Game Reviews: Mensa Mind Games®, year 2008

Pizza Box Baseball

• Replay Value (1-10): 7
• Fun Factor (1-10): 8
• Worth Buying (1-10): 6
• MMG Popularity Rank (out of 54): 49th

A game board, a bunch of pegs, and a lot of different cards attempt to simulate baseball. The way this game is most different than other baseball simulators is that the lowest resolution is at the at-bat level, not the per-pitch level; this means that there's no keeping track of strikes, balls, or fouls, but rather each batter-pitcher confrontation adopts a general strategy, with the results being in terms of outs and base movements. Other than that, most of the other features of baseball is in the game; steals, bunts, slightly different skills of players in the line-up, pinch hitters and relief pitchers.

One thing that game doesn't have is the ability to customize your line-up or have individual player stats, so real baseball freaks are probably not going to find this simulation good enough for them. Not being such a freak myself, I found this game had about the right level of simplification for me. The iconography made sense and wasn't overly complicated, and the components were just good enough to get a good feel of what's going on. It's not the simplest baseball game, nor the most elaborate, but it's a happy medium in between.