the same thing only by randomly selecting players Major League debut dates so you can have Barry Bonds playing in 1927 and Babe Ruth playing in 2013.
You can also choose to replay the seasons with authentic transactions and lineups or you can let OOTP’s development engine take over and create an entire alternate reality. You can take over the Montreal Expos prior to the Expansion Draft in Fall of 1968 or you can take them over prior to the 1995 Fire Sale. It is completely up to you and one of the factors that adds to the game.
The game comes with 2014 Major League rosters and has third party developers create photos and logos for the Major League teams since the game does not come with a MLB license. The game also comes with the ability to add Cuban, Japanese and other international leagues to the game’s database where free agents can emerge from.
If you wanted to, you can expand Major League Baseball to 32 teams and bring a team back to Montreal in today’s Major League environment.
The game itself is very in depth with everything from Salary Arbitration to the Draft to 40 man rosters and complete scouting and coaching budgets. This year, a feature that I love and adds to the realism is the expanded Spring Training rosters.
In the past, you had to have people on your 40-man roster to invite them to Spring Training but this year you can invite other players to play Spring Training games as well.
The game also has a Fictional mode where it creates a whole universe of stars and scrubs with different names where you can immerse yourself and create your own baseball universe without any expectations.
All in all, there’s not much bad to say about this game. If you enjoy baseball history, enjoy baseball, or just would want to run your own team, OOTP is the game for you. It is available via Steam and also on their website as well as the Mac App Store. It is available for Mac, PC and Linux. There is also an iOS version for iPads or iPhones called iOOTP 2014.
You can get more information game features here.