Baseball Mogul 2008, the 10th edition of this praised baseball sim, hits shelves with the season in full swing. The game puts players in the general manager’s seat of any professional baseball team of their choosing and let’s them make all the big decisions which will ultimately affect the success of their team on and off the field. For fantasy sports fans that would rather their baseball know-how to be tested by their strategy rather than their reflexes Baseball Mogul 2008 is your quick fix.
Loaded with tons of stats and rosters ranging from 1901-2007, players can start their Big League careers with everything they need right at their fingertips. With the full roster of their favorite team or even their very own fictional create-a-team, fans can negotiate contracts, trades or even sign free agents to help build the ultimate dynasty.
Baseball Mogul also lets you manage the finances for your ball club. Raise revenue by setting the price of tickets and concessions, and selling the TV broadcast rights, while you manage the budget for your farm system, player scouts, medical staff, and player salaries.
On game day, players can also choose to play a more active role on their team by managing things such as setting the lineup or pitching rotation or even be a part of the play-by-play operations such as choosing what pitch to throw or deciding when to bunt or steal a base. If you’re really digging the general manager’s life and you’d rather just sit back and watch your game plan unfold before your very eyes, you can retire to the luxury box, kick back and make calls to the dugout only as needed.
All of the action takes place via a newly improved user-friendly interface which ultimately helps to deliver more stats as well as a more realistic experience to fans. The game interface is broken down into three sectors. The left sector has the lineups for the game. Here, you can make any on-the-fly changes to the batting order, check out the box score, and see who’s up at bat in the next few minutes.
All of the play-by-play animation is carried out in the center sector of the interface. It looks much like a DS setup with the top screen displaying the diamond and the outfield, whose on base, as well as their base runner speed. The bottom portion displays the infield portion of the diamond. Here you can view all the pitch and swing animations. The far right sector displays the play-by-play text of the game and pitcher/batter comparisons. You can look here to see how many pitches your starter has delivered, as well as the slugging percentage of the batter and his on-base percentage. Additionally, a new status bar running across the bottom of your screen posts all the top stories happening around the league without interrupting your game providing you with key info to help keep you in the know.
When the season is over and all stats have been measured and weighed players may want to use their general manager powers to bring in new talent to help strengthen their ball club. Owners can pick and choose from an in-depth data base of the best high-school and college hopefuls around the globe. Depending on their strengths and weaknesses some might be ready for the big leagues right away while others may need to be recruited and then sent to the minor leagues to help develop and improve their skills.
Outside of some key game play elements Mogul ’08 also has a few other notable options to brag about as well. For starter’s a new "save anytime" feature has been added this year allowing players to pick up right where they left off and not have to worry about losing valuable stats if they need to step away from the PC for a while.
The game also boasts a fast simulation speed. Baseball Mogul 2008 can play a full season, including all computer trades and roster moves, all in under 30 seconds. More impressively, though, is the Mogul Encyclopedia which outputs over 30,000 interlinked HTML pages. Historical leaders tracked in over 70 stats by team and season; hitting, pitching and fielding stats at every level; annual financial records; everything you need to analyze and enjoy your baseball universe.
The big question, however, is that how can a game with so many good things going for it only be worthy of an above average score? The answer is simple. Ultimately, Baseball Mogul 2008 is one of those titles whose success or failure will ultimately rely on the "point-of-view factor". In other words, depending on your point-of-view, your either going to love or hate this game. If you’re not one of those hardcore fantasy sports fans then regardless of how much the game has to offer, you’re going to be a little disappointed in the long run. Sometimes such a wealth of information can be a bit of a turn-off.
Don’t get me wrong, all baseball fans are natural number crunchers at heart, but to really get the most out of this game you’re going to have to be a pretty serious stat geek. Not to mention that outside of stats the game is only mediocre in terms of graphics and sound even though that is what to be expected for a title of this genre.
On the other hand, however, if you ARE a serious fantasy sports fan then you’re going to love all that this game has to offer. A wealth of stats to crunch and work into your game plan, a chance to live the total general manager experience, making key decisions and watching the results of your actions play out on the field, and more importantly Mogul ’08 is a game that truly challenges gamers on an intellectual level and so a sense of accomplishment can only follow when a certain level of success has been reached.
The bottom line? Baseball Mogul ’08 is undisputedly a powerhouse title when it comes to stat tracking and historical facts. It has a fairly cool user-friendly interface that helps put tons of information at your fingertips and ultimately fulfills the total general manager experience. There is undoubtedly hours of fun for any hardcore fantasy sports fan. At the same time though, this is the kind of title that really only targets a very specific group of gamers and so it will most likely receive some mixed reviews from the gaming community as a whole. It’s one of those games you’re going to have to try for yourself rather than take someone else’s word for it. Whether you like it or hate it will ultimately depend on your point of view.
The view here at GiN looks to be a very respectable and above average 3 1/2 out of 5 possible GiN gems for Enlighten Interactive’s newest baseball sim.