Pennant Wars - www.pennantwars.com

I've been playing Pennant Wars since Beta Testing starting in April of 2013. During the last 9 months or so, the game has come a really long way. On top of a MLB-realistic baseball simulation engine, Pennant Wars boasts a league structuring that is unique and designed to foster competition. Each league consists of 4 divisions of 24 teams. Divisions 1 is where the top dogs live and compete for the right to the honor of league champion, while Divisions 2-4 play ladder series at the end of the season (think Premier League Soccer). That nature of this dynamic structure creates an ever changing league where competitive drive fuels managers. The game is really a blast and already the developers have plans to further improve the game. Don't hesitate to try it out - it's free for the first season!

Baseball sim games have never been known for their ease of use or user friendliness. By embracing the social web and modern technology, Pennant Wars looks to challenge those genre tropes.

Putting you in control of a franchise in one of its fictional baseball worlds, Pennant Wars has all of the basics in place that you'd expect. What sets the game apart, in my mind, are its four major selling points:

1. The game is entirely online: You don't need to download, install, or configure anything. You don't have to worry about anything, just go to the http://www.pennantwars.com on your computer, phone, tablet, etc. You can check on your team and manage them anywhere you have an internet connection. This also means that you are always playing the most up to date version of the game (which is significant, since the development team is very active and pushes out updates frequently).

2. Great Multiplayer Competition: Pennant Wars' leagues are similar to the English soccer leagues where teams are promoted or relegated (demoted) to higher or lower divisions based on their performance. In Pennant Wars there are 4 divisions per league, and everyone is fighting to get to Division 1. Unlike other sim games, there is nothing to configure and no hassle for playing online, it's already baked into the product, leaving 0 hassle for you. The constant rise of top teams means that Division 1 will always be a great challenge. It also means the feeling of accomplishment is great when winning it all.

3. Ease of Use: In Pennant Wars you won't be setting seemingly arbitrary things about your team (like how often between innings your mascot should dance). GM activities and functions are nicely abstracted to "big picture" levers and pulleys. This lets you have control in ways that makes sense (with clear consequences), and removes arbitrary and cumbersome decision points (don't worry, you can still set your lineups, pitching rotation, team strategy and all that stuff). This also means you don't have to micro-manage your team if you don't want to. The game world moves about 6 times faster than the real world, so you will typically have 5 or 6 games per day that are simulated. If you only have time to log in once a day, you'll be fine. Even if you only have time to log in once every other day, you will probably be okay.

4. Community: The Pennant Wars community is lively. The sense of camaraderie and competition among players is palpable. With the newly added chat feature, there are always people around to share advice and help out new users (as well as talk trash when appropriate). Furthermore, the development team is extremely engaged with the community and very responsive to requests and bugs. This is something you simply can't get in other baseball sims.

Ultimately, Pennant Wars is a game that looks to bridge the gap between the extremely alienating and unfriendly world of stand-alone, clunky, primarily single player baseball sims and the dynamic online world of fantasy sports. If you've been turned off by the baseball sim world before, but love the idea of owning and managing your own team, Pennant Wars should be perfect for you. If you love those old clunky dinosaur sims, you'll still probably love Pennant Wars, because it gives you a fix in a way that those old standbys can't.

Pennant Wars (Pennantwars.com) is an online baseball simulation game. You are put in charge of your own baseball franchise in the fictional, "always on", online world.

You get to do all of the typical GM stuff like draft amateurs, sign free agents, work the waiver wire, and make trades. You also get to do some other cool stuff like set your team's philosophy/strategy in different areas of the game.

The simulation engine seems very good, and the dev team is on top of making any necessary changes, tweaks, and bug fixes. They also are continuously rolling out new features and enhancements. Just recently, real-time chat was added to the game, which has made the community feel even more alive.

Your first season is free to try, so if you think you might be interested, I would highly recommend it. The price to purchase more seasons is reasonable, and in line with what I would expect to pay.

My favorite parts of the game are the community and the interaction with the game developers. Pennant Wars is still a young game (just launched in June 2013), but it is showing great promise and I'm glad I purchased a year's worth of game time to stick around be part of it.