Monday, October 14, 2013

Strat-O-Matic 2013 Windows Game Review



Strat-O-Matic just released their 2013 game which is all the stats from the 2012 season. I bought both the card set as well as the Windows computer version. As far as game play goes it's the same game just one is played with player cards on a table with dice and the other is played fully with the computer. I've had it for about a week now and all I can say is that I love the Windows version. The game tracks all the stats for every play made and then some and for that alone I would recommend the computer version. If you've never played Strat-O-Matic you can click here for my board game review.



Like I said the computer version plays the same as the cards and dice but the computer automates everything for you and it makes game play a breeze. I was able to do a fantasy draft in under half an hour. I can play a game with all the advanced rules on the computer in about half the time of the cards and dice version. The automation is just great, putting in a pinch hitter or switching out pitchers is so easy, with a few clicks and I can bring up the pitchers or the batters stats to compare. It makes it way easier than flipping through each teams cards and comparing the stats to each.

Some of the features the computer version has is obviously the stat tracking. In my opinion the stats generated are worth the price of admission. The game generates stats for everything imaginable. It even includes newspaper style write ups for each game played which is a great way to find out how the other teams in your division did without having to read a box score.

I still enjoy playing with the cards and dice and you still can with the computer version. It allows you to impute each roll which in my opinion gives you the best of both worlds. I can still play with the cards and dice and inputting it into the computer gives me all the stats without any work as well as simulating all the other teams games so I can play an entire season with all the stats.

One thing I noticed as the season gets on the game takes longer to compile everything because of all the data that accumulates. It's not a big problem and if you played on a better computer than mine it might not even be an issue. It doesn't effect the game in any way it just makes it take a little longer.

After purchasing the game I downloaded the game from their website and was playing in a few minutes which was great. The game comes with a quick start guide and with that I was able to start playing real quick. The game comes with a help section that explains how the to do most everything in the game but my computer is running Windows 7 and it didn't support the help system so I had to download a program to run, that is not the fault of Strat-O-Matic but it was still annoying.

I did run into a problem running my draft league that I couldn't find in the help section so I went onto their forum looking for answers but the few questions that had been asked were not answered and I could not find the answers anywhere else on the Internet so I sent an e-mail to Strat-O-Matic's tech support. I received an answer in less than a day that fixed the problem so I have to commend them on their quick response.

If you're into baseball or already play Strat-O-Matic with the cards and dice I recommend picking up the computer version. There are a few choices when buying, if you are unsure if you can spend $19.99 for the lite version that has the full 2012 rosters just with less of the rules and options of the complete game. The biggest problem with the lite version is if you get it and like it you cannot upgrade to the full version. The basic computer version is $39.99 which has all the rules and options. For $57.95 you can get the complete computer game with images of the strat player cards built into the game. For $58.50 you can get the computer game and a set of the paper player cards however this set doesn't come with the digital player cards. The last version you can get is the complete set of computer game, digital player cards as well as the paper player cards for $65.60. This is the set I bought so I could have the complete computer game as well as the paper cards.

1 comment:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...