Chris

Just branched out the sports talk as suggested.. was thinking that but posts are just starting up. Cheers Ross ChatBox and ShoutBox are being looked into..

Definitely one of the Better Baseball Sims on the Market. November 16th, 2012 It may be November, but if you’re anything like me, baseball is never far from your mind. And while console games like MLB The Show, and for many of you, the old MVP series, there are a great many players who are looking for something to fill more of the fantasy void. As a fantasy owner of eight teams, I feel your pain. Insert PureSim5, a baseball simulation modeled after the OOTP series that most people are aware of. If you’re not an OOTP fiend like I am, here’s the link to one of my leagues: http://www.netsportssimm.com. From there, you can get a feel for what simulation leagues look like. I’m in two of these -- unfortunately, the archaic OOTP 6.5, which is fun but can’t hold a candle to the newer versions -- and basically the gist of it is that you start a league in whatever season you want, and progress from there. As you can see, we are in the midst of the 2042 offseason. I’m the Minnesota Twins, and am trying to spend additional money because the way finances work in the game dictates that I can’t pocket any more ‘cash’. Sounds weird to associate that with the Twins, but it’s where I’m at. Actually, we did the exact same league and it crashed about 40-45 years in -- essentially where we’re at now -- so that tells you a. how long we’ve kept these two leagues together and b. that I’ve essentially played about 150-200 sim seasons (including defunct leagues). Indeed, I’ve been around the block a time or two on sim games. So let’s get down to the nitty gritty on PureSim5. At the open screen, you get five choices and ‘quit’. You can do the following: New Game, Load Game, Quick Load, Mod Files, and Options. Most of those are self-explanatory, though I think Mod Files may be an exception. The Mod Files are where you can download things such as MLB faces, logos, and ballparks, as well as fictional team logos, All-Time logos, and background images. All of these serve to make the gameplay more customizable, and most of them are inherent to previous versions of PureSim. To get a feel for the game, I’ve downloaded the face pack. Adding packs to the game is relatively simple; all you do is download it and the game will add it automatically. I recommend restarting the game to make sure the update takes, but it doesn’t appear to be necessary. One thing I noticed while tooling around the game is the discrepancy between the good players and the bad ones. The good players have consistently good rankings; free agents and poor players do not. And while this might be a Captain Obvious statement, part of me wondered if the gorge between the two is a bit too sizable. Like Madden in previous years, it serves to truly differentiate the haves from the have nots -- because let’s face it, three years ago nobody was chasing down Devin Hester from behind -- and that’s probably for the best since these players are free agents for a reason. PureSim 5 Baseball - Player Card PureSim5 Player Cards Opening a new game brings you a nice handful of options. You can start a game in PureSim classic mode, PureSim classic quick stars (you choose the number of teams, divisions, etc.), Major League Career (choose your year and format), Major League Career Tru-Transaction mode (you manage, GM makes moves as they occurred in real life), and Sandbox mode (any season 1900-present, with real players if you wish). Finally, you can choose your ratings format: 1-100, the 20-80 scouting scale, a number of 1-xx formats, and finally, no scoring whatsoever. The last option is how you want finances, market sizing, and free agency to work. You can be the equalizer with all markets the same size, or you can have it just like it is. For the intents of my review, I’ll be the Minnesota Twins -- team I’m most familiar with -- and will sim through the entire 2011 season to keep it fresh and timely. Unfortunately, a 2012 option doesn’t appear to be available yet. So we have normal market sizes, free agency, and all that goes with what I feel should be an accurate replication of the 2011 baseball season. Let’s see if I can prevent the Twins from losing 99 games again! Right from the get-go you choose your file name for a save; this is nothing revolutionary, you just have to make sure you can remember it. Then you select your team and change them off CPU. Then comes even further customization for your ‘association’ -- your league, in essence -- such as choosing size of rosters from 35-60 -- I’m using 40 like in real life -- as well as making expansion possible, allowing ratings to change in-season, and a handful of others. Here are the ones I enabled: Expansion Possible Injuries Can Occur Player Ratings Can Change In-Season Allow Computer AI Trades Use Player Photos Import Players Prior to their MLB Debut I also selected a strict fatigue/durability model -- as opposed to age-based -- as well as DH in the AL, five-man rotations and closers on a pitching staff, and importing players’ historical stats. Finally, I selected TRU-life for the player development engine; essentially this models what players did in that real time frame, with potential adjustments due to natural variation and the like. Random thought at this point: Wow. This game is very thorough on the front end. The final piece before starting the game is to import the major league players from the season that you’ve chosen. So far, the setup for a game might turn off people looking for a more basic interface, but if one can get past the intro, there are clearly options for players looking for all different playing experiences. Additionally, you can update some, not all of the options as your season goes along, so don’t fret making too many hasty decisions when starting up the game. Spring training is the first activity that awaits prospective players, and it’s basically just a simulation of the Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues that we’ve grown to love as baseball fans. I’ve never really known anyone to enjoy these parts of games anyway, so I don’t think simulating through the spring is much of detraction. Before opening the season, PSPN -- clever, huh? -- posts its preseason power rankings -- Twins 22nd -- and an annual “most feared hitters” list. It’s a pretty cool feature, even if I don’t agree with the methodology (batting average and home runs? yuck). There’s also a “frugal or fancy free” feature that profiles team payroll. Again, cool feature, but not exactly necessary. Onto the season! We’ll be using the real 2011 schedule. At the season opening screen, you can do a number of things. You can edit your association notes -- essentially a notepad -- as well as check season stats on an ESPN-like interface. It’s pretty cool, to be honest. PureSim 5 Baseball - PSPN Coverage ESPN..err we mean PSPN Coverage! Let’s have a peek at the roster and front office options. From the front office you can edit a lot of things -- keep in mind, I’m on commissioner mode -- such as GM and manager tendencies, as well as managing every single part of your roster. It’s really an in-depth, well done aspect of the game. For this review, I’m going to try to improve the Twins club from within, using the best 25 men at my discretion to try keep the Twins from repeating their worst season in club history. Just for fun, I tried out the trade interface, and the Angels offered Tyler Chatwood for Danny Valencia. That seems like a pretty good offer, and leads me to trust the engine behind this game pretty well. Similarly, hitting ‘shop player’ will suggest a handful of players that other teams are willing to offer you. At this point, I have to tip my cap to whomever programmed the game engine, as this is well done. Before I start the first game, I survey my front page with lineups and so on. The ‘Ask a Scout’ feature is pretty cool, where you can consult your local ‘scout’ on how he sees fit to update your team. In the interest of brevity -- you’re clearly laughing at this 1400 words in -- I’m just going to start with the rosters as-is. Strangely, player stats for 2011 -- such as Joe Benson’s cup of coffee -- are in the game. For me, that makes 2011 rosters a bit strange. Options for each individual game, as well as yours, are QuickSim and PSPNCast, which is similar to GameCast on ESPN. On your own game, you can also manage, which is the third option. I’ll manage game one before I sim for a bit. Game one features Carl Pavano and Ricky Romero, and before the game you get the option to alter your pitcher and batting lineup, as well as weather conditions and a few ‘quick facts’ before heading into the game interface. The home page lists your lineup, the defensive players on the field presently, and some stat interfaces as well as a list of roster options available to you -- pinch hitters and relievers, essentially. Every time you strike ‘enter’ the game progresses one more step. You have the option to hit the B key (bunt), L key (lineup), 2 key (to steal second or third with 3 button, based on your base running situation), H key for hit and run, and much more. It’s really in-depth. In the first inning, Alexi Casilla reached via a single, Delmon Young was hit by a pitch, and Jim Thome singled to center. I’m given the option to run on Corey Patterson (84 arm) with Casilla (71 speed). I went aggressive and scored, but this is a pretty cool option. So far, I’m really digging this game, and we’re just a few hitters in, even though the batting lineup with Joe Mauer hitting seventh and Jim Thome playing third is, shall we say, a bit odd. Now, with Pavano on the mound and a runner on, I have the option to check the lineup, walk a guy intentionally, pitch around him, change my infield and outfield positioning, and do a pitchout or a pickoff move. Again, very thorough, as the Blue Jays score a pair of runs to make it 2-1. Now I’m not going to bore you with how the game turned out, so I’ve auto completed to the end of the game. Final score: Minnesota 4, Toronto 3 in 12 innings. Glen Perkins got the win, so for the fun of it, I checked his ratings. 85 stuff, 79 control, and 70 velocity. The 52 endurance is a bit high, perhaps mixing his starting days with his closer days into making him a possible rotation candidate, but even games like MLB The Show goof this sort of thing. I can’t complain too much. I’ve opted to simulate through April at this point. The game pauses to give you options, such as pausing to see new issues of the PSPN magazine, and to let you know if there are injuries or trades proposed. On the left side of the screen is an overlay updating you on statistical leaders, such as Jered Weaver with the most wins, Fausto Carmona with the most walks, and even some team stats, such as Denard Span with a .372 OBP. This really helps the game have a good MLB feel to it. At the end of April, the Twins are 13-16. Not good, but fortunately only a game-and-a-half out of first place. So basically, bad Twins and a bad division, just like 2011. Another pause the game makes is for scouts to evaluate talent periodically each month, which is a pretty cool feature. Oddly, simulating a month stopped at June 3, so I’m thinking it goes month-to-date rather than calendar month. No matter, as the Twins enter June in first place 30-27, with a three-and-a-half game lead on Detroit. Now, we’ll move onto the All Star break, which takes us through July 10. Hold up; the Nationals are interested in trading for Scott Baker on June 21. Let’s take a look, shall we? The Nationals gave a list of one-for-one trades they would make. This list includes Tom Gorzelanny, Wilson Ramos, and.....Stephen Strasburg? Well, I’d be a fool to pass that up, but I think it’s a negative strike against the game engine, as this would never happen. In fact, up until the break, I got offers on every single major player on the Twins roster -- I didn’t take or even look at any of them -- as well as guys like Ben Revere and Trevor Plouffe. I like to envision this as how Terry Ryan’s phone might ring, but if the deals were anything like Baker-for-Strasburg, then you could probably assemble an All Star team in no time. Fast forward to July, and from what I gather, there is no All Star game, just an All Star Break. Not a huge mark against the game, but an oddity to be sure. The stats at the break seem pretty reasonable, with the exception of Joe Mauer hitting .252/.333/.319 with just 3 home runs. What’s pretty cool is the game calculated his WAR (-0.1), wOBA (.300), and that he’d thrown out 49 percent of all attempted base thieves. As a huge sabermetrics geek -- I work for Fangraphs after all -- these are wonderful additions to the game engine. PureSim 5 Baseball - Sabermetrics Sabermetric reports! Now we’ll simulate through August 31 to have a peek at the roster expansion options. On the way as we approach the trade deadline, plenty of deals proposed make sense, such as Span to Tampa Bay and Morneau to Toronto. I like to see a trade engine in games that can at least be somewhat realistic -- Strasburg notwithstanding. A quick peek-in during late July shows the team under .500 at 52-54 and still leading the Central. Yikes. It also showed 14 complete games for Cliff Lee in Philadelphia, which seems a bit high. On September 1, a note pops up alerting the GM to make his call-ups to get to a 40-man roster, which I just auto’d. At a 40-man roster, you’ll obviously have to move some guys around to get them work, but it’s extremely realistic. On September 28th, the Twins clinched the division with a 78-83 record, and it led to a matchup with Boston in the ALDS. Obviously, after September you have to send players back down for a 25-man playoff roster. With little surprise, the Red Sox dispatched the Twins in three games. In game seven of the World Series, Roy Halladay outdueled Ervin Santana, and the Phillies won the World Series. PSPN gives awards at the end of the season in a pretty cool format, and there are plenty of awards, such as Gold Glove, Silver Slugger, and a handful of others. Afterwards, when you head to the offseason, a prompt comes up with a score out of 1,000. For instance, my Twins score was 635, and three straight years under 500 will result in a GM being dismissed, which is a cool, if simple element of realism. After a pre-offseason evaluation of talent, we’re ready to start the offseason, which I’ll attempt to abbreviate to keep you reading. After retirement, ranking of players, updating the almanac, listing individual and team records broken in-season, and talent evaluation, we’re ready to begin the offseason. The draft picks aren’t totally listed in a way that’s easy to find players, but the menus sort quite easily, based on talents and bonus demands. After the draft is completed, free agency starts, and the list pretty much accurately resembles last offseason’s list, with players like David Ortiz, and Jamey Carroll, but also some oddities like Alex Rodriguez. All in all, most things make sense, with the exception of Kevin Kouzmanoff asking for $3-plus million per season. And now, we’re back to the beginning. All told, this is a fun game as long as you aren’t 100 percent committed to reality and realism. I’d definitely recommend it as a sim if you’re looking for something to supplement OOTP or something of the like.

Review of Football Manager 2013 by Nick Tylwalk Still catering to the obsessed, but now with more to offer casual players There's no such thing as a worldwide holiday for fans of soccer sims (or football, if you prefer), but if there was, it would probably be the day a new iteration of the Football Manager series goes live. As it always does, Sports Interactive's labor of love attempts to capture the beautiful game, and specifically, managing a club or national team in pretty much any country that plays soccer, in more detail than any other title would dare to try. But while hardcore fans have a few new things to look forward to in Football Manager 2013 (FM2013), the big focus for the latest release is a host of features designed to help people who aren't longtime devotees give the game a shot. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as one of the traits shared by the last decade or so of Football Manager games is their daunting, all-consuming complexity. Any good sports sim can be a time sink, but not many can tie up hours of your life in-between each match. Let's just say there's a good reason why memes popped up about wives threatening to leave their husbands over too much time spent with Football Manager. To combat the problem of marriage-wrecking commitment, FM2013 introduces a whole new way to play with Football Manager Classic. This mode is different enough that it could be (and almost was, according to the developers) its own distinct game, but it's essentially a way to enjoy the experience of running your own team without several layers of the details that the series has built up over the years. The interface for Football Manager Classic is the first thing that grabs your attention. Though it’s similar to the one used by the full-featured mode, it’s easier to read – literally, as the font for every screen is bigger – and much of the information is presented in a more intuitive, highly visual fashion. Important bits of news still come to your inbox, but the game also summarizes tidbits from around the world of soccer and presents them in a newsletter, where you can click on any story and blow it up in its own pop-up window. That world is smaller, too, as launching a new career in Football Manager Classic allows you to choose just three countries in which to ply your trade. This helps things simulate at a much faster pace, as does the simplified gameplay. There’s less of an emphasis on training, and the tactical options are also streamlined a bit. Media interaction is limited to single questions that go straight to your inbox. Matches can still be played in the 3D engine, so there’s nothing missing from the match day experience. The FM2013 team has been quick to point out in interviews that the Classic mode is different than just allowing the assistant manager to handle tasks you’d rather not sully yourself with in standard mode, as those aspects of the game are actually removed from play altogether. The goal is to enable players to get through a whole season in a relatively sane amount of time, and it succeeds beautifully on that front. Whether realism suffers as a result of the streamlining remains to be seen, but it’s easy to imagine people who just want to win a league title with their favorite club team making this their preferred mode. Hardcore sim fans will probably take a less enthusiastic view of something else that Football Manager Classic introduces to the series, which is an in-game store. The idea of having additional content purchases on top of a full-priced game is controversial enough, but some of the items on sale here really do let players “cheat” the game: An option to see all the players in the game without scouting them, an automatic override of a boardroom decision, and even a direct infusion of transfer funds, to name a few. Most of these boosts can be unlocked by accomplishing certain goals while playing, but their presence alone seems like it has the potential to be a divisive topic. FM2013 also offers another way to play in smaller chunks of time by borrowing the challenges from Football Manager Handheld. These are relatively short scenarios requiring you to complete a specific task, like saving a floundering team from relegation or living up to the board’s goals despite suffering a nasty rash of injuries. A fifth challenge is already available through the in-game store, which makes sense as a method of delivering even more content down the road. The standard Football Manager mode also got plenty of attention from Sports Interactive, though most of it feels like it was in the 3D match engine. Along with improved animations that add a greater sense of realism to the action on the pitch, a series of drop-down menus at the top of the screen make it easier than ever to adjust tactics or make substitutions on the fly. Pop-up windows announce bookings and other events during simmed portions of the match, and scoring updates from other games going on at the same time let you know if you are moving up or down the table. Real time advice from your assistant manager and ongoing updates on your players’ body language give you even more guidance on what moves to make. As always, FM2013 has done extensive research on leagues all over the world, and you can choose to manage in over 50 countries. Individual player training has been redone to allow each athlete’s regimen to be controlled in fairly exhaustive detail. Press conferences and player interactions have sadly received few tweaks aside from the choice of tone you use when addressing people (calm, reluctant, passionate, aggressive, etc.), and a wider range of questions from the media is at the top of this reviewer’s wish list for next year. As it stands, talking to the press is kind of a catch-22 – too important to team morale to skip but too tedious to be fun. Transfer negotiations haven’t changed too much either, with the exception of a little more insight into how different agents affect the process. The Football Manager games have always handled the transfer business in admirably realistic fashion, no small task considering how crazy it can get in real life. Many players routinely turn their noses up at leagues they consider beneath them, and it’s not hard to find others who have inflated senses of their own worth. Taxes have been added to the game’s financial model to keep rich teams from abusing the system too much, something supporters of smaller clubs no doubt wish would happen more in the actual sport. Both the standard and Classic modes can be played online against other human managers, and the game’s Steam integration makes it easier than ever to find a league to join. SI also added Versus mode for quicker head-to-head action, including tournaments of up to 32 teams and small leagues of two to six teams. It’s not quite a substitute for the late, lamented Football Manager Live (lamented by this reviewer anyway), but it is the widest array of online options we’ve seen in the series to date. About the only thing that remains absent from FM2013 is the player likenesses and logos from the Premier League, the UEFA Champions League and a few other competitions, as their rights remain tied up in other games. Fortunately it’s easy to get them into your copy of the game, as the community of modders to assist you with image files remains active and vibrant. Soccer arguably depends on stats less than any other major sport, so it can’t be easy to create a soccer sim that is heavy on realism while also remaining fun to play. Somehow Sports Interactive has been pulling it off for years, and with the additions to FM2013 making it more playable than ever, it should remain as addictive as ever this season. http://www.gmgames.org/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=64:review-football-manager-2013&Itemid=219

Review of Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball 3 Could a Basketball GM sim revolution be on the horizon? November 8th, 2012 Stats and analytics aren’t just for baseball nerds any more. The geeks have made their way into basketball. Due to its endless statistics and 162 games worth of data, baseball has traditionally been the sport that was the most popular in the text sim world. With analytics and stats now taking hold in basketball front offices and the hoops blogosphere, could a basketball GM sim revolution be on the horizon? If it is, one of the games leading the charge will be Draft Day Sports: Pro Basketball 3 (DDS: PB3), the latest offering from Gary Gorski at Wolverine Studios. DDS: PB3 features a completely revamped user interface, artificial intelligence, contract rules and the introduction of season disks that allow you to start with a full league history and import draft classes. The second version of Gorski’s pro game was excellent and more than filled my need for a fun, realistic and challenging NBA sim. I recently started playing the third version, so let’s take a look at how it stacks up: Great Look The first thing you notice after firing up DDS: PB3 is how great the game looks. It’s the GM sim version of a picturesque painting that hangs on your living room wall. I don’t play GM sims for fancy pictures and graphics, but man, when the game looks good, it really ups the immersion factor. The studio-type setup during the draft and office-type of layout during the season really sucks you into DDS: PB3 and makes it easy to connect with your team and individual players. Everything is laid out well, too. There’s a lot to do in this game, and it’d be a major hassle if you had to click 10 different times to do certain tasks. Thankfully, you don’t have to. It might take you a little bit to figure out exactly what you have to do and when you have to do it, but once you get your bearings, getting where you need to go is simple. Playing the Game Ok, so the game looks good. How does it play? The short answer is very well. Statistics are realistic and it feels like you’re getting a very real-world simulation of professional basketball. The first thing I noticed is improvement in the play game screen. I thought playing your games in the second version was a little clunky, but thanks to the new gameview mode, playing your games in DDS: PB3 is much smoother. Stats, play-by-play, subs, strategy options and the court are either all on your screen or just a click away. One thing I would like to see added is the ability to call specific plays or call for specific players to try and score. For example, for each possession, I’d like to call for the ball to be dumped into the post to Dwight Howard, or simply select Kobe Bryant if I’d like the offense run through him on a possession. It wouldn’t always have to work out as I call it, but I think that option would make the user feel like they have more control over the game. I like to feel like I have the power to actually execute some of the strategies that form in my head. You do have some control over what your team does in-game (defensive sets, offensive sets, subs, etc.), but it could be a little more specific. Solid AI Want to try and trade Michael Beasley for a first-round draft pick? Not going to happen. The AI is strong and difficult to trick. When simming games, sometimes I question why certain players shot so often or don’t shoot enough. Having a play-by-play log for each game would help simmers better understand the why and how of each contest. But you’re not completely powerless in what your players do, either. If you choose to control your team as a coach in addition to being a GM, you can set your philosophies to favor fast breaks, jump shots, zone defenses, crash boards, etc. You can also run certain types of offenses. If you think Derrick Rose is shooting too many 3s, you can call him and tell him to stop shooting so many 3s and drive more. He might even listen to you. Navigating the NBA’s financial system can get a little tedious, but the game offers the option for a simplified system if you don’t want to deal with the ins and outs of Bird rights and the luxury tax. Digging Deep Basketball is a simple game. You take a ball, you shoot it in a hoop, you run down the court and try to prevent your opponent from doing the same. However, there are all kinds of intricacies that take the simplicity of the game itself and make it much more challenging. DDS: PB3 captures this. The game feels really simple from a basketball-sense, but forces you to think beyond just finding five guys who are good at putting a ball in a hoop. I feel like I have the most success in DDS: PB3 when I either a) develop an overall philosophy and acquire players that match it, or change my philosophy to match my players. You can’t just cobble together five guys with overall ratings about 3.5 out of 5 and think you’ll win. Ratings matter, and not just the overall rating. If you find yourself only looking at the overall rating, you’re going to get burned. You need to build a team with players that complement each other in order to be successful. A strategy that I use is trying to always win the points in the paint battle every game. That means I favor shot blockers and strong defenders in the front court and a point guard and/or small forward who likes to drive to the hoop. I supplement this with a 3-pointing shooting specialist off the bench and a defensive specialist. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, putting a ball in a hoop sounds simple, too. But it’s not. Final Word DDS: PB3 is the best professional basketball GM sim I’ve played and likely will only get better when Gorski starts releasing season disks that incorporate the full history of basketball. Realism, immersion, easy-to-navigate and easy-on-the-eyes screens and menus, stats, and challenging AI, it’s all here. It’d be nice to have a little more control over the in-game action and some additional data to pore over after each game. More options for customization would also probably attract more players. Those faults are hardly deal breakers, though. Basketball GM sims might not ever reach the popularity of baseball sims, but who cares? It’s pointless to compare the two sports, anyway. DDS: PB3 is an excellent GM sim. Period.

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Then you are junkies like the rest of us who think we can do a much better job of putting together a winning team or at least give it our best shot.. Welcome aboard. Actually I watched your Google People Meeting of you and Brad Cook. We'd welcome anyone else you know and loves these games to bookmark or visit the site. Talk to you soon

Review of GM Hockey Legacy 2012 A somewhat more cartoon-like take on the coolest sport on earth. November 5th, 2012 It's November, and that means that (most) years, my nights would be filled up by flipping through various hockey games, checking box scores and fiddling around with whatever fantasy line-up I've put together for myself. Of course, the NHL's lockout of the NHLPA and subsequent cancellation of games throughout November have left a hole in my autumn routine. In it's place has been a myriad of games, including a new wave of hockey games perhaps aiming to take advantage of the momentum that hockey had built for itself over the last few years and the lack of availability of hockey for most of the country. We've already briefly discussed FHM, which will come out within the next few months, but being released to the public soon is a dark horse hockey simulator from French-Canadian developer Jean-Francois Cabana. GM Hockey Legacy is a lighter, more stream lined and fun-oriented text-based simulation engine of hockey for the consumer looking to get their hockey fix. While this game won't stand up to the rigid stability and demands of say Football Manager or Out of the Park, that isn't it's purpose: instead, its built to be a fun, simply and somewhat more cartoon-like take on the coolest sport on earth. After installing the game (which comes with a separate and somewhat amusing audio file), you're prompted to start a new game or continue with a previous game. The menu overlays are simple and efficient here, and that is a trend that continues throughout the user experience. After setting up a new game (in which you can choose your name, attributes, starting point, team and so on), you go through a myriad of pre-season necessities such as a player draft (featuring up-to-date 2012 draftees), signing coaches to any vacancies and other standard fare. Most of these menus require your attention to complete -- and because they are an early necessity, may frustrate some players who wish to click through their rosters and look around before making any franchise-altering decisions. But for the most part, management after the first few screens is very open ended. After the initial stages of setting up your game are complete, you're presented with a newspaper overlay as your main screen, from which you can read recent developments around the league and manage your team/league from various drop-down charts. The graphics and drop-down charts are different than most modern sports sims on the market, resembling something more from the turn-of-the-century or straight out of a Super Nintendo. Whether or not this is good or bad will basically depend on your preference. The player 'photos' are cartoon-like images that may-or-may-not resemble the actual player, and the newspaper overlay actually reminds me of the old overlay you'd see in the post game in Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball. Personally, I like the overlays and graphics because they engross you in a bit of a different world, but people who want Sidney Crosby to look like himself on every screen may have trouble finding the ultra-realism from the vanilla version of the game. GM Hockey Legacy Newspaper Pierre McGui.. I mean MacLeish shares his update Where the realism does come into play, however, is the game's stats and simulation engine, which does a fine job of representing hockey as we know it to be. After running through months and months of games, the stats engine holds up pretty well, even when accounting for wacky changes and the whims of a "general manager" who might not know what he's doing. There is very little 'gameplay' in terms of making decisions in the actual games. You simply select from some pre-game options, including lines, line-up, strategy and so on, and then click through a series of "Continue" prompts as the game stops in between periods and highlights. As long as you're not looking to watch a game like in Football Manager or be able to make multiple in-game decisions like in Out of the Park, the management and simulation experience in GM Hockey Legacy is strong. There is an entire list of Team management options, as well as things I've never seen before in a hockey sim. The World Championships and Olympics are represented, you can look through stats from a variety of different screens, the team management and GM options are nicely separated and so on. There's even some option called "BigDeal Ramon corner' under the newspaper which might have something to do with prospects or maybe not -- I'm still not sure. Overall, GM Hockey Legacy is a game that is going to greatly satisfy some and disappoint others, and the numbers for each side will basically be dependent on how many people are looking for a realistic simulation engine that really works, but may not necessarily be very pretty to look at or flashy in its presentation. If you're looking for something that is kind of a cross over between a text sim and a console game, this is not for you. If you're looking for something that has a lot of different simulation and scenario options and, for what it does, just works, then give this one a try.

DDS: Pro Basketball 3 Files/Season Disks - latest version 1.3 Here's a list of files that may be of use to you FULL VERSION/DEMO INSTALL - v1.3 UPDATE INSTALL - update to v1.3 2011 SEASON DISK FILE - updated 7/21/12 2012 SEASON DISK FILE - updated 10/30/12 DEFAULT ROSTER FILE - version of default.dat file that ships with v1.3 - includes "pre-draft" setup w/Brooklyn and current draftees - updated 7/23 SDTEAMLIST.MDB FILE - download, unzip and place in your DDSPB3/Setup folder to have a file you can edit one time to always overwrite team names in league creation BROOKLYN PACK - download, unzip and place into the appropriate folders for the new default Brooklyn graphics If you're new to the game then you only need to download the full install and you're good to go - most of these other downloads are for the sake of people who were involved in the beta testing and may only want to update certain files. If you were in the beta and the game mistakenly installed into the DDSCB2 directory you probably want to delete those files and just run the full install of v1.0 Also in case you are new, the "Season Disk" files are not free to use. You must purchase those in order to get a license key to use them. To learn more about the Season Disks please see the thread at the top of this forum. You do NOT have to buy a season disk to have current players - the game still comes with a current player file. http://www.wolverinestudios.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16903

What if someone bought you one of those nespresso machines for those late nights of coding?

First off, on behalf of the entire team at GM Games welcome aboard! When it comes to console games -- if the franchise mode gets to an incredible point that people want a community strictly for that purpose to compete against that artificial intelligence, then it will always have a home here.. at the moment it is a bit of an inconvenience to do that a lot on games. Believe me, I've done it quite a bit back in the day..! OOTP on ipad? Right on brother. Seeing more of the higher end sim games on tablets will kick ass. I have an ipad myself and I can't wait to see variations of different sports... Have you joined any online leagues run with similar games? They can be fun besides career mode as well... How did you find us? Chris

This is something I always wanted in a simulation game that goes into 20+ seasons to keep things fresh. The one thing you would love is to keep having the feeling of recognizable players. It gets hard becoming loyal / familiarized with new players when the draft picks are just random names from a names/deep database. The concept would be Family Trees. Players Retire but somewhere along the lines at age 25-40? They have children. Male for the reasons of this video game. Retired players would remain as coaches, scouts, if they are Hall of Famer's or players with many games played + former captains, etc. (High leadership rating) The players would have a relational database item in a few categories. Father Son, and with the new emergence of the Staal's & Sutter's etc, a Sibling Sibling , Uncle Nephew, Cousin Cousin, association and potential of family lines. In the player bio, this family tree would be listed on both the retired players and the active junior or young players. To keep things simple they could be regenerated with the same nationality for the purpose of keeping things balanced or they could be tied to any citizenship changes that happen if playing in a domestic league for 5 years to gain citizenship (Similar to Football Manager nationalities). Their children would retain the place of birth for any national team call ups / decisions. This would then provide that feeling of being 'immersed' in your version of hockey reality .. plus some of the generated players who become HOF'ers will have the potential to become big family names. And perhaps even with favourite team loyalty to the teams their dad played on for the most of his career or won a cup with. This would be really cool. Cheers

Hi Boomer. We have sent a tweet over to the maker of Pro Football Simulator (PFS). GMGames.org ‏@GM_Games @BarcodeGames Hi Brooks, a question from one of our users. http://bit.ly/XjIfcO -- Any plans for porting to iOS or Android soon? Cheers We hope he has an answer here for you soon. Cheers

As per Clay Dreslough on June 16, 2012: Baseball Mogul, the game that created the Franchise Simulation genre, has once again revolutionized baseball simulation. A complete rewrite of the simulation engine -- combined with unprecedented tools for viewing pitch-by-pitch results and head-to-head matchups -- creates the most accurate baseball simulation ever. Baseball Mogul 2013 is available exclusively from http://www.sportsmogul.com. It includes more than 120 years of player statistics, over 3000 players photos, and unmatched tools for league customization and player analysis. Thanks! Clay

April 11, 2012 from SI Games. We're pleased to announce that Football Manager Handheld is available now in the Google Play store. Football Manager Handheld, which is already a massive success on iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, has been designed to bring all of the highs and lows of the greatest job on earth to mobile devices. Taking the hot-seat at any club from a choice of leagues in 12 countries, the player assumes full control of transfers, training, tactics and managing the team live during match-days – a job which can be tackled in either short, commute-sized sessions or in mammoth sittings on the sofa. The Android-equipped manager can choose to pursue an entire career in a particular country’s league or face up to the handheld-exclusive ‘Challenge Mode’ which offers a particular short-term scenario with a clear goal to be achieved. Whichever mode is chosen, the manager will deal with real-life situations involving real players, as researched by Sports Interactive’s huge global scouting network. The game is initially just available in the Google Play store, but is expected to become available across other locations in the coming weeks. The original announcement of Football Manager Handheld for Android can be found here. You can buy the game from the Google Play store here.

Update from dabo: July 24, 2012 Hello everyone, I was planning on writing this update a long time ago but for some reason I didn't and then I went away on vacation. Anyway before I get into the main topic of this update, the match engine, I want to mention a few updates regarding the development team. forza_ambri has joined the project as a programmer and will start working on how to load data from the database into the game as well as handling new games, loading and saving etc. CircularTheory is now part of the team and will help us plan this project; this is something I should have done better from the start but having a person join the team that actually wants to do this will help a lot. As I mentioned in the previous update my new focus is the match engine. This is a major part of a hockey simulator thus it is very important to get this right and it is going to require lots of work. I have looked into several levels of detail for the match engine, from instantly simulating a game by pressing a button to a 2d rink with coaching capabilities. Although I knew from the start that the latter would require lots and lots of work and was not planned for the first version I could not help but check out the possibility of realizing this in WPF. With my knowledge, WPF is not optimal for this but I know it can be done, I even did a test implementation where I am able to shoot the puck around in the rink and it bounces off the boards and slides along the corners smoothly. The tough part will be to add players and have them play realistically, realizing how time consuming this will be, based on the time it took to just implement the puck physics, I will stop here and continue when we feel we have time to put this much time into one single feature albeit an important one. Instead for the first version I will focus on something simpler. My plan right now is to implement two versions: Basic - Quick sim the entire game, you leave control to the coaches and get a result instantly. Advance - Allows you to coach (or perhaps just watch) the team during a game, including making tactical- and line changes etc. The visual details of this version are not yet decided. I want to be able to use the same engine for both versions and on top of that have either human or coach ai control depending on the version. This is going to require a good design to get right that is why I am going to let the design phase take its time and don't rush anything. I have already started this process and even made some small implementations to try and verify that I am on the right track. More about this in the next update. Take care

[video=youtube;uaAGOWTXc54] [video=youtube;HFGw7QZ1fSs]

Wouldn't you know it , Football Manager and SI Games Succeeded in doing this!

Hey Big Six, welcome. I myself started following sims through baseball and eventually found a lot of fun in more sports. Baseball Mogul then to the earliest days of OOTP. My account on the OOTP forums even goes back to almost 2002! Cheers

Welcome! I noticed you put Cricket as one of your favourite sports. GM Games had a thread for Cricket Simulators but did not draw a lot of the attention from their developers. Do you play any of those? Cheers

I recently got my hands on a Samsung Galaxy S2 LTE device. Man it's terrific. The hardware & customization. More and more of my friends are picking up android devices.. I would really hope some of the Sports Simulation games come to the Android Market. I've read a couple of threads with Marc Vaughn at SI talking about the potential of Football Manager on android but for the time being they're focused on apps for iOS. Let's hope a port is in the works soon.

IOS_JZ , do tell us more .. We'll gladly create a thread here for your game discussion / progression. Cheers.

As per dabo, Oct 2nd, 2011. It has been roughly three month since the last update thus I think a status update is warranted. Without further ado let us move on to the interesting part of this update. I am pleased to announce that the development team has doubled since the last update. In June I mentioned that Forward had left the team and that I was considering looking for people to help out with the programming but fortunately I did not have to. People who keep up to date with what is posted at the forum already knows who the two new developers are. Xalfen joined the team back in July and has been introduced to the project and what we have done so far. Dron on the other hand joined not long ago and is yet to be introduced to the project but will be shortly. Since we are now four we have to move our project to a new host which we will be looking to do as soon as possible; we are actually looking at different alternatives as we speak, both free and paid hosts. Now let us go into some details about the progress of the actual game. We have finalized the first version of the database and expect no more significant changes for the first version of the game; if however something important has been overlooked we will do the necessary changes. The code to handle practice and non-practice related player development is close to implemented. One of the major things left to implement is handling of natural regression. Another thing that the player development simulator does not handle is events that affect player attributes. The code is there to handle it but no events are present yet in the simulator. Events I am talking about could be for example a fighter fighting in games which will affect his fighting tendency/ability, games and injuries. Finally the logic for attribute changes will need a lot of tweaking and this is a process that I anticipate will take some time to get satisfactory; the current logic works but was mostly thrown together quickly for testing purposes only. Another important thing that change over time for a player is his body. Me and jatahati had a discussion awhile back on how to properly implement this and for the height growth part I believe we have come up with a pretty good solution. When determining the starting height of created players, teenagers or adults, we use normal distribution (bell curve). In order to calculate the height according to the mentioned method we need two parameters, the mean (the peak of the curve) and the variance (width of the distribution). The player creator also supports individual parameters for each country if that ever becomes desirable. One can do a study of a collection of players and calculate these parameters but since I currently have no interest in doing so nor have I been able to find one on the internet I will be using values that appear to generate adequate results. I have been able to find studies of the general population but hockey players tend to be a bit taller than the average. If anyone know of any study of hockey players' height (teenagers and/or adults) where I can find out these parameters do not hesitate to contact me. I know some of you are statistics nerds so I am not giving up hope. After doing some research I have come to the conclusion that humans do not grow any taller after approximately the age of 20. I also found a height growth chart between the ages of 4 to 20 so what I did was extract the part between age 14 and 20 and used the least squares method to fit a third degree polynomial to the extracted part of the curve. What I ended up with is a curve that approximates the chart pretty well. Every player who is yet to be 20-21 years of age will grow taller according to this curve but in order to not get the same adult height for all players who have the same height when they are for example 15 I had to introduce a deviation factor. A player's height will be updated on a monthly basis so after a month has passed a height increment will be calculated; this increment will use the deviation factor to determine the actual increment which will be added to a players height. Both these values will weigh equally much towards the end result which means we could end up with an increment anywhere between 0 or double the initial increment. Using this algorithm I have done some tests with the following results: Initial age Deviation Height (15 years old) Min height (adult) Max height (adult) 15 No 180 cm 189 cm 189 cm 15 Yes 180 cm 185 cm 193 cm The data in the table above are based on 1 000 000 players and show that the current deviation factor gives an adult height in the range of +/- 4 cm from the perfect curve (no deviation). The deviation factor is currently determined by the default random generator in C# and I am yet to test normal distribution for this part but I will (have to save something for the next update). The interval will still be the same but the distribution within this interval will be different. I have not given much thought on how players gain weight yet thus no implementation attempts have been made but I plan on doing this next. But a player's muscle mass (strength) has to be considered somehow. I hope to have figured something out in time for the next update. Any input on this is welcome! I will finish this update by showing you some screenshots of the player development simulator. Please keep in mind that the missing parts mentioned above such as games, injuries, natural regression and player weight changes do not affect player development yet. Once they do, how good a player becomes in the end may be affected. Mental attributes are not improved like they should yet either. Note, the GUI has nothing to do with the actual game. In order to shorten the post I will link to the screenshots. Starting attributes for center Mark Johnson Peak attributes Practice schedule Starting attributes for goalkeeper Johan Svensson Peak attributes Practice schedule Starting attributes for defenceman Tomas Straka Peak attributes (notice he can now play right defence too) If you want to use attributes in the interval of 1-125 instead of 1-25 and different attributes colors you can Practice schedule (position practice set to right defence)

As per http://www.wolverinestudios.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15194 1.2 Fixes --------- - crash sorting OVR on transfer screen - fixed 2D screen so court will scroll on smaller screens so side stat box can stay visible - fixed bug where almanac page doesn't change the display of champions - fixed bug where recruits hang up and you can't see final response - fixed the overall speed of loading many of the screens - added button to recruit page based on suggestion so that you can set any filters first and then sort - fixed initial default roster file to reset proper rivalry games - fixed hotkeys on recruit calling page - fixed bug with promotion/relegation teams moving incorrectly 1.1.1 Fixes ---------- - Fixed error with box scores not showing - Fixed in game sounds - Fixed problem when changing rival resulting in multiple games (will only be fixed if you have not changed rivals. If you have you can fix this problem by going through the other teams and seeing which ones have you as their rival and changing their rival to none - that's assuming the schedule has not been generated for that season) - Fixed crash looking at rosters as commissioner 1.1 Fixes --------- - GUI work on screen redraws and widgets blocking screens - Changed weekly incident emails to show specific incidents (this is still a work in process and will get additional messages) - Speed enhancements - Fixed endless loop during coach hiring - In game sounds should work properly now - Photos should show up properly when recruits move to teams - Fixed crash trying to choose photo for lineage coach - Changed roster screen on sub screen to show EN for all players - Fixed bug not allowing plays to be called on media time outs

As per http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/board/wthm-general-discussions/214874-ootp-goes-hockey.html He shoots! He scores! And the crowd goes wild! That was a top shelf goal, folks! Love hockey? We do too, and that's why we brought our deep experience developing sport management sims to the sport with the newest game we're adding to our lineup. As in OOTP, our upcoming hockey game will let you take over a team and make all the decisions: hire and fire coaches; sign, release, and trade players; oversee financials; and dictate game-time strategy, including when to pull your goalie, which lines to use when, and more. We know you're anxious to learn more, so here's a rundown to get you started: 1. What exactly is the Hockey Project? The Hockey Project is a career hockey text sim game for PC and Mac, similar to OOTP, FM and EHM. 2. You're calling it the Hockey Project? No, that's just our placeholder name until we come up with the final one. 3. When will the Hockey Project be released? The release is planned for late 2012 (Q4). 4. What is the history of the project? The project is based on a game I did before I joined OOTP Developments. I worked on it as a hobby with a friend of mine. I had to stop when I started my work on iOOTP Baseball 2011, but my friend continued his work alone. 5. Who will work on the project? My friend Malte will join OOTP Developments and works full-time on the project. I will support him as coder, designer and community manager, but only in times I have no work to do for iOOTP or other OOTP products. Markus and Andreas will not be involved with any work on the project. They will only help out with some design decisions and general experience. So Markus and Andreas will not lose any time for OOTP 13 development and I will not lose any time for iOOTP 2012 development. 6. How close will the Hockey Project be to OOTP Baseball? We aim for a similar look and feel as OOTP 13 so everyone who likes OOTP and hockey will feel at home. Additionally, we have a lot of influences from European games like FM, EHM and some old German manager games. OOTP and the Hockey Project will share some source code in the future (wherever it makes sense). 7. What are the planned features? Important: the following list is not complete and may change during development. - Single-player career mode for the 2012/2013 season. - Included minimum leagues (playable): NHL, AHL, ECHL, QMJHL, OHL and WHL. Additional leagues (from Europe) will depend on the number of Researchers we can acquire. - Dynamic News and Event system (based on XML files) - Editable Injury system (based on external file) - Online Leagues - All League Rules, Leagues, Player and Teams are editable. - Stats, Stats and more Stats (hey, we are OOTP Developments) 8. How can I help with the project? In the near future we will start to recruit Researchers to work on all the leagues we want to include. Later, we will add additional beta testers to the team. More possible positions we might add later are French translators and writers for news, injuries and other related stuff. We will start threads on this topic soon, but if you have interest to help out, please contact me at [email protected]

Congratulations on restarting your project palli !!