Cricket 2004; General Help.

[radders12]

Newbie here - nice to finally join up to the board after a few weeks of reading all over the place. I've always loved cricket 2004, but only really played it on PS2 and despite the horrendously buggy gameplay, Ive got to say its the most enjoyable cricket game. Its only this week that ive decided to buy it for the PC. I purchased yesterday from Amazon and so it should be here in the next 2 or 3 days.

Im just looking for general help really, advice on patches and how to improve the game to its best playing standard. Before we get started ive got to be honest, ive only ever played on one PC game and thats the series of Football Manager games, of which are pretty much the easyest of any games to install. Is cricket 2004 like this? Do you upload it via steam?

On to the patches and what im looking for. Im going to list below the issues that I'd like a patch to resolve and if someone could point me in the correct direction, id be greatful.

Bowling
- The way the ball moves in the air needs to be changed. I find that on green wickets, the ball moves sharply every now and again but not consistently as it should or would on a green wicket in england for example. Also, as we see on most continents, even on 'normal' wickets the ball should move around for the first hour or so, but it doesn't. On anything but a green wicket I find the ball moving absolutely nowhere.

- More realism. Ive got to be honest, I find the bowling boring because as soon as you set a field that covers all the obvious shots the AI just defends and defends and defends. Is there anyway to make the AI more inventive etc?

- The collapsing/spin bowling. Not sure if its just me, but on 'normal' I find myself getting 1 wicket in 30 overs with my opening quick bowlers, then after 5 overs of spin, the spinner has 5 maidens and has taken 6 wickets. The amount of times you bowl a regular spin delivery to a batsmen that just chips it up to the surrounding fielders is so poor, its boring and makes me avoid spin bowling

- Is there anyway to increase the amount of thin edges we get? I can rarely ever remember beating the outside edge after the batsmen has played a shot, it never seems to happen. Its either the batsmen plays a shot correctly or the batter leaves the ball. Thin edge to the keeper are the best kind of wicket to take imo.

Fielding
- I find the fielding horrific. The constant bugs are so frustrating and sometimes it takes away the fun of taking a wicket. It appears at times that someone catches a ball that looks 20 yards to the right, or it looks like the fielder has dived to early only to catch the ball etc.


Batting
- I have admit, I find the batting far too easy. Even with great field sets, as soon as your in an your not out within your first 5 balls, its so easy to go on and score at ridicolous rates.

- The AI is never agressive. As soon as my quick bowler are on and the field it set, unless its a one day game the computer is never aggressive under any circumstances. I dont want to be pummelled constantly but still it'd be nice to see the opposition score some runs like in a realistic test.

Thats the kind of thing I'd like improving in a patch.
- Realism
- More aggressive AI
- More swing and seam with new balls in test matches
- Stopping ridicolous catches from fielders
- Stopping stupid collapses via the same dismissal using spinners.

It'd be great if someone could direct me to the best patch,how to download it etc and how the actual implementing works, im a complete novice and have no idea what half of these computer terms are.

Cheers - hope ive not jabbered on to much and not given to much to ask, any replies will be greatly received.

 

[treva]

When I get some time I'll read through your massive post, dig out my Cricket 04 folder and have a look at what patches I used. Happy to help a fellow Cricket 2004 fan. It's by far the best cricket game there is, in my opinion. And once you get rid of some of the bugs that make it almost unplayable you are sorted.

 

[radders12]

Oh, brillant. I wasn't sure I was going to get a response at some points to this thread. But that'd be great, any help that can make the game better to play would be superb.

Yep, cricket 2004 is the best cricket game by miles, but I just can't stand playing with some of the bugs currently. The catching and bowling in particular annoy me and the batting is far too easy.

Look forward to your reply - thanks again.

 

[treva]

Been a bit busy today and will be tomorrow, but if you want to take a look at how realistic 04 on PC can be with patches then take a look at my story here: http://www.planetcricket.org/forums...n-september-8th-2007-india-england-38112.html

Playing with Cricket 04 goes up to Pg22 for Test matches. Can't remember how many if any ODI's I played before switching to 05. That's the only problem, there is a major unfixable bug that causes the game to freeze during ODI matches after saving. Meaning you can't continue the match no matter what, as you've just saved it. Best way to get round this is play the first innings in one go. Then the 2nd at another time (or all of it at once) as you can use the relevant editors to sort out match situations and what not.

Anyway, take a look. I found the game incredibly enjoyable and realistic. Have a look in particular at the different types of dismissals, totals, scoring rates ect.

 

[radders12]

Wow - thats some in detailed stuff. I was thinking of doing something along the lines of that, but using screen shots for the scorecard etc. Personally, what im hoping to do is a County championship season, just playing the 4 day games and missing out the ODI's and t20's.

Im just looking at getting a bug free game that offers realism, better AI bowling, having to work really hard for your batting scores and not having the opposition completely collapse against spin/have the middle order collapse under any circumstances. Oh and a more reactive realistic bowling experience when it comes to spin and swing.

I look forward to you getting back to me. No hurry.

 

[Hooper]

Newbie here - nice to finally join up to the board after a few weeks of reading all over the place. I've always loved cricket 2004, but only really played it on PS2 and despite the horrendously buggy gameplay, Ive got to say its the most enjoyable cricket game. Its only this week that ive decided to buy it for the PC. I purchased yesterday from Amazon and so it should be here in the next 2 or 3 days.

C04 was my favourite game on the PS2 back in the day, loved it.

I bought it online for PC after coming here as well, had to get it patched up!

Im just looking for general help really, advice on patches and how to improve the game to its best playing standard. Before we get started ive got to be honest, ive only ever played on one PC game and thats the series of Football Manager games, of which are pretty much the easyest of any games to install. Is cricket 2004 like this? Do you upload it via steam?

Installing patches is pretty easy, here they mostly come with easy to follow instructions. If you need any help, theres normally someone who knows what to do anyways.

Bowling
- The way the ball moves in the air needs to be changed. I find that on green wickets, the ball moves sharply every now and again but not consistently as it should or would on a green wicket in england for example. Also, as we see on most continents, even on 'normal' wickets the ball should move around for the first hour or so, but it doesn't. On anything but a green wicket I find the ball moving absolutely nowhere.

- More realism. Ive got to be honest, I find the bowling boring because as soon as you set a field that covers all the obvious shots the AI just defends and defends and defends. Is there anyway to make the AI more inventive etc?

- The collapsing/spin bowling. Not sure if its just me, but on 'normal' I find myself getting 1 wicket in 30 overs with my opening quick bowlers, then after 5 overs of spin, the spinner has 5 maidens and has taken 6 wickets. The amount of times you bowl a regular spin delivery to a batsmen that just chips it up to the surrounding fielders is so poor, its boring and makes me avoid spin bowling

I've tried numerous patches and there is no way to improve bowling I've found. I also need help here. I did notice using 'sams.exe' that the ball moves around a bit more. A lot more swing and seam on hard and normal pitches. I've noticed though that the AI can swing the ball more then I can, maybe its because I don't exactly know where to position that little white dot on the ball on the bowling marker to make it seam/swing.

Spinners are too easy to get wickets with in this game, but I downloaded this patch where it changes the default fields. Personally I eliminate those cheap little batpads and popups to the short leg by simply removing them. Then it doesn't happen and the batsman get settled and play their shots against my spinners.

- Is there anyway to increase the amount of thin edges we get? I can rarely ever remember beating the outside edge after the batsmen has played a shot, it never seems to happen. Its either the batsmen plays a shot correctly or the batter leaves the ball. Thin edge to the keeper are the best kind of wicket to take imo.

I get quite a few play and misses, beating the outside edge of the bat (this is again playing with sams.exe). I normally get an early edge, but they never go through to keeper or 1st slip. They always end up at 2nd, 3rd or in the gully region. I'd like to find a way to fix this too.

Batting
- I have admit, I find the batting far too easy. Even with great field sets, as soon as your in an your not out within your first 5 balls, its so easy to go on and score at ridicolous rates.

- The AI is never agressive. As soon as my quick bowler are on and the field it set, unless its a one day game the computer is never aggressive under any circumstances. I dont want to be pummelled constantly but still it'd be nice to see the opposition score some runs like in a realistic test.

sams.exe again is your answer. It makes batting harder by not being able to see the bowling cursor till the last minute. Sometimes it doesn't even show you where the bowl is going to pitch so it makes batting much more difficult.

And I find in tests with this patch the AI bat very aggressive. It may take them 30 balls to get that confidence up but once they're in they start smacking it so you've got o set your fields right or else they will pummel you!

Trust me, a patched up Cricket04 is better then any other Cricket game on the market.

 

[radders12]

C04 was my favourite game on the PS2 back in the day, loved it.

I bought it online for PC after coming here as well, had to get it patched up!

Yep me too - its always been my personal favourite, but you just become more involved with the newer games, seen as they are newer. I dont think there's been a generally better game though.



Installing patches is pretty easy, here they mostly come with easy to follow instructions. If you need any help, theres normally someone who knows what to do anyways.

Yep the problem with me would definetely be, that im not sure on virtually anything with computers, so all the jargon about zipped and un-zipped files etc would be extremely hard without almost 'baby-steps'

I've tried numerous patches and there is no way to improve bowling I've found. I also need help here. I did notice using 'sams.exe' that the ball moves around a bit more. A lot more swing and seam on hard and normal pitches. I've noticed though that the AI can swing the ball more then I can, maybe its because I don't exactly know where to position that little white dot on the ball on the bowling marker to make it seam/swing.

The bowling is the key issue for me personally. If we can get the right balance sorted the game would be perfect. As you say with your field when bowling with spinners, is there a not any patch that you can have a batpad in and not have a ridicolous amount of catches come up. Im glad the patch allows the ball to swing more, it really, really does go flat bowling on a normal wicket un-patched, there is literally nothing from the surface from the quicks and very little until the 5th day (if it goes that far) for the spinners.

Spinners are too easy to get wickets with in this game, but I downloaded this patch where it changes the default fields. Personally I eliminate those cheap little batpads and popups to the short leg by simply removing them. Then it doesn't happen and the batsman get settled and play their shots against my spinners.



I get quite a few play and misses, beating the outside edge of the bat (this is again playing with sams.exe). I normally get an early edge, but they never go through to keeper or 1st slip. They always end up at 2nd, 3rd or in the gully region. I'd like to find a way to fix this too.

Lucky you, I can never beat the outside edge ever. Whenever im bowling, I bowl a line and length outside the off stump and the batsmen either leaves it completely or defends it off. Very occasionally i'l get an edge to gully or 3rd slip, but never to the keeper, never to first slip etc. It just makes bowling boring.


sams.exe again is your answer. It makes batting harder by not being able to see the bowling cursor till the last minute. Sometimes it doesn't even show you where the bowl is going to pitch so it makes batting much more difficult.

And I find in tests with this patch the AI bat very aggressive. It may take them 30 balls to get that confidence up but once they're in they start smacking it so you've got o set your fields right or else they will pummel you!

Trust me, a patched up Cricket04 is better then any other Cricket game on the market.

See, what level do you play your game on? I dont want it to be ridicolously hard so that I never pass 100, more that I have to concentrate on the game constantly, instead of hitting my first ball for 4 and making 350 in an early session. Perhaps having no cursor would make it too hard?

I can imagine it is. by the way, would making myself and sticking me in a team have any affect on the patch working etc, because thats what I'd usually do. Also is there a patch that has todays up-to-date squads in?


Cheers for the help.

 

[Hooper]

4 stars I think.

Its not no cursor every ball, thats the thing. Its random, sometimes its there, sometimes its not. Thats what makes it good.

Creating a player won't affect a gameplay patch, nah.

Up to date squads, a no, simply because everyone plays Cricket2007. So patch makers play that. Latest roster I have is from about 2007.

I was thinking of doing an update for the Australian, Indian and New Zealand squads for this summer but haven't got around to it.

 

[radders12]

I wrote that reply poorly, my reply is actually integrated into yours if you see. Im having problems with my laptop, the game arrived today but when I put it in the laptop the Autorun doesn't come up, the just sits in my computer with nothing changing on the screen.

Any ideas?

 

[radders12]

Also, is there anyway to make the gameplay windowed? I'd like to surf the internet whilst playing as well. Cheers.

 

[treva]

Might need to 'run as adminstrator'. And no, I don't think there is a windowed mode, but don't quote me on that.

Download sams.exe and run the game using that. Probably the most essential patch there is. Just browse through the downloads section. Seems with the backing up of my files I have lost a few stuff, so can't really provide much info on good patches. Tutsi's AI Patch is the best if I remember, but you need to download the config editor for patches to work.

 

[radders12]

Right i'll have a look through the patch information in a moment. Hopefully the download guide is fairly easy, because ive not seen anything so far that indicates databases. Is there a way to pause the game close it so you can mess around on the internet whilst the game stays at the bottom? SO not playing the game windowed, but allowing me to get out of the game, have it running at the bottom and still use the internet?

 

[radders12]

EDIT - Sorry for the double posting and ignorance towards basic sense. But ive been to the download section and there's so many patches, all saying and doing different things. Im not sure which one is particularly correct. If someone could point me or link me to the correct patch id be eternally greatful.

The best one for me in short

- More swing on normal wickets
- More realistic bowling/batting
- More agression from the oppo batsmen
- Better outfields
- Kits and squads updated as best as possible
- No stupid batting collapses
- Wiped out the ridicolous amount of batpads.


Cheers chaps - really greatful for the help.

 

[treva]

If you press CTRl+ALT+Delete then you can leave the game running and do other things. As for patch, seriously just try Tutsi's latest patch (Will be version 4 or something). That should cover most if not all of the things you want.

You'll need Sams.exe and Config Editor for sure. Get the run out cam fix as well. Then there's things like bats, player faces and what not that don't affect gameplay at all but make the game aesthetically better.

 

[radders12]

Cheers treva. However patches aside I seem to be having some problems running the game. I exited earlier and from then on its running nothing like it should. Depending on what setting I have it on, the gameplay is too fast, like so fast that I can't play. There's flickering on the menu's and then when I click the menu list im getting half the options I should have or options like 'game modes' > 'puma cup' etc.

Any suggestions? My computer spec is fine, but it just doesn't seem to want it.