Chief, how would you rate this game? and how does it fare compare to older counterparts?
I had two big problems with the game.
One was the bugs at launch: run-outs in particular which, for me, just caused SO much frustration. Having spent a couple of hours with the 2nd patch tonight, I think a most of this has gone.
The big problem that remains is that the game doesn't help you at all. It relies on a huge amount of learning from the manual/tutorials, and there is pretty much NO feedback as to what you are doing right and wrong. Firth's law: page one. Firth?s First Law of Games Design | AppyNation
For a first effort, this is stunning work. I know they've had a lot more time than other teams in the past, but they've used it incredibly well. I think that technically it's very accomplished. I hate the music and commentary, but the FX are brilliant. The animations are largely great and only let down by the occasional breakage (BUT only limited to the areas I would expect to see tricksy things). The art is great (could use a little more depth of field in order to smooth some of the flickering edges in the backgrounds: it all feels a *little* noisy). The featureset is superb. I'd like some more depth in the career mode (at the moment you are judged on personal performance, runs, catches and wickets. I'd like to see mini challenges that are given by the captain depending on the situation when I come in: my goal could just to be to defend it out, or score quick runs irrespective of losing my wicket: tell me what I should be risking and judge me based on that in an analogue way. Maybe I got out earlier than hoped, but I was doing the right thing: defending it out. Or I scored quick runs and went, but the game was gone anyway so I did my best, and should be judged accordingly.)
In the end, for me, it's only major let-down is its inaccessibility. Everything else is in place, and I would expect that by the next iteration a lot of those minor things with polish and balancing will be ironed out. If Big Ant can improve the user feedback and make me feel more skilful for learning to do the right cricketing things, as opposed to learning the places I can score every time in, the next one could be very special indeed.
Hard to judge against past games, but I'm very impressed with it (and I don't say that very often).
EDIT: oh, one bugbear and TINY thing. Confidence always (as far as I have seen) starts at 0 and rises. It should start at, say, 20%/30% (50% even) and either build or fall depending on performance. Also should start higher for 1 day games/T20 where you are expected to come out firing.
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