I'll throw up a number that don't seem to have been mentioned yet:
- The commentary is frequently incorrect, calling maiden overs ?very expensive?, using a dismissed batsman?s name instead of the bowler in ?X runs off that over from [player]?, incorrectly calling the number of runs scored off an over, being one behind on the over rate and so on. (It's also deathly dull - "That's a hat-trick for MacGill" is said with as much emotion as reading the score)
- Records from tour matches (ie. touring international side vs. local side) are incorrectly listed under Test (they are actually first class games). They also seem to get the opposition wrong ? eg a record I got for Australia vs. West Indies A was recorded as Australia vs. Australia.
- Form does not seem remotely linked to performance ? and I certainly hope this is a bug. On my first tour match in the West Indies, Kasprowicz took 2/21 and 7/34 while Gilchrist hit 81 and 34*. Kasprowicz?s bowling form bar was very small ? almost nonexistent. This made me think for a moment that perhaps a short bar represented good form (it doesn?t seem to be covered in the manual) until I noticed Gilchrist?s batting form meter was almost full. Since both players performed well in these areas, their form should be similarly good. Instead, they are at opposite ends of the spectrum, which makes no sense whatsoever. This seems to happen quite regularly, so I can only assume that a short bar represents good form for a bowler while a long one equals good form for a batsman. This seems very odd to me, but is the only way this makes sense.
- - Ricochets off the stumps at the bowler?s end from a batsman?s shot that go for boundaries are confused with overthrows. Hence, the batsman is credited with both the boundary and any runs made before it gets there.
- One quite rare (but rather annoying) bug ? occasionally when the ball reaches the boundary, the umpire will not signal four and instead the batsman can continue to run for around 30 seconds before the game moves on. I had thought this was limited to overthrows that went for four (this happened twice going for 6 and 7 runs ? though I think these amounts were correct as they had already run two and three respectively before the four overthrows) but later happened again after an edge to the boundary. On this occasion the CPU batsmen ran eight. It was a late cut through the slips off a spinner with the ?Standard 1? field. The ball seemed to stop short of the boundary, but the fielders ran off far to the left of it and never picked it up. The CPU batsmen ran eight and were starting their ninth before the game moved to the next ball.
- An innings which ends while using ?autoplay? will have an incorrect scorecard ? all 11 batsmen will be recorded as out, with often one batsmen listed as bowled or LBW without a bowler?s name. I believe this is the final batsman who was dismissed, while the remaining batsman will be listed as ?run out? rather than ?not out?.
- There are several players in the database with ?throwing? of 2%. Considering the lowest scores tend to be above 45% (McGrath?s batting is in the 50% range IIRC), this seems to be quite an error.
- Right-armed CPU bowlers only seem to go around the wicket to left-handed batsmen for one ball ? the first of the over ? before switching back to over the wicket. It seems to me that there was an attempt to replicate the real-life strategy of a bowler going around the wicket to an opposite-handed batsman, but it appears to be flawed since it only lasts for one delivery, which surely was not the intention.
And some gameplay issues as if the bugs weren't enough:
- Spinners are grossly overpowered. Put a bunch of people around the bat and force the batsmen into defensive strokes, and all too often they?ll just lob up for a simple catch.
- Several game modes (eg foreign tours) do not make available statistics of your players? performance. The most you can get is the scorecard of the last match. So unless you are willing to record all the data yourself, you have no idea how your players are going. The form meters are buggy, so they are of no help.
I e-mailed these to EA's tech support and was told to update my video and sound drivers...
