Recently, a study showed that people who played EA Sports' venerable Madden series of NFL games were actually smarter and more well informed about the inner working of football. Baseball fans scoff at this, knowing that they've been smarter about their favorite sport for years now.
In fact, baseball fans essentially invented fantasy sports years ago with the advent of Rotisserie Baseball, otherwise known as table-top baseball. Some of the most famous games like Strat-o-Matic date back to the 60's, and are clear progenitors to today's fantasy sports, which require its players to understand a lot about the minutiae of the sport and what things like OPS and WHIP mean. That wave of sports nerdism leaves TeamXbox in their present state of affairs where sports fans are more likely to pore over mock drafts and high school scouting reports than actually go to a game and enjoy a hot dog and a beer in the sun.
WorthPlaying writes: "MLB Front Office Manager is 2K Sports' effort in bringing the magic of the Football Manager series to an American audience via the Major League Baseball license. The audience is more limited, as it can be argued that there are several "big" sports in the U.S., and although baseball is America's pastime, its fan base has waned in recent years. However, due to licensing issues, the MLB is the best that 2K Sports can get. It also doesn't help that the title manages to be far too clunky and poorly developed to be a worthy game."
MLB Front Office Manager is a great idea that is beautiful to look at…and that's the problem. Very few games are actually hurt by having great graphics, but this is one of them. The focus of management sims is always going to be the stats, and so much of the screen is taken up with prettiness in FOM that it adversely impacts what you can show stats-wise. If you can keep all the numbers that us statheads want and STILL make the game pretty, then great. Otherwise it's all about balance, and 2kSports sadly got the balance wrong.
GameZone writes: "With continued growth in the online sector, developers are becoming increasingly interested in this new form of distribution. Shooters and RPGs may be the typical games developed in this area, but MLB Dugout Heroes is here to show us that great online baseball can be done.
"MLB Dugout Heroes is the first fully licensed and online-based PC baseball game in North America," said Jonathan Stypula, Community Manager. "You're able to draft your favorite players from any MLB era, level up, complete missions, compete in tournaments, and purchase new uniforms, bats, pitches, and more! We [had] a short Closed Beta Test [on] Friday, March 13, from 3pm-6pm. We'll be following that up with our Open Beta launch on Thursday, March 19!'"
