MLB Front Office Manager (Xbox 360) Review
Posted by Chris Lansdell on 03.28.2009
Have 2KSports and Blue Castle struck a heretofore untapped vein of gold? Or have they just struck out?
Title: MLB Front Office Manager
Publisher: 2KSports
Developer: Blue Castle games
Genre: Sports Management Sim
Players: 1 offline, 2-30 online
Rated: T for Teen
I’ll admit it right up front: I’m a sports stats geek. I love fantasy basketball, baseball and occasionally hockey, and I am a HUGE fan of the Championship Manager franchise of (REAL) football management sims. When I read about MLB Front Office Manager (FOM) I knew I had to have it and review it, mainly because very few other writers would be able to give it a fair shake.
Most fans of professional sports teams have, at one point or another, creatively and derogatively named their team’s manager, head coach or GM over a trade, signing, or lineup change (or lack thereof). MLB FOM offers the chance to fix those issues and more. With the new Major League season fast approaching, would the game deliver and let you be the next Joe Torre?
Gameplay
Any game that relies on copious stats to attract you HAS to deliver in the gameplay department. Offering Career, Online and Fantasy modes, there is plenty here to enjoy for my fellow stat-heads…in theory. Career mode starts you as a rookie GM, with a small amount of customisation regarding appearance, nationality, name and so on. Not that this is terribly important for what the game wants to do, but it’s a nice bonus. One feature that CAN affect your game is the ability to choose your GM’s background, as it will have an effect on how you perform. For example, former businessmen have a higher chance of getting trades accepted, while former players are better at developing talent. The latter is especially good if you plan to stockpile some prospects.
From there you are plunged in at the deep end, at the start of November and the negotiation period with your own pending free agents. And this is where the problems start. A console game that is mainly menu navigation and point-and-click is starting off at a disadvantage unless it comes with a mouse or has an ingenious menu system. FOM has neither. Although I didn’t think it was as clunky as some reviewers seemed to find it, I was very frustrated by things like the inability of the AI to remember sorting preferences. When you have 13 pending free agents scattered throughout your alphabetically-sorted roster, you want to sort them by years remaining. That works fine, but when you go in to the first one on the list and offer a contract…the list resets. There’s also a lack of “Sort By” option on most screens, including (amazingly) the inability to sort by certain attributes on the free agent and waiver screens. Yes, that means you have to wade through each one (and there are hundreds, even if you filter by position, because the full minor league system for every team is in the game along with made-up players) to find a first basemen with a bit of plate discipline, or a young pitcher with stamina who has potential. A real-life GM would merely call one of his talent scouts or payroll people and ask them to organise the list but…yeah, you can’t. Once you get past that it’s time to try and sign some free agents. Good luck with that. My first season I managed by some miracle to sign CC Sabathia…for $29.4 million a season. AI GMs throw absurd amounts of money at free agents regardless of their age or stats, meaning that you have to virtually bankrupt yourself if you want to sign anyone good.
She sure goes crazy for a sharp-dressed man. You'll be crazy too after an hour.
The Rule 5 draft is in here too, and it too is a source of frustration. Given the previously-mentioned hassle of trying to do anything in the menus, you can imagine how much fun I had going through 6 teams (MLB, AAA, AA, A, A+ and SS) of players trying to find the 40 best over 23. Especially with no way to filter by their age. As for trades…forget it. Even with the Businessman background, it’s close to impossible to pull off even an even trade. The AI teams are all out to fleece you, it seems. Eventually, once you figure out the tortuous system of moving people between rosters and sorting out your depth chart, starting lineup and pitching rotation, you’re ready for spring training. Right?
Wrong. Although there is an option to “Advance the league”, it’s slow. You will also get HUNDREDS of emails while this happens, and there is no way to delete these emails without reading them (really, if 13 players accept a contract offer, do you need to read each one individually?), or to delete them at all in fact. But you weather it, because you figure that once the season starts, the hours and hours you spent building your team will be worth it. You fool. Have you not learned yet that this game promises and then disappoints? You can manage the game from field level, making coaching decisions at the start of each at-bat…and only at the start. You can’t change your decision with 2 strikes on you, for example. There’s also a disturbing lack of options for things like sac fly, throw behind, pick off a runner or pitch out. You have virtually no access to stats while in the game, and starting pitches tire VERY fast, which of courses taxes your bullpen. There’s also no tension in the game presentation: you can tell the result of a play almost immediately upon contact with the ball, because all the outs bring up a pop-up window of the fielder. You can turn this option off, but it’s still easy to tell what will happen.
You would hope in a game like this that you would have goals to achieve each season. Not so here, as you have no gauge of how you are doing except a monthly email from your owner. Which is one line long. Also there is no option to direct player development, so you have to hope your coaches do the job right. The advice from Oakland A’s manager Billy Beane is not annoying, but not really helpful either.
I was hoping, after the career mode disappointment, that the online or fantasy modes would help. The problem is, you’re still using the same interface. Although the issue with impossible trades and incredibly deep-pocketed AI teams is lessened when some or all of the league is human-controlled, you still have to use the menu. You also have to find other people online willing to play, which is not an easy task. This bodes ill for the game, as we are less than a week away from the opening of the season. Interest should be at its peak. In the event that you do find enough people to get a decent league going, you always know that some of them will lose interest halfway through, just like the fantasy baseball league you run on Yahoo. Essentially, you’re paying $40 plus Xbox Live fees to play fantasy baseball on your 360.
One final thing I wanted to mention is the lack of a good manual. The one that comes with the game directs you online for more detailed instructions. I don’t know about you guys, but none of my PCs is in the room with my 360, and I am certainly not printing off 40-odd pages to tell me how to navigate through the poorly-designed menu system.
Like this picture, the game is either hit or miss
Graphics
Here is where the game really shines. Simply put, MLB Front Office Manager is gorgeous. The game presentation is slick, the player animations realistic (even Gary Sheffield’s bat waggle is in there), and even the menu screens are lush with player photos. For a genre in which the focus is normally on depth of statistics and ease of navigation, often at the sacrifice of aesthetics, FOM stands at the top of the visual class. The nitpickers may whine about the lack of detail on the in-game players or the unrealistic advertising hoardings, but really they are hardly noticeable.
Sound
The soundtrack for FOM is fairly minimal, but it is mitigated by the ability to use our own. The in-game sound effects seem fairly realistic, but the whoosh whenever a pop-up window appears (and there are a LOT) gets old fast. What’s really hurting the game in this section is the lack of commentary. Considering the emphasis that 2kSports seem to have put on presentation and utilizing their official MLB and MLBPA licenses, it wouldn’t seem to be too much of a stretch to have the commentary team from any of the regional networks churn out some sound bites. It certainly would have added something to the games, even if you had to turn it off when using the speed-up option.
Lasting Appeal
Normally a game like this has a ton of lasting appeal. You can play season after season, then when your GM retires just go and make a new one with a new team or different decisions. The same would certainly apply here, but playing this game for any extended period could cause fits of rage. Even the prospect of playing online with 29 other user-controlled teams isn’t enough to keep people coming back, because no matter how good your group is, you still have to clunk your way through the menus.
Fun Factor
Sports Management games aren’t for everyone, but they’re like that one beer: Those who like it, like it a lot. I really wanted to like this game, in part because I was longing for a new sports management franchise and in part because I thought it could break me of my Spectral Force 3 addiction. It has all the trappings to be fun, it just…isn’t. There is a certain satisfaction that comes from winning a game and watching your digital avatar do a fist pump in the owners’ box (wait, isn’t he managing on the field?), and thumping your glory-hunting ex-Yankees-now-Phillies fan friend 18-3 with the Blue Jays, but the steps you have to take to get to that point quickly drain most of that feeling from you. I can see a hardcore militant realist enjoying this game, because the concept is sound and a lot of the game is well put together. They won’t mind the tedium, since it’s actually pretty realistic, but for the less…well, anal gamer it’s a definite pain.
Now, where exactly is his on-base percentage? Oh right...NOWHERE.
The 411
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.
Graphics
8.7
Beautiful in-game graphics and an aesthetically pleasing menu system ...
Gameplay
4.5
...seem to have been included at the cost of more stats and less moving between screens. A chore to perform even minor tasks, which for this genre is the death knell.
Sound
5.0
Acceptable, would have been far better with commentary or less whooshing.
Lasting Appeal
4.6
As a guy who plays other games in the genre for hours on end year after year, this one left me feeling like I wanted to run to EB Games and pick up Legends of WrestleMania.
Fun Factor
5.0
I can see some people liking it. A small minority, however, and not including me.
