Game Review: 2K Sports MLB Front Office Manager (PS3)

For years, many of our favorite sports games have offered a Franchise mode that puts you more in control of managing your favorite team. And now, sports management simulation games like 2K Sports’ “MLB Front Office Manager” aim to immerse you fully in the experience (and headache) of overseeing a pro baseball team. The good news is that the game provides more options than you could imagine, giving you an appreciation for what goes on behind the scenes. The bad news is that the game’s interface gets in the way of what could’ve been an impressive entry into the simulation genre.

2K clearly wanted the world to be your oyster with this game. Front Office Manager offers up a level of depth one could only dream for out of a sports sim. With the help of Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane, you choose the MLB team you want to manage. Each team starts with a similar budget to their real-world counterparts. After spending some time customizing your manager’s name, appearance and background, you immediately dive right in to picking a pro team. From that point on, you can manage almost everything: signing and negotiating player contracts, choosing pitching rotations, executing trades, scouting resources and so much more.

You’ll quickly gain an appreciation for what it takes to manage a team as it’s a huge undertaking to take your team from the off-season all the way to the playoffs (there’s a reason managers get paid the big bucks). As with any simulation game, you can put the game on auto-pilot, allowing the computer to handle the more menial and unexciting tasks.

One aspect of the real life job that the game tries to capture is being in the know about all that is going on in the league. Not only is it the manager’s job to oversee his team, but he also needs to see and react to what other teams are doing. The way this is done is through email, the primary source of information and important updates. However, there is no sense of priority in your inbox; very important updates look and read the same as unimportant ones.

In fact, the game’s menu system as a whole zaps its fun factor immediately. It’s critical for a game which involves cross-referencing teams, players, schedules, etc. to have an easy to use and fun interface. But FOM fails miserably in this department. None of the menus are interconnected and you’ll have to navigate each one individually. When I went to send offers to my most valuable players, the game forgot my sorting after going into the player menu. Every single time I came out, I had to start from the default menu. This became rather annoying.

The worst part of the game is that the only way to tell that you’re doing bad as a manager is watching your team lose the simulated games. If fact, the game gives you very little feedback. I suspect that for many gamers, it will be their first time engaging in a Rule 5 draft, but the game doesn’t help you out at all. It’s almost as if it’s assumed that you know all the steps it takes to bring a team from the off-season all the way to the World Series.

The graphics and sound suffice for the game. The menu system features an uneventful soundtrack that plays as you manage your team. Also, to spice things up and get you out of office, there is a feature that allows you to watch and manage individual games, providing you a streamlined MLB 2K9-esque experience.

Ultimately, the game offers a lot, but just feels cold. All of the controls and options are there, but you’re left with hours of uninteresting menu navigation. You should feel more of a sense of accomplishment for achieveing success from your tactical decisions, but it just isn’t there with FOM. For die-hard sim fans, there is some value here, but you’ll have to work hard for it. For casual gamers that get bored easily, this one is not for you.