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Excellent Game for Strategic-minded Baseball Fans

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 30 / 31
Date: March 26, 2007
Author: Amazon User

For those that are strategically and statistically-inclined, you are going to enjoy this game. It allows you to run a Major League baseball team, like an owner, general manager, and manager, all rolled into one, with control over roster personnel, trades, salary negotiations, lineups, etc. Moreover, you can choose to run any team at any time in baseball history (at least going back to 1901), with an additional option for control of in-game strategy, if you so choose. If you are more inclined to the grad scheme of running a team, and not individual game play, likewise, you can play your team in simulation mode for as long as you want (including multiple seasons).

One of the best ways to detect a video game's progression is its continual improvements. The first Baseball Moguls typically had problems with minor league player development, salaries, and drafts (which in the older versions were always after the season). No more. In the 2008 version, your drafts are held during the season in June, as the real ones are, and your minor league player development is dependent on not just length of time playing at a certain level before promotion, but also the amount of money you organizationally spend on your minor league teams.

Another improvement is the historically-accurate variation of stadium fences, seat numbers, etc., of individual stadiums, including the switchover to new stadiums for individual teams. So, if you are managing the Houston Astros in 1999, your next season will automatically transfer your home stadium over to Minute Maid Park. This is a drastic change from the old Astro Dome. In addition, you also possess the ability to manipulate and/or cheat by putting the game in Commissioner Mode and skewing league revenue sharing, team salaries, player/pitcher skills, etc., as well as control your difficulty level of play (from the easy fan to more difficult mogul setting).

All in all, this is a nice antidote to the graphics-oriented video baseball games that are more worried about visual realism of someone's slide than the real variables that determine an outcome of a game. If you are an aspiring baseball fan with a love for the nuances of the game, BM 2008 is for you.

They really haven't improved it enough.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 13
Date: July 22, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I'll assume most of you know the Baseball Mogul series, so I'll talk about the strengths and weaknesses of the 2008 release, rather than going over the basics of how the game works.

Overall, the game is still fun, but there's too much that they haven't fixed or improved. These are all problems that have been with the game since previous releases, and that the game-makers, for whatever reason, keep failing to deal with:

1. The box scores are still presented in a very strange format, not the AB-R-H-RBI format that all baseball fans know and love. Same goes with pitchers' stats in box scores: It's not IP-H-R-ER-BB-K, as it should be. Why can't the game designers fix this? Re-organizing the columns should be a matter of minutes.

2. Way too many baserunners are caught stealing. This has been a problem with the game since the very first release. It's absurd.

3. There's still no way to buy a stadium with a mortgage. You have to accumulate hundreds of millions of dollars in cash in order to afford it, because you have to pay for everything in a lump sum. That's silly, and it's not how stadiums are purchased in the real world.

4. There are all kinds of bugs in "commissioner mode." Sometimes you need to use "commissioner mode," and too many things go wrong. The amateur draft, for example, goes haywire.

5. The play-by-play mode is pretty unrealistic. Bunt a guy from second base to third and he'll almost always get thrown out. Don't even try to steal a base! I don't bother with play-by-play mode anymore.

6. Although the crazy offensive stats have been toned down somewhat from previous years, ERA's are still a touch too high overall. Sometimes no starter in either league will finish with an ERA below 3.00.

One thing they've improved slightly: the trading AI is not quite as dimwitted as it used to be. Go ask a team for its pre-arbitration pitching stud, and you'll usually find that it's impossible to pry the guy loose. So far, so good. But it's still much too easy to ship out aging stars instead of having to eat their contracts, and that's really the key to winning this game consistently. Another thing: cash deals are absurdly lucrative for a shrewd player. The computer overvalues your players and undervalues its own. If you pile up a nice mountain of cash, you'll find that you can buy some stars from teams for eye-poppingly low cash payments. With the "trading block" function, you can see just how much cash you'd get for any player you want to get rid of. Sometimes it's in the millions just for an ordinary player! They've tried to improve all this by instituting a no-trade clause for some of the best players, and you'll find that it's just about impossible to sign some of them without a no-trade clause, but it's still not hard to trade most players, because they'll usually allow a trade to at least one or two other teams (and you can easily discover using "trading block" which teams those are). I've only been caught once, in years and years of game-play, with a bad and expensive player who refused to be traded anywhere at all.

You can easily determine your ideal average ticket price by looking at the payroll budget in the Finances spreadsheet; just keep clicking around till the budget reaches its highest number. In the playoffs, when you'll really bring in cash, you'll need to use some trial and error to find the best price, but a decent rule of thumb is to raise ticket prices $10 each time you advance to another round. But if it's all just raw mathematics, why make players select their average ticket price at all? Just let the computer calculate the ideal price. It seems like a waste of time to me.

All in all: like the previous releases of Baseball Mogul, this is a good game with the several defects that you'd think the designers could easily address.

Still too similar to last 10 versions

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: May 31, 2007
Author: Amazon User

While this series has advanced some, I can't get over how similar 2008's version is to even 1998's game. This season the live game action is better, but you STILL have no control over baserunners. Sometimes your fastest runner won't try to score from 3rd with two outs on a single. The user should be able to decide whether he risks it or not. The free agency system is still out-dated and no other teams really bother competing for star players during the off-season. Basically if you're willing to pay the player's demands, you can easily build an allstar team within one year. Some may say this is realistic, but there still needs to be some competition for star quality players. They should have bidding wars where other teams drive up the price at the last minute and sometimes actually steal a player away from you.

If you really want to exploit the game's weaknesses, just control a very low budget team like the Royals or Nationals for one season. You will ALWAYS make a profit so you can triple your payroll the following year and build an allstar team. This is silly as any baseball fan knows the Royals and other low budget teams would never triple their payroll in one year, and can rarely if ever sign big name players. It's kind of a fun game to play one season in, but over multiple years it's laughably simple to have a lineup consisting of eight superstars and a a starting rotation of all Cy Young winners. Maybe the online leagues are better for live competition but who knows.....

It Makes Me Sleepy

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: March 24, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I've gotten to where I only play this game late at night because I usually get sleepy while playing it. It's not that I don't like the game, it's just not very exciting.

My first experience with Baseball Mogul was either 2000 or 2001, and not a whole lot has changed since then. I was really surprised at some of the minor errors I saw:
Instead of batting skill against Left and Right, it has Left and Left
Player photos do not always match position (Pitcher in Catchers gear)

I don't like it that a player pretty much has to get old, get bad, and then get sent to the minors before he will retire. Most veterans retire before they totally fall apart.

I have never been able to draft a good hitter. Pitchers are always the best players in the draft.

Pitcher ERA's are generally too high. Most teams end the season with an ERA of 4.50 or so. Not every team plays in Colorado.

The date for roster expansion is shown on my team page, but I am never able to actually expand.

I know baseball players are greedy, but there must be 30 players in my league that are making more then $20 million a year.

I would like to be able to assign my players workouts or drills to try and improve their skills.

Overall, I enjoy Baseball Mogul, but I will not buy it at full price, and I will not buy it every year; maybe every 6-8 years if it changes this little.

WILL MAKE YOU KNOWLEDGEABLE

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 6 / 7
Date: June 17, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I usually start my game in 1901 and go far into the future. It is fairly easy for me to win most of the World Series titles even on the most difficult setting. I guess that's not too realistic, but the fun is in the numbers-setting new records, getting 300 wins, getting 3000 hits setting the single season HR so high even Bonds couldn't break it, etc. I also enjoy learning the history of old time players. Baseball Mogul makes me so curious about the players I look them up on Wikipedia. My baseball knowledge has grown immensely because of the game. Some of those old-timer were really characters such as Rube Waddell or Mike Donlin. Whenever I start a new game from 1901 I find myself trading for my favorite players. Roger Bresnahan probably tops list. My line up is never complete unless Roger is the catcher.

As another reviewer stated it is fairly easy to get an all-star lineup, but having all-stars does not guarentee a title. In the game I am playing now my starting rotation includes Walter Johnson, Pete Alexander, Dutch Leonard, Herb Pennock and Eddie Cicotte. Not exactly slouches, but I've finished 2nd the last two seasons after a string of 5 titles.

I deducted 1 star because of bugs. Even with the latest patch(10.14?)
there are some problems.

Good, not Great

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: October 10, 2007
Author: Amazon User

Being a life long Strat-O_Matic player, this game intrigued me. The opportunity to play any player, any season was appealing. The GM aspect and pre-game managing of your lineup is great. The game suffers in game play. Animations are cheesey, and the ball parks don't change. I understand that there is a way to change the stadiums, I just haven't figured it out yet. Stolen bases are 50-50 at best, and pitchers always seem to fall apart in the later innings. Also, a dominant closer means nothing as of yet, as every closer I've used so far has managed to blow quite a few saves. The encyclopedia function is also interesting, and saving season stats is cool once you figure it out. Overall, not a bad game for $20, but I'll stick to Strat for realism.

A Steinbrenner I'll Never Be OR Coming From An Old Earl Weaver Baseball Player ...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 10
Date: June 27, 2007
Author: Amazon User

If I had lived a different life as a baseball owner, I think i'd most likely be more of an absentee owner becoz I lost interest in this game in about a week - the lil bugs here and there sometimes don't make sense but i didn't see a whole ton of fun in this game. About the only really interesting thing I noticed is during the amateur draft, when you let the game choose your picks for you - the game will usually draft players that the teams actually did draft or before the advent of the draft, players that they historically signed. The most obvious bug I noticed was a no name pitcher in said amateur draft occasionally, a player that the game wouldn't let me draft - I think a good option would've been to allow the game player set the ratings themselves - maybe I thought this game would be different.

Baseball Mogul

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 2
Date: February 25, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Great Game if you get into stats and want to run a team without all the graphic interface and baseball game details, yet you still can take control of the day to day couching if you like.

Baseball Mogul 2008

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: October 28, 2007
Author: Amazon User

This is a great strategic game. If you like sports and enjoy strategic planning, this is a great game.

Baseball Mogul 2008

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 0 / 1
Date: April 25, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Good game, lots of fun for people who enjoy the somewhat intense sim games like this one.

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