ITP--A Good "Light" Game For My Tastes

[Ben E Lou]

I've been at the in-laws since Wednesday afternoon, with some, but not my normal level, of computer-and-internet access. There are times when wife and mother-in-law are reading/watching TV, and father-in-law and I are in the den with them, with our laptops out. During this time, I must say that I have found ITP, being a somewhat "lighter" game, to be a valuable addition to my gaming collection. I tend to be pretty serious about making sure everything is "right" before I start simming a season. Whether I'm playing BM, FBCB, FOF, OOTP, TCY or TPF, it is virtually impossible for me to play without pencil, paper and at least one or two printouts every season. Before ITP, I didn't really have a text sim that was worth loading up for a small (30 minute-ish) time period. Typically speaking, if I don't know that I have at least 90 minutes of gaming time, I won't even bother to load up any of the games mentioned above, because the offseason prep time for me in each is probably about that long. 99% of the time, picking up from the last saved game means picking up at the beginning of the offseason (setting time management in TCY, doing all the cuts/cap wrangling in TPF/FOF, setting training times in FBCB, etc.) ITP has been a nice change-of-pace for the money. I can sim a month at a time, check my stats, check out what items are for sale, tweak my workout schedule, and then sim the next month. There's nothing that I need to write down, print out, or spend 20 minutes strategizing about. Heck, I have to open Excel with FOF in order to see, "if I renegotiate with these 15 players, will that bring me enough cap money, or do I need to cut x number."

Don't get me wrong there--I LOVE a game that has such strategic detail that I have to open Excel to do all of the calculations. I have createad a nice little spreadsheet in which I enter minimum salary, number of players signed and $$$ needed for the draft, and it calculates how much I'll need for rookie RFA's to fill my roster--giving me where I *REALLY* stand in relation to the cap. However, as I've said, it has been a fun little diversion to have a game with a small number of strategic options to play in the smaller time gaps. I would expect that ITP will continue to be used that way by me. Heck, while I've been typing this post, I've stopped a couple of times, made the necessary checks and changes, and have simmed half a season.

Just my ramblings on an early Sunday morning, before everyone wakes up and it is time to pack.

--Ben

[Alan T]

I was doing this with ITP for a bit but after about 2 days got tired of it. I ended up needing something else to do to pass the time, and decided to go ahead and buy TPF.. it looked cool, unfortunatly it keeps crashing during week 4 of the preseason, so not much I can do there..

I ended up just going back to tried and true OOTP. Its amazing how many games I can play out while suffering through this week. (Thankfully it is almost over).

One a related note, there are only so many times someone can watch Seabiscuit in a week without going crazy...

[JonInMiddleGA]

Fanboy

[WussGawd]

Originally posted by SkyDog
I've been at the in-laws since Wednesday afternoon, with some, but not my normal level, of computer-and-internet access. There are times when wife and mother-in-law are reading/watching TV, and father-in-law and I are in the den with them, with our laptops out. During this time, I must say that I have found ITP, being a somewhat "lighter" game, to be a valuable addition to my gaming collection. I tend to be pretty serious about making sure everything is "right" before I start simming a season. Whether I'm playing BM, FBCB, FOF, OOTP, TCY or TPF, it is virtually impossible for me to play without pencil, paper and at least one or two printouts every season. Before ITP, I didn't really have a text sim that was worth loading up for a small (30 minute-ish) time period. Typically speaking, if I don't know that I have at least 90 minutes of gaming time, I won't even bother to load up any of the games mentioned above, because the offseason prep time for me in each is probably about that long. 99% of the time, picking up from the last saved game means picking up at the beginning of the offseason (setting time management in TCY, doing all the cuts/cap wrangling in TPF/FOF, setting training times in FBCB, etc.) ITP has been a nice change-of-pace for the money. I can sim a month at a time, check my stats, check out what items are for sale, tweak my workout schedule, and then sim the next month. There's nothing that I need to write down, print out, or spend 20 minutes strategizing about. Heck, I have to open Excel with FOF in order to see, "if I renegotiate with these 15 players, will that bring me enough cap money, or do I need to cut x number."

Don't get me wrong there--I LOVE a game that has such strategic detail that I have to open Excel to do all of the calculations. I have createad a nice little spreadsheet in which I enter minimum salary, number of players signed and $$$ needed for the draft, and it calculates how much I'll need for rookie RFA's to fill my roster--giving me where I *REALLY* stand in relation to the cap. However, as I've said, it has been a fun little diversion to have a game with a small number of strategic options to play in the smaller time gaps. I would expect that ITP will continue to be used that way by me. Heck, while I've been typing this post, I've stopped a couple of times, made the necessary checks and changes, and have simmed half a season.

Just my ramblings on an early Sunday morning, before everyone wakes up and it is time to pack.

--Ben

I bought it, but I just couldn't get into it.

ITP is a great idea, and I think the third or so iteration of the game should be fantastic, but there are things missing here that lead me to go hmm. Where are personal relationships for the player (friends, family, significant other, posse, etc), fan/media interactions? Where are player/coach relationships? Those are such a big part of what a player would deal with daily that I have a hard time imagining them being left out.

I just think overall the game needs more depth. I bought it, I'd probably buy a new, updated version of it (ITP2?) again for the price, but I just think it could have been so much more. As far as a player perspective text sim, I think New Star Soccer is far more entertaining, deep, and enjoyable game than ITP.

[FrogMan]

SD, I agree about ITP and its "simpleness", quite refreshing. I bought it on Christmas eve and just finished my first season yesterday evening. Nice to simply fire it up even if you know you have something to do in about 15-20 minutes. You can play a few weeks in that span of time, I like that...

FM

[Honolulu Blue]

I feel much the same way as SkyDog. ITP isn't much of an athlete simulation and even less of an RPG. It is, however, a neat game for playing out fast what-if scenarios. Plug in the ratings for your favorite former player (or the player you wanted to be), and within an afternoon, you can see what happens. Or you can go a little slower and enjoy the little things on the way.

[LastWhiteSoxFanStanding]

Looks like ol' Skydog is doing some serious angling to become a beta tester for Marcus.

:-)