Out of the Park Baseball 24

best baseball sim on the market...just wish there was something similar for NFL

I have been playing this series for well over 15 years. If you're here for anything besides the Perfect Team Gacha Card Game, just stick with the version a couple years back you bought; for example OOTP22 offers a bevy of foreign leagues, this version, your options are MLB, a smattering of unaffiliated minor leagues, KBO, and that's it. (i.e. no NPB league). If you are here to simulate in single player instead of playing the gacha mode, this offers absolutely nothing new.

Long time OOTP player, I buy every year. This year's version is one of the worst versions in a while, it just seems like franchise mode has not properly gone through QA, or the devs simply decide to tinker things for the sake of tinkering. - The fonts are differently sized in different sections of the screen. - Performance issues. The entire game just runs so slowly. It's frigging text-based game, it should not have performance issues on my machine with a 3090 card and 24GB of ram. - The trade function is a mess. I can no longer choose a player on the opposite team and ask their GM what they want. I must first tell them what I must give them. - The "Shop Player Around" feature is downgraded. Why must I wait a day for the other team to decide on a package that they themselves offered in the first place? plus every time they come back and say the offer isn't good enough. - The trading deadline function is a buggy gimmick. there is a 4-minute timer but while the countdown is happening literally no new trades are being proposed to me, and no trades are happening anywhere else. So what's the point? I just sit here and wait for 4 minutes for what? - Sometimes trades that I submit do not get a respond from the other side, it just disappears. - The budget given by the owner is comically stupid. I won 2 straight world series as the Jays, but the owner keeps slashing my budget, and then turns around and asks me to extend Vlad and Bichette, both requiring 30 million + extensions. Fix it, or I am going back to OOTP23

The series has lost its way since they were sold. Last 2 games have been full of issues & the microtransaction Perfect Team mode is the focus for them now, which ruins game series. There are too many negative things to say that have already been covered extensively by others like the disgusting NPB debacle & the way they handled it, but I'll just say that after probably 10,000 hours over the years, I doubt I'll ever support this company again. Just 2 years ago I was still singing their praises. I hope that paints a clear picture.

Best game of its kind out there. These guys need to make something like this for the NBA and NFL

I am not a perfect team player, nor ever have been and never will be. That being said, I can give a review of the single player franchise experience. THE GOOD: OOTP 24 has some very nice quality of life changes for this version. I am very happy with the hard trading mode since it allows the user to eliminate the "Make this work now" button. This button has allowed users to "cheese" the AI for many versions, and I feel it's optional exclusion is a welcome addition. This is great news for those who are interested in crafting well thought out , and more realistic trades without being able to "nickel & dime" the AI to death. Speaking of trading...the all new trade deadline adds some nice immersion, as deadline day is broken up into customizable segments mimicking a GM working the phones looking to add that last piece for a championship run, or unloading veterans for prospects in a bid to rebuild for the future. I think there are some very decent "under the hood" changes that have been made to the game engine, but much like last year, they are probably still a work in progress. I have no doubt however these issues will be ironed out in the very near future. Nothing terrible or earth shattering...it probably just needs a little refinement at this point. Like I said, I have no doubt this will be fine going forward. There are also a few financial enhancements that help the AI and provide a bit more realistic GM experience, but the financial system largely remains the same. The new international signing period adds another layer of depth and immersion to signing international amateur players. Players are slowly scouted over time, and you will be able to gauge their interest in joining your organization as you continue to scout them. Players you do not express interest in will still be scouted albeit not as well. Some nice 3-D graphical and interface enhancements also. THE BAD: Documentation.. The days of manuals are long gone, and what is desperately needed here is an in-game system consisting of tool tips. It would be great if you could simply hover over any game concept and have a detailed explanation of the feature appear for easy and fast reading. This one is a mixed bag. While there are mods available for OOTP (and some very good ones at that..such as a uniform maker) there also feels like there is a void here. There isn't a good one stop shop such as steam workshop or dedicated fan sites. Finding mods requires quite a bit of hunting and pecking around the OOTPD forums, and some of these mods simply will not be available due to copyright issues. This is not so much an issue with OOTP itself however. As of this writing, the trading AI to AI currently needs some work, but I also have all the confidence in the world this will be ironed out. It does seem the developers might be trying to foster a gamier experience by having a flurry of trade activity, but it is customizable. There are probably too many trades, and consequently it might be causing some very lopsided deals, but as I said, I am positive this will be adjusted for the better. Scouting. To me, the scouting model is a bit out of hand. Players are artificially being way overrated...especially prospects. I get that it's not their true potential, and I get that players' don't always reach their potential, and that the actual numbers are much lower....but it just destroys a sense of realism when you have 40 or more players ranked as 70+ potential as prospect. There's nothing wrong with scouts being wrong on players, but it's how the sausage is made here that doesn't feel right. Most scouts will grade top prospects as 65 or 60...and then the player may or may not meet that projection. He may go over it to become more like a 70 or 80 type player, or he may fall short and end up as a 45 or 50...or god forbid a total bust. Players may be rated as a 45 and become a 55...this and everything in between. The way it's currently modeled feels very gamey to me, and a bit artificial. I'd still like to see front office staff expanded, but that is more of a request than a criticism. I would like to see OOTP adopt a fully-functioning front office model from staff, to scouting, to development. Currently OOTP is a baseball simulator (and a damn good one) but not much of a front office management simulator. The UGLY: All leagues other than the MLB, MLB Partner leagues (independent leagues) and the KBO were completely removed from the game. This includes all QuickStarts both fictional and real-world. Originally, templates were provided to help users build their own international leagues, but those have since been removed. So basically, if a user wants to create a new international or independent league, it will have to be done by scratch...and with a lack of tool tips and documentation this is a very daunting task. As I stated above, finding mods to replace these leagues are also a major challenge. So basically the world you create in OOTP is far less realistic than in other versions, and is now basically a MLB modern day/historical simulator. For those choosing to use fictional setups, this might not be as big of an issue, but for those wanting a full blown real-world GM experience, this is a major subtraction. OVERALL: 75/100 Overall I give OOTP 24 a thumbs up though. It is a very good game that does whaat it is supposed to do...which is simulate the game of baseball in a realistic and convincing fashion. Is it perfect? no it isn't, but it's still the best PC/Mac baseball GM simulation available today. I sometimes find myself wishing the actual front office and on field gameplay was as in depth as the set-up options, but it's still very good. Sometimes OOTP can feel like a large lego set that you need to put together on your own without instructions. If you own OOTP 23 I still feel it's worth the upgrade. OOTP 24 doesn't have all of the international leagues that 23 does, but if you own 23, you can always import leagues into the new game without issue. This might be more of an issue going forward though without a serious modding community. The OOTP modding community seems to like graphical mods more than anything else. OOTP in it's earlier versions seemed much more concerned with front office and management activities...in some ways it feels it has somewhat abandoned those roots in favor of graphics, PT and other gamier changes. It just feels less like it's striving to be a hardcore management simulation, and more like it wants follow the masses...even though it's still better than anything else you will find out there in a baseball simulator.

Blue Jays 1, Mets 3 - I send Ottavino into the top of the 9th. Vlad singles, Bichette doubles, tying runs in scoring position with nobody out. Two silly pops deny them any advance. Then, a wild pitch to Leury Garcia scores Vlad jr., and in a full count Garcia strikes out... and the ball gets away, Bo scores, tied ballgame, and I'm ready to walk into the nearest body of water, just as when the Mets play for realsies. In short: extremely realistic game, will hate you just as much as real baseball does!

The incremental upgrades are not worth it if you have played any recent versions. The new game breaks some aspect of the AI every year and it usually isn't patched for a couple months. The series needs an overhaul with a physics-based simulation engine so that statcast data can be used to scout players. Unfortunately, this won't happen because the devs would rather put resources toward the pay to win card collecting mode instead of the franchise mode. If you don't have any previous versions of the game and you're looking for a baseball management game, the game is great. If you've played the series before, just stick with the version of the game you already have.