Right, so I've just spent 2 hours looking around, tweaking a few things and having a look at the nets. My thoughts...
Holy shit, the graphic improvement in this update is absolutely
off the charts balls to the throat beautiful. Bats now have little logos on the top of their handles (the traditional size-stamp) in a lovely little detail orientated touch. Again, Ross... your graphics guys have gone above with this, something I almost posted months ago as a suggestion but thought to myself it was such a teeny tiny detail, but obviously there's a like-minded guy in your office who I'll shout a beer if we ever meet.
Keeping on with the bats, the grain has changed as well, it's much cleaner now and look like the absolute best quality bats you could find in a professional sports shop. The lighting effects now make the "stickers" gleam a little when you turn the bats, looks ridiculously cool. I feel like I'm shopping. I think I saw one or two new designs from your art team, which again look like they could be the real things (including the lovely classic-looking clean Bradman one... I LOVE those classic style of bats). My only wish is that I could go back and re-redesign the TGGI bat to fit a little more with the aesthetic in the game, but I think it still works.
There's also this bad boy...
...in the game now. I'll flick a message to OB but wow, looks BEAUTIFUL and better than I could've expected.
Skin textures, lighting... hair... it's all been upgraded for the player creator. The angles on things like noses seem a little tighter and I'm definitely going to have to go in and tweak my created players after neglecting them for the last few updates. They're looking a bit strange now with the aging features really coming into play with the beautiful graphic updates. There's really nice subtle skin tones and textures which look more obvious when the aging features are pushed up a bit, so I think I can make myself look a little older now, heh.
I've had a really
brief play with the nets session, I'm feeling a little rough this morning, so when I'm a bit more awake I'll delve deep into it, but I'm pretty impressed. It's a complete change from any other cricket game, controls feel totally alien to me so I'm glad I get to practice on the beta. Looks like my Laptop is running it perfectly with no lag and looking at a few videos there's a few things to discover. So I'll have a decent play around and get to grips with the controls and give some feedback.
Overall, I could give a shit if I sound like a sycophantic brought-and-paid for BigAnt fanboy because this game is the real f#$king deal and to reset the palette afterwards I cranked up AC09 and couldn't even get past the comparison of the MENUS for crying out loud. The whole presentation is a step above, everything is so slick, so well designed and so totally thought out I simply cannot BELIEVE this is a cricket game we're getting which has so much creativity, attention to detail and thought behind it.
So haters come at me, because I'm sold. If you're not, do everyone a favor and delete your account here because we're a group of cricket games lovers and I
unreservedly love everything about this game.
EDIT:
Beard/Facial hair colour palettes have changed quite substantially too, so some created players will need to be tweaked again if they have facial hair, just FYI to the creators out there.
