MLB Front Office Manager (PS3) Review

Posted by Armando Rodriguez on 02.05.2009

Front Office shows a lot of promise, but ultimately is too broken to be enjoyable.



Title: MLB Front Office Manager
Publisher: 2K Sports (Take 2 Interactive)
Type: Sports/Simulation
Players: 1
Rated: E for Everyone
Also available on the Xbox 360 and PC

I have to admit that I was not very excited with the prospect of MLB Front Office Manager. Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of the text-sim/coach genre and have played a lot of Baseball Mogul and Out of the Park Baseball in my PC. But after the disappointment that has been EA’s NFL Head Coach series, I doubted anyone could successfully bring the genre into the mainstream and into consoles. But with MLB Front Office Manager, 2K Sports and Blue Castle Games have created the blueprint for a successful franchise.



Gameplay:

Have you ever played a game that has been both, a disappointment and a welcome surprise all at once? Well, this is what MLB Front Office Manager is to me. It has high production values and a lot of great ideas, but makes more than a few big mistakes that cripple the experience.

First of all, this is an intense simulation; it is text-heavy and clearly appeals to a niche market only. You begin by creating your general manager by choosing a bunch of pre-set faces, body types and suit colors. I know that GM’s are not superstars, but the options you get are extremely limited and there is no way to make a person that remotely looks like you. This is one area that the game needs improvement: ditch the presets and allows us to create someone the way we want.


Even Billy Beane's advice is not enough to help you understand this game

Then you get to pick a team and off you go. This sounds a lot easier than it is. Front Office Manager has every little detail that real GM’s face: Free Agents, Salary Arbitration, Minor League Rosters, Rule 5 Draft, Waivers, bidding for Japanese players, Extended Rosters, Disabled List and a lot more. I applaud 2K for going with a complex simulation of the sport. For beginners this is a daunting task and the interface is not newbie friendly. It took me several hours to adjust to how everything works. First of all, there are no shortcuts of any kind. If you get an email saying that Vladimir Guerrero has rejected your contract offer, there is no shortcut that allows you to move seamlessly to the player mentioned, the free agent pool or anything of that sort. If you want to improve your offer you need to exit the email screen, go over to Transactions, then Free Agents, then find the player you want (in the case of my example is Vlad Guerrero), open the player’s profile and offer a new contract. It is always like this the entire game, you need to learn where everything is located and navigate a lot of menus. A couple of shortcuts like the ones in more veteran text-sims like Baseball Mogul would have been welcomed. Another thing that will seem odd is that players are not rated in the typical 0-100 rating as in other games; instead they are rated in the method used by real life scouts where the top number is 80. So an 80 overall player is technically the best they can be. This is just a minor gripe, but I accept the choice for the sake of realism and once again I applaud 2K for going the realistic way.

Every team operates on a different budget depending on their location. So don’t expect the Pirates or Royals to have a budget as big as the Yankees. You can also negotiate trades, but the A.I. really needs some work in this area. Trades are most of the time one-sided. Some notable ones I pulled include Jason Marquis and Felix Pie to the Mariners for King Felix Hernandez and Mike Cameron, Michael Wuertz and Rich Hill for Jay Bruce. Also the budget management of the A.I. is completely bizarre. Explain to me why the Rays spent big bucks on Manny Ramirez or how the Royals crippled themselves financially to get C.C. Sabathia. I know this happens in practically every coach game out there (Baseball Mogul I am looking at you!) but it’s time someone steps up to the plate and fixes the issue. I am not talking about A.I. as smart as players, but at least one that is more competitive. Another gripe I have is with free agency: there is no way to tell which players are being pursued by which teams and what offers they have on the table. So let’s say you want to sign Manny and you are ridiculous enough to offer him $25 million per year for 5 years. You can’t do anything more but wait…and wait…and wait. One day you might get an email saying that he rejected your offer because he had better offers on the table. Yet, you cannot see these offers, so your only option is to “improve” your offer blindly. But what if your improved offer is still too low? You have no way to tell. Then he signs for $31 million a year with the Rays and they never see another postseason in their history. Another issue I have with free agency is that there are too many major league ready rookies. The game encourages you to scrape the bottom of the bin and get the best talent at a low price. In the free agent pool there are way too many fake “rookie” players, most of them major league ready and they sign for low money. I don’t think this is the way it works in real life and it is possible to fill your holes with these players and end up winning big. It beats the purpose of the minor league system and the fantastic scout system that allows you to assign money to different areas of the world to find the best young talent.


Even a great looking coach mode won't save this game

As far as the in-game coaching, the engine is perhaps the best in all coach simulations. The options are limited, pretty much what you find in Baseball Mogul. At the plate you can tell your hitters to hit, bunt, call for a steal if someone is on base, call for a hit and run or substitute players. The only thing missing is a way to tell your hitters to go for a sacrifice fly, but it is something that will be hopefully added in future versions. On the mound you can tell your pitcher to pitch, walk the batter or make substitutions. You can also need to warm up pitchers in the bullpen, which is another realistic tidbit that I enjoy. Winning requires a bit of skill and luck, although I have found that it is very hard to win the games that you coach. I won more games by just simming them than those that I coached myself. My only gripe with the coach mode is the pitchers, or rather the pitchers stamina. Pitchers in the game seem to tire more easily than pitchers in real life and they seem to recover at a slower rate. Very few pitchers can be effective beyond the 5th inning, so having a strong pen is usually the difference between a win and a loss. But even with a stacked pen (I was using the Cubs and then the Yankees) the relievers suffer from the same stamina problem: They are usually good for a single inning and even if they throw 10-12 pitches in a game, they will be tired for the next day. This leads to scenarios in which your starter is dead tired by the 5th inning, but your entire pen is dead as well from the last two games. I know this is how it works in real life, but it doesn’t translate well into the world of videogames and leads to a lot of frustration.

You earn experience points by getting win streaks and other achievements. With these points you can increase your skills and allocating them to different areas will improve your team’s performance. This is a good idea with a bad execution. I like it that you can improve as time goes on (something we call experience and learning) but I don’t get it how you are supposed to suck very badly until you earn some experience. What I am trying to say is why would the Cubs owner of Yankees owner put on with your less than stellar performance until you grow as a coach? If I have a $200 million dollar team with star players I expect to at least compete. But I found myself loosing a lot and never understanding why until I found in the gamefaqs board that experience points solve every problem I was facing. I know the name of the game has MANAGER in it, but it should not undermine your team’s ability for the sake of some experience points. If you are so green and incapable, why did the Yankees hired you anyway? Unless they decide for the next version (and I do hope there is a next version) to feature an expanded career mode in which your managing career begins at the minor league level, I say they should ditch the entire experience point system and allow the player’s skill to take over.

The game also features online play, but there was basically no one online when I tried to play. So there was no way for me to properly test the online dynasty mode that supports one player for every team of the league.

As for the controls, they are serviceable. I think 2K did the best they could with a gamepad. That means that they are not as good as a keyboard/mouse combo, but they don’t get on your way either. They take all of fifteen minutes to learn properly and any issues and frustrations you have with the game will come from the complexity of the menus and not because the controls got in your way.



Graphics:

Graphics are one of Front Office Manager’s strongest points. The menus look sleek and well designed, giving them an aesthetic appeal that text-based sims in PC’s lack. My only complaint from them is that for next year’s version the font should be a bit bigger than it is because it was sometimes difficult to read because of its size.

The Coach Mode is fantastic looking. Clearly it is not on par with action sports titles like the MLB: The Show or MLB 2K series, but for what is essentially a text-based sim at heart, the graphics are fabulous. The ballparks have details that make them instantly recognizable, players are animate well and some faces are instantly recognizable, although it seems the only players that get a real close-up are the pitchers when you call them out from the bullpen. The game allows you to see every play through the use of picture-in-picture windows that highlight stolen bases and catches in the field. However, for the next version they should feature pyrotechnics and other visual effects after home runs. I found it odd that there is no celebration after home runs, just a banner that reads “Home Run” and that’s it. It cheapens the impact homers have in the game.

Sound:

There is not a whole lot of sound in the game. Background music is forgettable, not the type of licensed music that shows up in modern sports games. The sound effects for things like the ball hitting the baseball bat or players sliding into base are well done. The crowd is too subdued; they never seem to get very excited. Although it should be expected from a management game, there is no commentary either. All these things add to a very sub-par audio experience, but at least one that is comparable to other games in the same genre.

Lasting Appeal
The game allows you to manage one franchise for thirty years and with all the MLB teams available, there seems to be almost infinite replay value. However, I don’t think anyone will stick with the game for more than a couple of seasons. Once you figure out how the A.I. works (they all go for the same big name players, suspect trade A.I., etc.) the experience is largely the same regardless of the team you take control off. The fact that the game has plenty of frustrating and sometimes crippling issues will help minimize your interest in playing this for long.

Fun Factor:

I don’t think anyone, not even the biggest coach sim enthusiast, will have fun with this game for long. The excitement of the game dies quickly once the game’s many problems start to pop-up. I bought it on launch day and have been playing ever since, but most of that time was because I wanted to make a fair review and forced myself to play, not because I was having any fun.

The 411:

With MLB Front Office Manager, 2K has established the base for a solid franchise. It proved that text-based sims can have a home in consoles and that they can be pretty to look at, not just a bunch of accounting spreadsheets. I think that many of the game’s problems where more like “rookie mistakes” on the developer’s part and that they can turn things around for next season. By making the A.I. better, making some changes to the interface in order to provide more ease of use and fixing several minor stat bugs, this game could be the killer of text-based coach games. As it is right now, MLB Front Office Manager is a broken game, but one that shows a lot of promise and that hopefully will see another better, more complete entry next season.

Graphics	8.0	Compared to other text-based sims, Front Office showcases sleek menus and a 3D on-field coach mode that looks fantastic.
Gameplay	5.3	Broken A.I. and a complex, unwelcoming interface will scare most players off.
Sound	6.0	The on-field sound effects are nice, but the crowd leaves a lot to be desired. There is no commentary and the music is sub-par.
Lasting Appeal	6.0	Technically there should be a lot of replay value, but the game is so broken that no one will stick with it for more than two seasons or so.
Fun Factor	5.5	You will have more fun thinking about how great this game could have been than by actually playing the game.
Overall	5.8   [ Not So Good ]

Screenshots
All 6 MLB Front Office Manager Screenshots