So Tom gave this a little bit of a tease on Fidgit, which I suppose is as good a reason as any to make a little post about it; though I doubt it’ll set the world on fire, given that I think it’s fair to say that cricket probably isn’t the game of choice for most people on here! Still, I’m excited about it and so I’m going to plonk down a wall of text.
I picked this up on release for the PS3, as my friends and I have been Jonesing for a decent cricket game since Brian Lara '05 - everything released then has been pretty much disastrous. It seems the buying public agrees, since the game has surged to the top of the UK charts. The link says the marketing campaign has been aggressive, which is one word for it - feels like every site I’ve been to has had a big fucking pop-up for the game on it. It’s like the new Civ/Evony.
Reviews only get you so far with this sort of game; reviewers and a lot of the public don’t know enough about cricket and games together to really give you a decent judgement, from what I’ve read. I’ve been playing a bit and impressions are good. It’s generally solid in the core principles, which is what makes the niggles stand out all the more (but on to that later).
The batting has been improved with the addition of stance selection, the confidence has been rejigged, fielding is less finicky, and so on. The bowling mechanics themselves are good, with a moving reticule, timer, and the ability to disguise deliveries; the implementation is kind of wrong though. The game defines a good, stumps-hitting length as far too full. The pitches are too bouncy. The AI cannot play spin bowling. At all. I got figures of 10 for 9 off 3.2 overs with Muralitharan against Australia in a 50-overs game. The AI cannot pace itself at all in anything other than 20 over matches (where it’s generally excellent, until you get a decent Off-Spinner to bowl). Test Matches are usually over by tea on the first day, even on Hard.
It has a nice training section to get you used to the mechanics, and some fun achievements to unlock grounds. Not much other content apart from the basic game itself in all formats though - I miss the historic moments mode from BLC 05 that let you relive history from both sides, complete with oldey-timey grain filters on the 1880s matches!
There are a few other wrinkles that will likely be fixed in short order by modders and people with far more time on their hands than me using the in-game editor. The licensing is ropey; only Australia and England are official teams, and the likenesses are desperately poor. The graphics are decent from afar but the close-ups border on embarassing. More importantly, the stats are off for some key players, particularly bowlers. For example, in the England side, both Anderson and Broad bowl at a maximum pace of 80 mph - usually about 75mph. Needless to say, this makes them useless pie throwers. Collingwood, the best fielder in English cricket, has one of the lowest fielding stats in the side. Graeme Swann can bowl Doosras(!) and Michael Vaughan is bafflingly included in the Ashes squad, despite having retired nearly 2 months before the game was released. The other, unlicensed squads have similarly weird stuff going on, with a lot of key players left out.
For all that though, it feels just about right. It feels like cricket, and it has the same air of unpredictability. The physics are good. It scratches an itch my friends and I have been having for ages, and all the shit AI in the world becomes a non-issue in local multiplayer.
Whew! Tl;dr - 7/10 on the 3-9 scale. BLC 05 was 6.5, bearing in mind my rose-tinted glasses. Every other cricket game of the last four years has been a 4/10 at best.
Oh, and needless to say, the Wii version is shit.