This week on ThatSportsGamer Show: I an joined by Rich Grisham and Corey Andress to discuss Ultimate Team coming to NCAA Football 14, sideline and endzone interceptions in Madden NFL 25 as well NFL Sunday Ticket coming free with a the Anniversary Edition from Amazon. In the other kind of football we talk about pre-order bonuses, the possible edition of Hong Kong and Luxembourg leagues to FIFA 14 and a possible Vita edition. We also get Rich and Corey’s picks in the round of 8 in the NHL 14 cover vote and discuss one-touch dekes and True Performance Skating, and much. much more.

Links to some of the posts we discussed:

• Press Row Podcast: Episode 22 – NCAA Ultimate Team Mode Interview via OperationSports.com
• FIFA 14 – Hong Kong And Luxembourg Leagues To Be Added? via FIFAInsider.com
• In Unexpected Development EA Sports Now Exhibiting Marketing Struggles via PastaPadre.com
• Yearly Sports Games: My Changing Opinion on UnderTheCode.com

Links to some recent my posts :

• MLB 13: The Show AL East Breakdown

Be sure to subscribe and rate/review us in iTunes or your podcatcher of choice with this RSS feed. Or if you prefer to stream it to your device of choice, why not try out Stitcher? We’re on their too.

Also follow us on twitter @ThatSportsGamer @RichGrisham and @CoreySA and while you’re at it, why not Like ThatSportsGamer on Facebook.

Rich’s work can be found at GamesRadar.com and hosting the Press Row Podcast at OperationSports.com.

Corey can be found writing on UnderTheCode.com and hosting UTC Radio.

Special thanks to Chris Beck for our outro music.

This week on ThatSportsGamer Show: I’m flying solo once again and so I talk about the MLB 2K13 perfect game challenge, server side updates to MLB 13: The Show, make my picks in the NHL 14 cover vote, discuss EA’s extension of the FIFA license until 2022 as well as the future of women in FIFA, and wrap it up with some discussion of what EA will be doing at E3 and beyond.

Links to some of the posts we discussed:

• “Le Cirque” Celebration Added To FIFA 14 via FIFAInsider.com
• Top 25 Sports Video Games Ever via ESPN.com
• Ex-EA Producer Admits Players in NCAA Games Based on Real Individuals via PastaPadre.com
• Rugby World Cup 2011 Review on OperationSports.com

Links to some recent my posts :

• MLB 13: The Show NL Central Breakdown
• #TeamNCAA – ThatSportsGamers’ Top 5 Reasons To Play NCAA Football via UnderTheCode.com

Be sure to subscribe and rate/review us in iTunes or your podcatcher of choice with this RSS feed. Or if you prefer to stream it to your device of choice, why not try out Stitcher? We’re on their too.

Also follow me on twitter @ThatSportsGamer and while you’re at it, why not Like ThatSportsGamer on Facebook.

Special thanks to Chris Beck for our outro music.

This week on ThatSportsGamer Show: Scott and I joined by Corey Andress of UnderTheCode.com to discuss the NHL 14 collision physics, improvements to teammates AI in FIFA 14, the skills trainer in NCAA Football 14, running in Madden NFL 25, the future of EA Sports’ Tiger Woods PGA Tour and NBA Live series

Links to some of the posts we discussed:

• Revisiting MLB 13 The Show Live: Hits and Misses via UnderTheCode.com
• NBA Live Series Found To Be on Shaky Ground Again via PastaPadre.com
• FIFA 14 – Teammate Intelligence via FIFAInsider.com
• EA Sports Also Hurt After A Rough Week Of Painful Cuts via Kotaku.com

Links to some  recent posts at ThatSportsGamer.com :

• MLB 13: The Show AL Central Breakdown
• iOOTP Baseball 2013 Review

Corey Andress’ musings can be found at UnderTheCode.com.

Be sure to subscribe and rate/review us in iTunes or your podcatcher of choice with this RSS feed. Or if you prefer to stream it to your device of choice, why not try out Stitcher? We’re on their too.

Also follow us on twitter @ThatSportsGamer, @DarthObvious and @CoreySA while you’re at it, why not Like ThatSportsGamer on Facebook.

Special thanks to Chris Beck for our outro music.

The most apt word to describe diving into iOOTP Baseball 2013 for the first time as someone new to text-based sim management games is “overwhelming.” It’s not that the UI is unnecessarily cumbersome or the game is poorly designed; it’s that the premise of managing a baseball team is a lot of work. But as you spend time with iOOTP Baseball 2013, you start to really understand the allure of the types of games. When you eventually start to take your team from a basement dweller and turn them into a formidable competitor. It is one of the more gratifying mobile sports gaming experiences you can have.

When you start up iOOTP 2013, you get to choose between taking the reins of a true MLB team with current rosters, or you can either do a fictional league or download a historic season and see if you can change history. Oddly enough, I was really curious as to how the game implemented their fictional leagues, so I took a stab at that. It probably wasn’t the best idea, because you really can’t use name recognition in knowing who is good and who really isn’t; you have to base everything on stats and ratings.

When you start a fictional league, you are taken through a really nicely formed wizard that lets you choose from several options and you even get to go through an extremely intense draft to get your players. I only had the patience to get through about four rounds of the draft, but I was able to sim the rest of it and I was pretty happy with my team. After the draft, the season starts and you can start getting your games underway. For individual games, if you haven’t played a game like iOOTP before, it’s a little confusing as to exactly what you are supposed to be doing to feel like you have control. The strategies that you can employ during a game are not hard to understand, but you really need to get a feel for the actual strategy of baseball to feel like anything you are doing is effective.

For my first five or six games, I scored a total of four runs, and I lost every game. I then decided to make some lineup and positional changes, along with two somewhat small trades (for older players who had better ratings). After that, I simmed through twenty games and was able to inch close to .500. When I went back in and started trying to play individual games, I got much more used to my lineup and I was able to compete.

Overall, I can tell that this game is unapologeticly geared towards a hardcore, sim-management gamer, even if it is a mobile version of the game. For someone like me, who isn’t necessarily used to this type of game, you can’t really just dive right in. There is not a great deal of hand-holding  but you can get the information you need and start to understand successful strategies with time. At the same time, the amount of customization and experiences in this game are impressive.

Pros: Extremely deep with a huge amount of customization. UI is great, especially given the fact that the game is complicated. Visuals are minimal, but very fitting. The game is an amazing bargain, due to the fact that you could likely spend hundreds of hours with it (historical leagues, custom leagues, etc.)

Cons: Simming through innings can leave you in a confusing spot once you get back into the game. For people new to the series, a “to do list” would be helpful to get you started in managing your team. Commentary during games can get a little monotonous (it’s good, but it could be more colorful). There are lots of numbers to look at, which can be overwhelming to people new to the series.

Should you buy this game? If you love baseball, 100% yes. If you love team-building and management sims, 100% yes. If you want to play a casual baseball game, no.

iOOTP Baseball 2013 is available now from the iTunes store.

Ryan Lewis (1 Posts)

"RyantheLou" or Ryan Lewis is a huge sports video games dork. He has been a part of the 4th String Weekly Thrillride Podcast for several years and has also appeared on the ThatSportsGamer Show several times. Ryan has written articles for Games Radar, Under the Code and now, ThatSportsGamer. Currently, Ryan is developing a mobile football game for iOS and Android that is scheduled to be released Summer 2013. Follow Ryan on Twitter @RyanTheLou.

This week on ThatSportsGamer Show: I’m riding solo, and I give you my picks for the round of 32 in the NHL 14 cover vote, and tell you who won the Stanley Cup in EA Sports’ NHL 13 playoff simulation. I also discuss the FIFA 14 release date, Madden NFL 25‘s Owner Mode, the non-implementation of the College Football Playoff in NCAA Football 14, as well as the recent Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 patch and the possibility of there being no Tiger Woods PGA Tour 15.

Links to some of the posts we discussed:

• NHL 14 Cover Vote via NHL.com
• Madden NFL 25 Info Release Timeline via PastaPadre.com
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 Patch Notes via OperationSports.com
• No Tiger Woods PGA Tour 15 via Kotaku.com

Links to some  recent posts at ThatSportsGamer.com :

• MLB 13: The Show NL West Breakdown
• Out Of The Park 14 Review

Be sure to subscribe and rate/review us in iTunes or your podcatcher of choice with this RSS feed. Or if you prefer to stream it to your device of choice, why not try out Stitcher? We’re on their too.

Also follow us on twitter @ThatSportsGamer, while you’re at it, why not Like ThatSportsGamer on Facebook.

Special thanks to Chris Beck for our outro music.

Fans of sports simulation games are tough to please. They demand the most realistic systems in their games, and woe unto the game that fails to deliver on that goal. That’s one of the most impressive aspects of Out Of The Park 14, actually, that it manages to cram so many different systems and complexities in and still get everything working correctly.

OOTP14 is a text-based simulation, so you don’t need fast reflexes or skills to succeed. All you need is knowledge, strategy and lots of time. You’ll need the time because once you get into the game, it’ll eat as much time up as you can give it.

The great thing about OOT14 is that you can use it to simulate major league baseball in historically accurate detail for any era from 1871 to 2012, use the 2013 rosters and players down through every layer of the minors, or, if you’re tired of the American Major Leagues, you can play with the Dominican, Mexican, Korean or Japanese leagues, among others, or just play an entirely fictional league that you create from scratch, including all the rules endemic to a full league, such as drafts, minor leagues, free agency, arbitration, the works.

If you want to play a historical league, you can lock it into following historically accurate player movement or you can let it go wild, creating such alternate histories as one in which Babe Ruth is never sold to the Yankees and the Braves become the predominant team of the 20th century. If you create a fictional league, there are tools available to customize every aspect of the league. Team names and locations, divisions, number of teams, even the financial structures of each team and of the league itself. If you don’t want it entirely fictional, you can draw off of existing leagues to create composite leagues, such as combining the Major Leagues with the Korean and Japanese leagues to create a truly worldwide league and make the World Series live up to its name.

Of course, league creation is a minor part of the game, though one you can spend plenty of time on. Once you’ve got your desired league in place, it’s time to start playing! You can become the manager and GM of any team you want, major or minor, or even go onto the open job market and work your way up through the ranks. You can control as much or as little of the management of your team as you want, from every at bat of every game to the depth charts of each team under your control to drafting and which players to trade or sign or release. One thing to note when choosing a team, is that if you are the manager of a major league team, you are the GM for the entire organization, but when the manager of a minor league team, that is your only responsibility. Be aware though, that unless you turn the option off, you can be fired from any job for poor performance.

Once you’ve got your job, you can go through the season as fast or as slow as you desire. Anything you don’t want to deal with, the AI will. The AI itself is fairly intelligent when it comes to comparison decisions for trades and signing decisions, but it occasionally fails to make intelligence decisions about releasing promising minor leaguers.

The most enticing part of Out of the Park 14 is the fact that it is chock-full of just about every stat and information view you could ever want, yet rarely does it feel overwhelming. It can be hard to find exactly what you are looking for at times, but once you get used to how information is organized, it doesn’t take long at all. This, along with the generated stories throughout the season gives each league an organic, living feel.

The customization, the historical accuracy, the ability to play with current rosters into an uncertain future, and the fact that everything plays out so realistically around you and your team are a testament to the strong base that Out of the Park has achieved over the years, and the newest entry does nothing but raise expectations for future years. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to watching Joey Gallo destroy AA pitching for my Frisco Roughriders.

Out Of The Park Baseball 14 is available now on PC and MAC from OOTPDevelopments.com

Be sure to follow them on twitter for updates @OOTPbaseball

Shawn Vermette (1 Posts)

Shawn Vermette is an avid sports gamer, though he's not very good at them. He's an associate editor and staff reviewer atSnackbar Games, where he writes about all sorts of games. You can follow Shawn on Twitter @Thrallia.

I’ve been getting the most fun out of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 by playing our ThatSportsGamer Country Club tournaments on Xbox 360. So I’ve been trying to figure out a way to spice up the usual 1 and 4 round tournaments. I think I thought of something fun.

We’re calling them “Limbo Tournaments” because I want to know “how low can you go?” These tournaments will be setup at the Amateur difficulty with all the boosters enabled. Normally in tournaments, we want the course to be challenging. Not in Limbo Tournaments. We want you to go crazy and shoot as low as possible. Also, go ahead and use Tiger and your Pins. I want you to shoot ridiculous scores.

The first Limbo Tournament will take place between April 29th and May 1st and it will played at St. Andrews. All you have to do is be a member of ThatSportsGamer Country Club and play. I would like to do these fairly regularly, maybe once or twice a month would be good for this sort of thing.

This week on ThatSportsGamer Show: Scott and I are joined by Ryan Lewis to discuss a big week in sports video game news. We start off by talking about first news from EA Sports regarding NHL 14, we take our first look at FIFA 14, pick out winners for the Madden NFL 25 cover vote, chat about NCAA Football 14‘s revamped presentation, and touch on a few notes from MLB 13: The Show and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14.

Links to some of the posts we discussed:

• David Littman Talks NHL 14 via OperationSports.com
• Petition To Include Female Players In FIFA via Change.org
• Hands On Impression of NCAA Football 14 via UnderTheCode.com
• Most Memorable Holes In Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 via UnderTheCode.com
• To License or Not To License? The 21st Century Sports Game Dilemma via UnderTheCode.com

Links to some of my recent posts:

• Top 5 Pitching Tips In MLB 13: The Show via UnderTheCode.com
• Video Breakdown of the MLB West In MLB 13: The Show 

Ryan Lewis can be found at PocketDynastyFootball.com. Be sure to go their and submit your team name ideas.

Be sure to subscribe and rate/review us in iTunes or your podcatcher of choice with this RSS feed. Or if you prefer to stream it to your device of choice, why not try out Stitcher? We’re on their too.

Also follow us on twitter @ThatSportsGamer @DarthObvious and @RyanTheLou while you’re at it, why not Like ThatSportsGamer on Facebook.

This weeks outro music was Tessie by the Dropkick Murphys. The prayers of everyone at ThatSportsGamer.com go out to those in Boston and we hope for a speedy recovery of all those injured in the senseless attacks.

If you would like to support Boston with a donation, please go to OneFundBoston.org or you can support the Boston Children’s Hospital directly via Extra-Life TSG Crew member, Michael Campbell, who plays for them.

This week on ThatSportsGamer Show: Scott and I celebrate episode #50 we talk about the first NHL 14 screenshot, EA Canada testing a new NBA concept, Madden NFL 25‘s pre-order bonuses and cover vote, we get Scott’s opinion on last week’s NCAA Football 14 news, as well as talk about the ThatSportsGamer Masters Tournament in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14, a MLB 13: The Show patch and even talk about WrestleMania for a few min.

Links to some of the posts we discussed:

• NHL 14 Trailer via OperationSports.com
• OSFM MLB 13 Rosters via OperationSports.com
• Hands On Impression of NCAA Football 14 via UnderTheCode.com

Special thanks to Chris Beck for our outro music.

Be sure to subscribe and rate/review us in iTunes or your podcatcher of choice with this RSS feed. Or if you prefer to stream it to your device of choice, why not try out Stitcher? We’re on their too.

Also follow us on twitter @ThatSportsGamer and @DarthObvious while you’re at it, why not Like ThatSportsGamer on Facebook.

This week on ThatSportsGamer Show: I am joined by MaddenTips.com’s Zach Farley and we discuss all of the latest news surrounding NCAA Football 14‘s new Infinity Engine, the addition of Ultimate Team to NCAA, the first screenshot of Madden NFL 25, the release of Operation Sports’ Full Minors MLB 13: The Show roster, the release of iOOTP 13 and upcoming release of OOTP 14, as well as The Rock being named WWE 2K14 cover athlete and the surprise FIFA 14 has in store for Latin America.

Links to some of the posts we discussed:

• EA Sports NCAA Football 14 Gameplay Improvements – What it all means via TraditionSportsOnline.com
• I’m Done With Diamond Dynasty via ThatSportsGamer.com
• The Greatest Madden Play Of All-Time? via MaddenTips.com
• Your Life As A Video Game via ZFarls.com

Zach Farley can be found at MaddenTips.com and on his new show The SACH Podcast that he does with SGibs7 (whom I hope to get on the show soon).

Special thanks to Chris Beck for our outro music.

Be sure to subscribe and rate/review us in iTunes or your podcatcher of choice with this RSS feed. Or if you prefer to stream it to your device of choice, why not try out Stitcher? We’re on their too.

Also follow us on twitter @ThatSportsGamer and @MaddenBible while you’re at it, why not Like ThatSportsGamer on Facebook.

Unlike MLB players who have their attributes locked, Dynasty Players are able to be trained by spending your Dynasty Budget. A players Training Aptitude (APT) is essentially a price modifier. The higher the aptitude the more a discount you’ll get towards each training point.

Above is just a guy that I renamed, because he had a decent starting rating, and a high aptitude. He is a 77 with some decent attributes. I’ve played a bunch of games with him and he’s put up some good stats. I dumped 17 million in budget to train him to max attributes in a few of his categories. 17 million is about what you would earn after playing 3 games online and going 2-1. From a pretty good 77, he’s now a beast at 96. Even with a 73 power vs lefties, he’s still probably going to hit a jack the majority of the time he puts one in play.

My problem isn’t that they are in the game, my problem is the training. People build teams where they get Dynasty Players with high aptitude, train them, and its nearly impossible to beat them. I don’t care about the losing as much as the lack of fun in the game when you play a game against teams with all fake players. What upsets me the most is, even if you pitch smart to these guys, they ratings are so high that even if you fool them completely, they still have the ability to put it out of the park.

While I’ve only focused on hitters in this post, there are also pitchers that get boosted up. They all throw 99 or 100 with at least two other nasty pitches. So yeah, that’s the opposite of fun.

I’ve been dying for the baseball version of Ultimate Team, and while this tries to be it, just doesn’t do right, and it actively turns me off to the mode. Since I’m pretty much done with it, why not help you guys out. Send me a tweet (commenting on this post does not count) @ThatSportsGamer and let me know which one of these guys you want. First come, first serve. I’ve got a bunch of guys in the 80s and 90s that I’ll give away over there.

If you are actually having fun with Diamond Dynasty, let me know in the comments below.

PS – The uniform creation is awesome, check out that guys sweet ThatSportsGamer threads.

Without great pitching a baseball team is nothing. You can only get so far trying to slug your way to Ws. I’m working on a post for UnderTheCode.com on my top 5 rotations in MLB 13: The Show and I want your input. I’ve complied a list of eleven teams that fit my criteria which I have set as:

• Each team must have at least one pitcher rated 90 or above.
• None of the 5 starters can be rated lower than an 80*.

There are eleven teams that fit both of those criteria  but, due to the Phillies having three pitchers rated over a 90, I’ve added them in for this giving you a total of 12 teams to choose from. Come on, if you have three pitchers rated 90+ you deserve to be in contention.

Also, let me know why you picked the team you did in the comments below.

To see each teams 5-man rotation continue reading.

One of my biggest gripes with the current round of sports video games is that Madden NFL 13‘s CCM story lines made it impossible to bring my NCAA Football 13 Road To Glory athlete into Madden. This was always my favorite way to play Madden’s Superstar mode.

In an angry tirad about that, I created my own story line about how my MLB 13: The Show Road To The Show player came to be.

Currently I’m in AAA for the Marlins. I’ll keep you up to date on how the season goes.

This week on ThatSportsGamer Show: Scott and I talk about how a blind man plays MLB 13: The Show, a new roster for College Hoops 2K8, Scott makes his picks for round three of the Madden Cover Vote, I sneeze and we talk about the ThatSportsGamer Country Club and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14.

Links to some of my recent posts:

• Top 5 Teams To Use Online In MLB 13: The Show
• MLB 13: The Show Review
• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 Review

Special thanks to Chris Beck for our outro music.

Be sure to subscribe and rate/review us in iTunes or your podcatcher of choice with this RSS feed. Or if you prefer to stream it to your device of choice, why not try out Stitcher? We’re on their too.

Also follow us on twitter @ThatSportsGamer and @DarthObvious while you’re at it, why not Like ThatSportsGamer on Facebook.

Check out my full post over at UnderTheCode.com.