sunil ojha
Club Cricketer
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2002
- Online Cricket Games Owned
By any measure, HB Studios' Andrew Wilson is a busy man. Fresh off the launch of Rugby 2004, he's busily pushing his team to go further and do one better, developing Cricket 2004, due for Australian release on December 7th. We caught up with Andrew via the phone from New Zealand, where he was finalising licensing details with the New Zealand Cricket Board, en route to the UK for the final burst of development and quality assurance for the PS2 version of the game. We were also able to spend some time with an early build of the game; our impressions of that are below.
Cricket 2004 will feature a batting confidence meter that could spell the difference between a blistering six or a duck.
Like Rugby, Cricket isn't as big a meal ticket for EA as their established FIFA and Madden franchises, and while the previous game in the series, Cricket 2002 was reasonably well received, there were still plenty of things that niggled with true cricketing fans, many of whom will be expecting big new things from the updated title.
On the subject of new content in Cricket 2004, Wilson was energetic in response. "The content changes are major, especially with the introduction of the Pura and ING cups, and the English county cricket, as well as the domestic seasons that are part of that environment" he said. "The player editor is another big content jump. There's a lot more gameplay in 2004 than in 2002. We don't get these games out every year, so we wanted to make sure that there was plenty for gamers to do. That was something that we took a lot of criticism for with Cricket 2002; that it was all over and done with too quickly."
"One of the bigger bits of feedback we got from Cricket 2002 was that the wicket keeper wouldn't field properly, that the AI wasn't there." he said. "It is now. We've also improved the rain, which was another area that people complained about in Cricket forums."
Cricket 2004 will feature a season mode in common with other EA Sports franchise modes. "Within the single player game you can choose what's now called the World League" said Wilson. "You have a team that you choose, let's say the QLD Bulls, or the NSW Speed Blitz Blues, and you can promote players, buy, sell and trade them, take them on tour for one day or test competitions. We want to give gamers a great deal of longevity in their gameplay. We're quite happy that we've managed to get so many options into the gameplay."
Wilson says that there is some content from Cricket 2002 that has survived into the current version, although, as the new title has been build using the Renderware engine, "the elements in there that were in Cricket 2002 have been modified and placed on top of Renderware." He's keen to point out his team's cricketing experience. "The base development team that's worked on Cricket 2004 have, first and foremost been a Cricket development team", he said. "They've worked on Cricket games for a long, long time, right the way back to the Brian Lara Cricket days, then to Cricket 2002 and now on Cricket 2004. Developing Rugby 2004 has allowed us to learn the Renderware platform, and combined with what we learned developing Cricket 2002 has allowed us to make Cricket 2004 a really cool game."
Wicket keepers in Cricket 2004 will now sport realistic AI. We're not sure if that will include sledging, though.
From our play session with an earlier Alpha build, it appeared to us that the control scheme for Cricket 2004 was largely identical to that of Cricket 2002, but Wilson promises more in store for Cricket fans in the control department. "There's a lot that we've implemented into the game in the current build, which is still in development" he said. "The one new thing that I love is the batting confidence meter. If you put a really good batsman against a really bad bowler, their confidence will be higher, and they'll tend to play really good shots. Conversely, a good bowler will cause the batsman's confidence to fall down and they'll play less impressive shots."
"We've done a lot with the game to make it feel more realistic in terms of timing and impact. It's a little hard to describe. There's a big thing, if you play a lot of cricket, about the sound and the feel as the willow hits the leather, and we've tried to focus on getting that feel into the game."
Cricket 2004 isn't just a PS2 exclusive, however. It'll be followed up by a PC version a few weeks later, although that title is still in final development stages. One thing promised for the PC version is the ability to save highlights, something that Wilson is coy about discussing. "The PC version is currently a little behind the PS2 version as far as development is concerned" he said. "The focus is on the PS2 version, and that allows the PC version a little more development time, given that we don't have the Sony approval stage to go through for that version. The amount of saving and exactly what that will entail is still a variable at this stage."
Cricket 2004 will feature a batting confidence meter that could spell the difference between a blistering six or a duck.
Like Rugby, Cricket isn't as big a meal ticket for EA as their established FIFA and Madden franchises, and while the previous game in the series, Cricket 2002 was reasonably well received, there were still plenty of things that niggled with true cricketing fans, many of whom will be expecting big new things from the updated title.
On the subject of new content in Cricket 2004, Wilson was energetic in response. "The content changes are major, especially with the introduction of the Pura and ING cups, and the English county cricket, as well as the domestic seasons that are part of that environment" he said. "The player editor is another big content jump. There's a lot more gameplay in 2004 than in 2002. We don't get these games out every year, so we wanted to make sure that there was plenty for gamers to do. That was something that we took a lot of criticism for with Cricket 2002; that it was all over and done with too quickly."
"One of the bigger bits of feedback we got from Cricket 2002 was that the wicket keeper wouldn't field properly, that the AI wasn't there." he said. "It is now. We've also improved the rain, which was another area that people complained about in Cricket forums."
Cricket 2004 will feature a season mode in common with other EA Sports franchise modes. "Within the single player game you can choose what's now called the World League" said Wilson. "You have a team that you choose, let's say the QLD Bulls, or the NSW Speed Blitz Blues, and you can promote players, buy, sell and trade them, take them on tour for one day or test competitions. We want to give gamers a great deal of longevity in their gameplay. We're quite happy that we've managed to get so many options into the gameplay."
Wilson says that there is some content from Cricket 2002 that has survived into the current version, although, as the new title has been build using the Renderware engine, "the elements in there that were in Cricket 2002 have been modified and placed on top of Renderware." He's keen to point out his team's cricketing experience. "The base development team that's worked on Cricket 2004 have, first and foremost been a Cricket development team", he said. "They've worked on Cricket games for a long, long time, right the way back to the Brian Lara Cricket days, then to Cricket 2002 and now on Cricket 2004. Developing Rugby 2004 has allowed us to learn the Renderware platform, and combined with what we learned developing Cricket 2002 has allowed us to make Cricket 2004 a really cool game."
Wicket keepers in Cricket 2004 will now sport realistic AI. We're not sure if that will include sledging, though.
From our play session with an earlier Alpha build, it appeared to us that the control scheme for Cricket 2004 was largely identical to that of Cricket 2002, but Wilson promises more in store for Cricket fans in the control department. "There's a lot that we've implemented into the game in the current build, which is still in development" he said. "The one new thing that I love is the batting confidence meter. If you put a really good batsman against a really bad bowler, their confidence will be higher, and they'll tend to play really good shots. Conversely, a good bowler will cause the batsman's confidence to fall down and they'll play less impressive shots."
"We've done a lot with the game to make it feel more realistic in terms of timing and impact. It's a little hard to describe. There's a big thing, if you play a lot of cricket, about the sound and the feel as the willow hits the leather, and we've tried to focus on getting that feel into the game."
Cricket 2004 isn't just a PS2 exclusive, however. It'll be followed up by a PC version a few weeks later, although that title is still in final development stages. One thing promised for the PC version is the ability to save highlights, something that Wilson is coy about discussing. "The PC version is currently a little behind the PS2 version as far as development is concerned" he said. "The focus is on the PS2 version, and that allows the PC version a little more development time, given that we don't have the Sony approval stage to go through for that version. The amount of saving and exactly what that will entail is still a variable at this stage."
