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For the past two years, Microsoft has concentrated on the gameplay in their baseball franchise. This year, Microsoft will attempt to add management behind the scenes features. They expect to do this by adding "Baseball Mogul technology" (i.e. add some actual management features).

The simulation engine is still being developed, which is evident from the beta we received. The ability to manage minor leaguers will definitely improve the chances of Microsoft Baseball 2001 prevailing over its competition. Although the game is not 100% completed yet, I can safely assume that Microsoft Baseball 2001's farm system feature will not be as in-depth as High Heat Baseball 2001. The feature only allows players to be promoted/demoted from your AAA farm team. Looks like an improvement over last year's non-features though.

Among the new features are trades and managing finances. Not much can be said about the actual trading engine, but it does allow users to offer trades to the computer. Of course, the computer will be able to accept or reject. If the computer rejects, users will be able to click on the counter-offer button. The computer will then offer what it would take to make the trade a done deal. It will be interesting to see how intelligent the computer will be in this area.

I did not notice any major differences with the gameplay from last year's game. There wasn't much wrong with the gameplay in Microsoft Baseball 2000 anyway. I am a real big fan of being able to make homerun saving catches. Unfortunately, it looks like no one will be able to make any homerun saving catches in Microsoft Baseball 2001. Also, the wind does not affect the path of the baseball. I'm almost positive that this will be corrected in the final version.

As far as the graphics go, it looks almost identical to last year's game. The 4 new stadiums are included in the game. The game also features an improved homerun mode. It allows users to track the number of outs versus the number of pitches. Not too big of a deal, but worth mentioning.

It will be interesting to see how the new management features function. Stay tuned for our review once we get the final version.