Cricket 22 General Impressions

[cricket_online]

I was looking forward to Cricket 22 and finally got around to playing Cricket 22 for an extended period of time. I loved what Big Ant team had done with the Cricket 19 DLC, and I was cautiously optimistic about Cricket 22. But after spending some time with Cricket 22, I must say I'm disappointed. The game is a classic case of "one step forward and two backwards" which has plagued the DBC/Big Ant Cricket series.

IMO if they had taken Cricket 19 as the base and fixed fielding & field sets along with improving leg side batting, it would've been a game closer to perfection. Unfortunately Big Ant's focus is on casual "pick up and play" gamers and whatever enhancements have been done, I didn't see reflected in the core gameplay.

Fielding has regressed from earlier iterations, and I didn't think that could be possible. I had an over consisting of 3 boundary overthrows and 4 byes, and it felt good if fielders/wkt keeper managed to stop/intercept a throw. In Cricket 19 most of the overthrows were from shies at the stumps from Cover & Point region. Cricket 22 has managed to expand on it by adding overthrows from fielders in the deep, i.e. fine leg, square leg etc. The fielders regularly overrun the ball, slide around the ropes without cutting off the boundary, and drop sitters. Overall the worst fielding I've seen in DBC/Big Ant series. And when you couple poor fielding with the existing issue of short pitched deliveries going for 4 byes regularly, you do have to wonder whether Big Ant team played the game before they released it. This is not a bug but literally a game-breaker.

Gimmicks like fielding slo mo and hitting stumps directly from anywhere in the ground actually detract from the game. How Big Ant decided allowing users to hit the stumps directly nearly every time from anywhere is a head-scratcher. Big Ant has taken accessibility and catering to casual cricket fans to such an extreme that in some cases, Cricket 22 is not representative of the actual sport.

Field sets are still the same old ones, and the fields still keep on changing randomly similar to Cricket 19. No noticeable improvement on that end, and I don't think Big Ant did anything to fix field sets.

Now coming to batting - the one area which cricket 19 was pretty good at. Sadly, batting has regressed too and I've made a thread around it...

https://www.planetcricket.org/forums/threads/batting-issues-playing-through-the-off-side.118024/

The imbalance between leg side and off side shots has reared its head again. You can easily pull deliveries for 4 or play through the leg side, but a well timed shot through the off side, or a glide to 3rd man barely makes it to the boundary. Running between the wickets is broken as mentioned by others multiple times and how it made to the final version is anyone's guess. Non-striker nearly reaches the striker's end before the striker takes off in some cases. As for AI batting their staple shots seem to be the ones which don't really exist in the real world, e.g., backfoot cut for spinners over 3rd man, or the T20 kind.

Commentary is as disjointed as ever and I don't think Big Ant will ever be able to fix it, so no point talking about it. Turn off the commentary and enjoy the game, if you can, would be my advice.

The GUI and Menu look better but is half baked. As an example I decided to create a custom difficulty as I wanted to increase the ball display time. I noticed there was no description of what the slider was for. On closer inspection, found out that the slider description was in white text and since the background changed to white in Cricket 22 (from black in Cricket 19), the description was illegible.

TL;DR stay away from the game if you've Cricket 19. It says a lot that Cricket 19 DLC was more of an improvement on Cricket 19 than Cricket 22 is. Disappointed to say the least and one thing is more than clear - Big Ant don't care about the core cricket fans, or the game of cricket in general.

If I had to give it a score for this unfinished game, it would be 4 out of 10.

 

[ChrisCricket]

On top of the Tour designer and Stadium Creator, what about making custom tournaments?

The T20 World Cup knock off is only from the Super 12 phase onwards, and has Zimbabwe in it, who couldn't even play in the tournament as they were banned during qualifying for it.

Was hoping to do some cool concepts but the generic ones leave a lot to be desired.

Are they going bring those two features back soon?

 

[GuyIncognito]

The latest patch has riled the salt in me, the gameplay was the only tether I was holding onto until this game got things like stadium creator, the academy up and running etc and other things to be fixed, but now the gameplay has seemingly been reverted to Cricket 19. In that pace, ball bounce etc has been downgraded to that tennis ball bounce feel and no real weight to anything.

Pretty obvious this game needed another six months in the oven. I say this as a guy who is generally half glass full. Might be time BA look at starting from the ground up again in terms of building a cricket game, because the engine, their coding is so hard locked that any sort of change results in other things getting broken, major things.

 

[gillyboy04]

The latest patch has riled the salt in me, the gameplay was the only tether I was holding onto until this game got things like stadium creator, the academy up and running etc and other things to be fixed, but now the gameplay has seemingly been reverted to Cricket 19. In that pace, ball bounce etc has been downgraded to that tennis ball bounce feel and no real weight to anything.

Pretty obvious this game needed another six months in the oven. I say this as a guy who is generally half glass full. Might be time BA look at starting from the ground up again in terms of building a cricket game, because the engine, their coding is so hard locked that any sort of change results in other things getting broken, major things.

With all the bugs present and features missing from the game I'll definitely back you up on the statement of the game needing another six months before being released. They should've held the release back until before the T20 World Cup (that is being held in Australia) starts in October next year. A September 2022 release would've given them an extra 9 months to develop the game to a great level of depth.

 

[IamtheWilbur]

I was looking forward to Cricket 22 and finally got around to playing Cricket 22 for an extended period of time. I loved what Big Ant team had done with the Cricket 19 DLC, and I was cautiously optimistic about Cricket 22. But after spending some time with Cricket 22, I must say I'm disappointed. The game is a classic case of "one step forward and two backwards" which has plagued the DBC/Big Ant Cricket series.

IMO if they had taken Cricket 19 as the base and fixed fielding & field sets along with improving leg side batting, it would've been a game closer to perfection. Unfortunately Big Ant's focus is on casual "pick up and play" gamers and whatever enhancements have been done, I didn't see reflected in the core gameplay.

Fielding has regressed from earlier iterations, and I didn't think that could be possible. I had an over consisting of 3 boundary overthrows and 4 byes, and it felt good if fielders/wkt keeper managed to stop/intercept a throw. In Cricket 19 most of the overthrows were from shies at the stumps from Cover & Point region. Cricket 22 has managed to expand on it by adding overthrows from fielders in the deep, i.e. fine leg, square leg etc. The fielders regularly overrun the ball, slide around the ropes without cutting off the boundary, and drop sitters. Overall the worst fielding I've seen in DBC/Big Ant series. And when you couple poor fielding with the existing issue of short pitched deliveries going for 4 byes regularly, you do have to wonder whether Big Ant team played the game before they released it. This is not a bug but literally a game-breaker.

Gimmicks like fielding slo mo and hitting stumps directly from anywhere in the ground actually detract from the game. How Big Ant decided allowing users to hit the stumps directly nearly every time from anywhere is a head-scratcher. Big Ant has taken accessibility and catering to casual cricket fans to such an extreme that in some cases, Cricket 22 is not representative of the actual sport.

Field sets are still the same old ones, and the fields still keep on changing randomly similar to Cricket 19. No noticeable improvement on that end, and I don't think Big Ant did anything to fix field sets.

Now coming to batting - the one area which cricket 19 was pretty good at. Sadly, batting has regressed too and I've made a thread around it...

https://www.planetcricket.org/forums/threads/batting-issues-playing-through-the-off-side.118024/

The imbalance between leg side and off side shots has reared its head again. You can easily pull deliveries for 4 or play through the leg side, but a well timed shot through the off side, or a glide to 3rd man barely makes it to the boundary. Running between the wickets is broken as mentioned by others multiple times and how it made to the final version is anyone's guess. Non-striker nearly reaches the striker's end before the striker takes off in some cases. As for AI batting their staple shots seem to be the ones which don't really exist in the real world, e.g., backfoot cut for spinners over 3rd man, or the T20 kind.

Commentary is as disjointed as ever and I don't think Big Ant will ever be able to fix it, so no point talking about it. Turn off the commentary and enjoy the game, if you can, would be my advice.

The GUI and Menu look better but is half baked. As an example I decided to create a custom difficulty as I wanted to increase the ball display time. I noticed there was no description of what the slider was for. On closer inspection, found out that the slider description was in white text and since the background changed to white in Cricket 22 (from black in Cricket 19), the description was illegible.

TL;DR stay away from the game if you've Cricket 19. It says a lot that Cricket 19 DLC was more of an improvement on Cricket 19 than Cricket 22 is. Disappointed to say the least and one thing is more than clear - Big Ant don't care about the core cricket fans, or the game of cricket in general.

If I had to give it a score for this unfinished game, it would be 4 out of 10.

Bingo. Should be ashamed of themselves.

 

[Ken Tremendous]

Fellas. This game is a shambles, broken beyond belief.

Decided to give it a whirl again with the new patch from today, Dec 3.

I only had to play a few overs to see this dross, its hardly hidden.

So this happened, a routine caught and bowled, it clearly doesnt bounce...the game continued as it nothing happens, not out apparently...

Next over, an easy run out, but nah, not in this game, the keeper instead fancied not bothering...

Another issue thats now happening.

I bowl on Hard (legend AI), using standard legacy controls, and its now literally IMPOSSIBLE to release on ideal. I stop it many times right in the middle of the green box, it doesnt matter, release will only ever show as good, which means the batsman tends to smash it.

Im almost done with this...and this lot came up within 10 minutes of loading up.

Credit to you BA, you have literally robbed me.

 

[jmarcf]

I've only played a few games and not experiencing any of these issues.

I only play career mode. I've had zero overthrows etc

 

[Little Timmy]

On top of the Tour designer and Stadium Creator, what about making custom tournaments?

The T20 World Cup knock off is only from the Super 12 phase onwards, and has Zimbabwe in it, who couldn't even play in the tournament as they were banned during qualifying for it.

Was hoping to do some cool concepts but the generic ones leave a lot to be desired.

Extremely disappointed not to see Competition Designer in the game too. I’ll cross my fingers that it returns!

 

[imported_beatle]

Not happy with this game at all.It seems half finished and in some respects it doesn't look much better apart from being on next gen.No tour mode no stadium creator no licensed stadiums for New Zealand.Since when do the West Indies wear white test caps.The new LS/RS bowling hud is awful.Even in the fielding tutorial it says tap X to safely throw to wicketkeeper or bowler Result four overthrows everytime.Has this game been tested and played by anybody? It seems they are taking a leaf out of EA Sports book put something new in and remove something else.Please don't buy this expecting a better game than Cricket 19 it isn't.The Modders all do a far better job with uniforms and faces.Wait till this as been patched numerous times before purchasing.Unplayable at the moment.No fun whatsoever.

 

[Deleted member 193590]

So finally got time to play the “officially released” game. To be honest I did not feel one ounce of difference. Now I can whole heartedly comment on what I feel since its an officially released game from BigAnt.

License - New Zealand, Ireland and West Indies should be really upset how the licensed stuff has been part of the game. Compared to Australia and England, the player models look shit. Not to mention Kane Williamson goes black and white. Way to prevent racism.

I am 100% sure they have not captured or mocapped those three teams players. I would any day prefer user content over this so called licensed content. Also Ross mentioned they would add in more licensed players. No.. that is not right. It should have been in the game from beginning.

Academy - Gutted to see there is no stadium creation tool. Why? This is a ready product, it should have been in the game.

Gameplay - As a causal gamer, the gameplay is fine for me barring a few bugs. They really need to work on the sliding fielder touching boundary always.

Visuals - Apart from player modals who look very weird, the stadium, lightening, atmosphere is stunning on 4k. The game is super fast on Series S. 1000% improvement of C19.

Commentary - Buggy and sucks. Won a match 4 down and commentators said knew openers would kill the run chase.

I would give this game 6/10. My main concern as a buyer is that I paid full amount only to recieve the game content in installments. Should we customers pay in installments then? Why are we expected to pay full when its not a complete product.
2 steps forward, 3 backward.

Yeah the fielding is the only major gripe for me,it's a massive part of the game in all formats,some of the fielding you see in today's cricket is sensational.Yet 99% of the fielders in this game are like Inzy,it's like Fifa having goalkeepers jumping behind the line after making a save.

 

[Ken Tremendous]

Yeah the fielding is the only major gripe for me,it's a massive part of the game in all formats,some of the fielding you see in today's cricket is sensational.Yet 99% of the fielders in this game are like Inzy,it's like Fifa having goalkeepers jumping behind the line after making a save.

Indeed.

For my sins, despite those two vids i posted earlier, gave it another go...

England v Windies ODI at my beloved Trent Bridge (which looks nice i have to say), and the battle between bat and ball was for 99% of the time, really good, realistic, ebbed and flowed.

Its just the fielding...the bloody fielding, thats stopping this game from being really quite decent.

An eleven man Inzi field is quite an apt description.

If they can sort the fielding to even nothing more than satisfactory, the game will improve ten fold.

 

[Ken Tremendous]

I bowl on Hard (legend AI), using standard legacy controls, and its now literally IMPOSSIBLE to release on ideal. I stop it many times right in the middle of the green box, it doesnt matter, release will only ever show as good, which means the batsman tends to smash it.

Just to show what i mean, i went into the nets.

Look at where i stopped the release bar, almost bang in the middle, yet its still only a "good" release and not ideal.



That said i can sometimes now get it "ideal", it just requires being far nearer the top of the green release window than the bottom.

Anyone else seen this?

 

[Master Khan]

I been playing the game for a while now and i had a few crashes, I was playing with my little cousin and game crashed on us on PS5.
Career mode is alright but I can't even change my player skin colour, hair styles etc and sometime the game will get stuck on loading screen so I have it close the game and start it again.
Also something the ball become invisible during a match so I have to again exit the game and load it again.
The other thing I hate is that I can't change kits when starting a match in career mode when I am playing as myself, so I am playing T20s and List A matches in white uniform which is stupid.(unless i am missing something)
I am sure there also issues with fielding as well. This game should have been delayed by around 6 months I think so hopefully Big Ant fix these issues.

 

[Wilbaforce89]

I've had a go at a test match, some early career mode, and some other bits and pieces.
Xbox series S.

TL/DR: Jarring experience, poor gameplay, mixed visuals. 2/5 - not worth it until many things are patched.

First off, don't try to access the community. The game crashes.

Gameplay:
Bowling:
While I'm not a fan of the "arcade" bowling settings, they generally work well, are responsive to inputs and behave they way you expect them to.
However, this somewhat comes at the expense of the other control schemes. You have only 4 lengths to choose from in "legacy" and "pro" controls. No fine tuning. On top of that, like most of Big Ant's games the default physics combine with the lengths to make for unrealistic gameplay. A "good" length ball (pace) frequently gets called for above shoulder height. Overall the physics seem suited to spin bowling, not pace bowling.
However, these are mostly minor gripes, bowling is generally playable.

Batting:
Arcade controls have a tendency to select shots you didn't input. Things like front foot aiming at point result in attempted ramp shots over slips. Further you have no control over footwork beyond front/back foot. From there the footwork selected by the game seems quite random. Sometimes the same input (eg front foot aiming at mid off) results in wildly varying foot placement, and then shot selection. On top of this what the game considers a "good" shot choice is wacky. For example straight, good length, just outside off, and the game says forward defence/drives aimed at the bowler or mid-off are "poor". Don't try playing at or behind point from the front foot with "aggressive" or "attacking" shot. That pretty much only results in attempted ramp shots. (at least they removed the front foot drive over deep backward point for six)
Pro controls give you more control over your footwork, however still have similar shot selection issues.
Both the striker and non-striker seems to have real trouble getting back into their crease. The non-striker's only method is turning round and sprinting half a metre back, rather than just putting their bat down. The striker has similar tendencies, but also seems to have trouble navigating the stumps, as if the stumps have a giant hitbox preventing player movement.
On the plus side, there is a noticeable difference between a low skilled player and a high skilled player. Opening the batting with David Warner feels significantly better than your new career player (as it should).

People have mentioned the running between wickets issues. I went a little further.
I timed the "batting style" animations. Style 1 takes a little over 5.1 seconds to complete, style 4 around 4.6 seconds, styles 2 & 6 4.4 seconds, styles 3 & 4 a bit over 4.1 seconds. This seems to be reflected in how quickly each style actually sets off for a run. Style one hangs around admiring their work all day, but even the fastest animations have an unbearable delay before starting to run. (I suspect a similar thing happens in bowling regarding caught & bowled/fielding).

The overall batting experience is worse than the bowling, and feels a lot like previous releases did when they first came out. Honestly it feels like Big Ant took their batting from launch version of Cricket 19 and copy pasted.

Fielding:
Many similar issues here as with most other releases by Big Ant. At times fielders act like they have set animations they have to complete before moving to the next. Run to ball. Stand up Straight. Bend down to pick up ball. Stand up Straight. Throw ball. Sometimes a player will run to a ball, but in the act of stopping will kick the ball around, meaning they have to run to the ball again. Early career mode sees more dropped catches than an under 12's team.
When keeping the your player will take a couple of steps forward after the ball has been hit. When a spinner is bowling this results in the keeper walking through the stumps and placing themselves out of position to receive the ball (if the ball was hit forward). I've also not been able to change the camera angle when keeping. The default angle makes it difficult to see if the ball is being aimed on side, off side, or at the stumps.
Reflex catching feels fine, no improvements on previous iterations.

Player Creation:
When changing "body" you only get to see the head/shoulders of the player. Small gripe but I can't see how big or small the legs/gut are.
I'm not a fan of having the "quick options" and then "advanced" options. First, for most of the quick options the preview image doesn't display. In advanced controls sliders don't come with explanations. Not a major issue, but it does take a little time to work out precisely what each slider is doing.
Shoe colours cannot be changed. The options are there, but they don't work.
Overall experience feels worse than previous games, despite having more options.

Career mode:
I haven't gone beyond a few games in Career.
If you simulate overs/games your player does not gain any stats for what happened during those simulations.
Your player doesn't gain fielding stats at all.
The stat gains are very approximate. Bowling only swing deliveries sees (large?) increases to those deliveries, but you still have gains in seam/cross seam etc. Same deal with batting.
The game doesn't ask you if you want to go to the nets/gym in between matches, it just sends you straight there.
When creating your character you go through a questionnaire regarding your abilities/skill/weaknesses. If you press "back" that doesn't take you to the previous choice, rather back to the main menu. If you try and re-enter your career mode you will be at the appearance creation screen, but you can't see your player. You can't select all the fielding positions for your 1, 2, 3rd preferences. For instance mid on/mid off aren't available for choice 1.
I'm glad they added a gym simulator to a cricket game... Big Ant tries to go for immersion in some areas but not in others. It makes for a very disjointed experience.

Graphics/Sound:
Full disclosure: I prefer the aesthetic of the original Don Bradman Cricket game. It looked more real (the cricket ball was a correct colour, cracks appeared on the pitch AND affected how the ball bounced if you hit them, etc). I do not like the more cartoony aesthetic Big Ant have gone for in more recent titles. That being said, almost everything looks decent. The grounds, uniforms, background, and stadiums look good. Where it's let down is the "licensed" players. Some of these work well. Others have very stiff features resulting in what looks like a still photo of a player face moving about in space. Others still have weird shaped heads, looking like an accurate image of the player was stretched over an inaccurate head model. (This gives me n64 Goldeneye vibes). Lots of hair colours/styles don't really match. Joe Root has dark brown/red hair in this game, rather than his light brown/slightly blonde real hair. All players share the exact same body model, except for height. Mitch Marsh looks like a tall Steve Smith.
The detail on imaged faces clashes a lot with the game created ones.

As others have noted, the commentary has a lot of bad cues. There's no difference in commentary between short and long forms, and commentary seems geared towards short form. Leaving three balls in a test match is pressure building, or similar.
The extra commentators are nice, however they all have limited dialogue and it becomes repetitive quickly.
Ball, bat, and stump sounds are weird. For instance: put one finger nail underneath another and click them apart. That's what a nicked ball sounds like.

Overall this feels somewhere between an alpha/beta build of the game, or, a lazy copy/paste of early versions of previous titles, with small edits. Big Ant made a big deal out of including new game types, such as The Hundred, or getting more licensed franchises. The 3d imaging of player faces has been poorly implemented in many cases. Further, the gameplay and commentary issues more than undo any immersion licensed players may create.

A disappointing entry from Big Ant studios. I'd have hoped that by now they'd improved a lot of these launch day issues (many are repeats from launch versions of previous titles). It seems like they've gone for style over substance.

2/5. Don't buy until the game is heavily patched.

 

[ThisShowStinks]

I believe the gameplay issues can and will be fixed ... eventually. However, it is the removal of the Tour Mode that really upsets me. I loved choosing from the long list of tours in past editions of Big Ants cricket series. Career mode is popular and I understand it's importance. But, the competition and tour modes is what cricket is all about. Competitions are obviously still there. And newly licensed competitions as well. But, the tours are gone. I am simply dumbfounded by this move by Big Ant. Very disappointing.