I took a long time testing Out of the Park Baseball 12. And there’s a good reason why.

I really wanted to kick the tires on this edition of the game. I explored every feature I could think of, tried the game not only based on the 2011 season, but starting from several historical periods as well.

I wanted to be sure the game was tight, solid, and bullet-proof. As I write this, the brilliant, baseball-savvy folks at Out of the Park Developments have released Update #4 to the game, and so the bulk of this review is based on that release.

Let’s put it this way: I applied more scrutiny to this edition of Out of the Park Baseball than any other edition I’ve ever reviewed. The team at OOTP Developments, I’m sure, wondered if I’d ever get around to actually reviewing the game. But that was never in question; the truth is… OOTP Baseball 12 is just so impressive, so engaging, and so deep you just can’t tear yourself away from it for long.

That’s a good thing, if you’re wondering.

You see, lots of companies do baseball games. Not many eat, sleep, drink, and live baseball the way the good folks at OOTP Developments do. And it shows through in the game.

While it’s still a game and playing it will offer some varied results based on your own interaction with it, each and every historical season I opened was… historically accurate. Not just generally, either. To a tee. If there are inaccuracies here, they lie far beyond my own baseball IQ and, therefore, my ability to detect.

I mean, look at it this way. Several years ago, when I wrote a lot more videogame reviews per year than I do now, I could pick up a copy of, say, EA Sports’ major league baseball game, play it for a couple hours, and write, “Ehh, they got most of the major league roster right, but the minor leagues are woefully inaccurate, and you can only play through ten seasons in franchise mode.”

And while I’d flesh it out, by the time I discovered flaws like that, the game was ruined for me and I had an easy time setting it aside, thinking “maybe next year,” and moving on to the next videogame in my review pile.

I can’t do that with Out of the Park Baseball. Not ever, really. And especially not with this year’s version. It’s the kind of game that tosses you back to your high school years, when you loved baseball just because, and your biggest worry was promise ring etiquette. It’s that pure a baseball experience.

I’m sure PS3 and Xbox 360 owners are reading this and thinking, “What the heck is he talking about? It’s a freaking PC text-management sim! There’s virtually no graphics, no high-def, it’s just text and some retro background graphics and such. Nothing to write home about.”

But if your idea of baseball is 256-bit graphics and 7.1 Dolby Surround Sound and Dual Shock 3/EyeStation integration and such, well… that’s not the heartbeat of baseball.

The heartbeat of baseball is in the stats and the details and the history of the game and getting it all right. Right, not just because you did your research with a Baseball Encyclopedia, but right because you’ve loved the game since you were old enough to understand it, and you remember more than just the magic moments of your favorite team’s first pennant win, but because you remember who they drafted in the 20th round in 1956 by heart, even though that was 10 years before you were born, because you just… love… the game.

That’s the kind of passion that can’t be defined by a business plan, a release strategy, or whatnot. (And, oh yeah, in addition to the PC version, there’s now an iPod Touch/iPad version of the game this year!)

That kind of passion, it’s just either there, or it isn’t. Out of the Park Baseball 12 bleeds that kind of passion from its pores. The love shows.

So, after taking longer than I’ve ever taken to evaluate a videogame, I find myself both exhausted and a little bit in love. Because this is a game I can’t find noticeable faults in. Everything it sets out to be, it is.

So, I could regale you with a long list of features and improvements lifted straight off the press release, if you wanted those kinds of details. But that’s not what a review should be.

A review should tell you if a game is fun. (It is.) If it’s addictive. (Yup… look how long I took to review it.) If it’s satisfying. (Very much so.) If it’s hard to put down, or easy to set aside. (Try impossible to put down.) Most of all, it should tell you if the game is worth your hard-earned sheckles in a rough, difficult economy like we current have.

My verdict? If you love baseball at all, Out of the Park Baseball 12 just simply is the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be (until next year’s version). It’s the Bret Hart of baseball sims.

And that’s what’s important for you to know. The rest, you can get off a press release.