Product Description

Take yourself in to the ballgame! MLB Front Office Manager lets gamers do everything a real-life baseball GM can do to develop a team from Spring Training through a full MLB season, into the playoffs and the World Series. Using Major League teams and players, gamers will create their own fictional baseball universe and build their reputation into elite status. Gamers can replace aging veterans with rookies, scout the Minor Leagues, make blockbuster trades, and even participate in bidding wars for posted players from Japan as they make their way to the Hall of Fame.

MLB Front Office Manager offers two distinct game modes. Become the GM in Career Mode, and manage a team through a 30-year career that will hopefully lead to the Hall of Fame. As your knowledge and skill progresses over time, gamers will gain points to improve various areas and help the team win games as a result. With Online Fantasy Mode, create an online head-to-head management experience. With up to 30 Managers in the league, gamers can compete against friends to see who has what it takes to be the best.
A true baseball general manager also acts as a mentor in MLB Front Office Manager. Legendary Oakland Athletics' GM Billy Beane will offer advice, encouragement and guidance as gamers steer a team through the intense competition that is Major League Baseball. Billy Beane is considered one of the most talented GM's in baseball today and has turned the Athletics into a consistent postseason contender since being named GM in 1997. Now, in MLB Front Office Manager, he passes that knowledge on to you, the gamer.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7288 in Video Games
• Brand: 2K Sports
• Model: 710425375200
• Released on: 2009-01-26
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platform: PLAYSTATION 3
• Dimensions: .26 pounds

Features

• Build Your Roster - An extremely deep Career Mode takes users beyond simple trades and free signings, and allows them to fully experience the life of an MLB general manager. Manage Minor League rosters, set domestic and international scouting budgets, bid for Japanese free agents, select new players in the Amateur and Rule 5 Drafts, offer arbitration to free agents, and more.
• Take The Field - Manage your team's games on the field all season and enjoy a never-before-seen presentation style designed to resemble a real life TV broadcast
• Learn From a Pro - Renowned GM Billy Beane becomes a mentor to users, providing helpful tips and insightful baseball information that even the biggest fan doesn't know
• Online Fantasy Leagues
• Statistics

Amazon.com Product Description
MLB Front Office Manager gives fans the chance to experience their dream job as a Big League General Manager. Make trades, sign free agents, draft prospects and manage games all the way from Spring Training through the Playoffs. Featuring deep gameplay modes and a unique presentation style, MLB Front Office Manager is the only MLB licensed game to give fans total control of an MLB franchise.

Using Major League teams and players, you will be able to create your own fictional baseball universe and build a reputation into elite status. You can replace aging veterans with rookies, scout the Minor Leagues, make blockbuster trades, and even participate in bidding wars for posted players from Japan as they make their way to the Hall of Fame.

MLB Front Office Manager offers two distinct game modes. Become the GM in Career Mode, and manage a team through a 30-year career that will hopefully lead to the Hall of Fame. As your knowledge and skill progresses over time, you will gain points to improve various areas and help the team win games as a result. With Online Fantasy Mode, create an online head-to-head management experience. With up to 30 Managers in the league, you can compete against friends to see who has what it takes to be the best.

Special features include:

• Build Your Roster - An extremely deep Career Mode takes fans beyond simple trades and free signings, and allows them to fully experience the life of an MLB general manager. Manage Minor League rosters, set scouting budgets, bid for Japanese free agents, select new players in the Amateur and Rule 5 Drafts, and more.
  
• Take The Field - Manage your team’s games on the field all season long and enjoy a never-before-seen presentation style designed to resemble a real life TV broadcast.
  
• Learn From a Pro - Renowned GM Billy Beane becomes a mentor to users, providing helpful tips and insightful baseball information that even the biggest fan doesn’t know.
  
• Online Fantasy Leagues - Customize your league with fantasy drafts, modified rules and traditional Rotisserie and Head-to-Head fantasy baseball scoring systems. Also available offline against the CPU.
  
• Innovative Baseball Statistics - Evaluate talent using in-depth and authentic player statistics, as used by Billy Beane.

Customer Reviews

So Much Wasted Potential
I love the idea of this game, but I could just scream at the person who made it. Picture this: You customize everything yourself. You draft players, cultivate them, set the lineups and rotation. You try to sim and it asks if you want it to automatically take a guy off the DL. You say sure. But the computer doesn't just take the player off the DL. It drops the players you were developing to free agency, and re-organizes your rosters, lineups and rotations at every level. Suddenly instead of having tons of control you have no control, and you wonder why you just wasted your night setting that all up. More generally you spend most of the game manually fixing tiny, common sense details and you rarely get into the parts you care about. I hope they come out with another edition and this time get it right, because I want to play the game this could have been.

Don't expect a lot
I was very intrigued when I heard about this game. And the video clips made it even more intriguing. But, this is a lot like when you see a trailer for a movie and the best parts are shown in the trailer, and there isn't much else afterwards.

Now, the good thing about this game is that the "behind the scenes" stuff is pretty decent. As the GM, you start in December. You have to deal with all unsigned players, arbitration, free agents, and the Class 5 draft. With contracts, you can decide the length, salary, option years, and incentives. "Billy Beane" sends you emails to make sure you don't forget important things in relation to the above mentioned events. He will also give you tips about future planning. You can choose your GM's background, each with pro's and con's. For example, if you're a businessman, you excel at contracts and negotiations, but suffer in player development. If you are an ex-player, you have leadership and chemistry, but suffer in trades and contracts.

Now, if you're looking at this as an actual baseball game, don't waste your time. You can simulate games, or you can manage them. And by managing, it means you tell the batter to bat, bunt, steal, or whatever the situation calls for. Same thing for pitching. Other than substitutions and player alignemt, you have no control over anything else. The graphics are very basic and not much fun to watch. So, simulating gets you through the season faster, which makes the actual "baseball" part of this game a total failure.

If you like the background stuff, you will enjoy this game. If you want to enjoy playing actual baseball, wait for MLB 09 The Show, coming out this March.

Very Slow
I bought this game, because i love the going ons in the front office, and the work of a gm.... I fell asleep playing this game, it is such a slow moving game, i can not believe how boring this game is... If you have time to sit and wait for certain tasks to be done, than this is all for you, but i will wait for The Show to come out and play a real game.... This game had such potential too, sucks it didnt come thru