Well, I finished my test match. As ever with me, it was a retro affair, using my England and Pakistan 87/88 teams, copied over from C22 academy with no edits.
Medium, dry/dusty pitch with light cracks.
I won the toss and batted and made 328. Their reply was 245. I made 260 2nd inns and they finished 257 to give me an 86 run win. The chase was good, 3 batsmen hit 50s plus there was a 40 and a 30.They lost their first wicket run out without scoring and I thought this might be a harum scarum chase with dumb running and then they had a 95-run 2nd wicket partnership where I thought the invincible 4th inns AI was back... until they collapsed from 95-1 to 109-5, with 2 wickets in 2 balls (actually 3 edges in 3 balls but I butchered the first) and another run-out next over, but they still had good batsmen at the crease and to come. Once Akram was out though, the tail opened up.
Gameplay wise, honestly it was mostly pretty decent. The spin was not overpowered - my spinners got match figures of 11-245 in 92.3 overs of bowling. My seamers got 7-253 in 68.4 overs plus the 2 runouts in the 2nd inns. More importantly, I bowled with a short leg the whole time for spinners, and got only 3 catches there, plus 1 at silly point. I had impressive wicket variety, and a few of them felt natural: a set batsman getting bowled 1st ball after drinks... 2 in swingers down the legside, then the third better directed and castling a tailender, that sort of thing.
I think ratings might matter more in this than the other games - my spinners will be heavily toned down from c22 ratings, I think. And as I mentioned earlier I said the batting seems harder with lower rated players and I stand by that. I think it felt harder to bowl accurately with lower rated bowlers, too. Though my lowest rated bowler was a medium pacer and I'm always crap with them. In my 1st inns (and remember my 6,7,8 was Capel, Defraitas, Emburey) I was 249 when my 4th wicket fell, and all out 328. In the 2nd inns it was a bit better, 133/4 to 260 all out, but that was some lucky slogging and having Tim Robinson stick around for a while for 59.
The fielding gets worse the more you play, I am not sure why my initial impression was it had improved. The side shuffle thing is awful. The mini-game for throwing to an end almost always results in a throw facing the wrong direction - and there's nothing in the mini-game that affects how fast or whether you reach the ball, a big miss. I have harped on plenty about the sound but for me it's such a big deal - even the best moments are so flat because of the lack of immersion.
What am I trying to say... I don't know how much longevity I'll get from this, mainly from the lack of atmosphere/immersion (and being busy at work). But, if the spinners really aren't overpowered (I know I need to play more in other conditions to be sure), that's a plus for me.
Somehow though, this is a game that's significantly less than the sum of it's parts. If I'd played that match as my first test match of any other title I'd be bigging it up. Who know sound is king, after all?