Ok, I have played well over 20 hours now, all types and game styles. Here's my take (for what its worth)
Firstly the presentation is on a par with 2002, opening scenes and inappropriate music, pretty much EA style.
Menus got to me a bit, some let you use joypad, only for other to insist on mouse click..perhaps just my system, but not brilliant.
Nets
Exactly the same set up as every game since '99 . Indoors, pick bowler type, then bat or bowl. Jom Maxwell gives you some advice, but spends so long rambling that you tend to "click" off his advice to get on with the next ball. I made a point of listening though, and it's mostly ok. Tries a back foot cut to a ball that went past my throat off stumpish, only to be told "You should have played a front foot shot to that ball" Hmmm
Controls
Ahh the first big plus. Batting is instinctive, very similar to 2002, but when you are on the hard level, you realise how finely tuned the batting side is, you really need to have a good idea about your shots. So direction - WASD keys for shots (combo for 45 degree shots, cut, glance , on drive and cover drive) as per usual. "leave" key and "advance" key. All I will say is that all of these have more animation and variations than 2002.
Now I played 2002 with the number pad as shot selector, number pad 0 as "power" or "six hit" selector, and the arrow keys for back foot, front foot etc. 2004 won't let you map to these, but I soon adapted to a different method.
Bowling.
Very similar to before in method, quite different in result. The ball really does do what you want. And all the bowling levels are much harder. Certainly find it difficult to bowl the same ball over and over. The more rushed you get the faster the cursor rushes around.
Bad point - as before the "shrinking circle" means that a weak bowler has a much larger circle, therefore can only decide on the rough "area" not like the bowlers with a small circle that pin points more or less exactly where the ball will pitch. Is it just me, or is that a disadvantage to the batsman as well ? (Answer - Of course it bloody well is)
The stats (more later) really make an impact. My favourite is the "special ball" stat. You can't decide to bowl the magic ball, but the higher the rating the more likely you will bowl one (i think 100% may give you about one every 6 to 8 balls..maybe?) It is much more dramatic. Realistic swing, seam and spin (far more realsitic) You can't get a part time swing bowler like Graham Thorpe to bowl "Bananas" (in a 2 player game they were lethal in 2002, CPU in 2002 played them as if they were straight as a die - and clobbered them all over the place...not good).
That brings me to the stats. And this is a major event here. THEY WORK. I haven't studied the effect of every stat in scientific detail ..but they definately do make a difference, and better still it's a "realistic" difference.
The game seemes designed around the "Hard" playing level, this is where for the first time I can remember, realstic scores can be gleaned (just...but that's becasue despite all the playing I'm not that good with th bat yet) Stats and skills really pan out into realistic life like differences in performance.esspecially on Hard skill level.
Graphics.
Lots more stadiums (mentioned listed elsewhere) All pretty good. UK stadiums have lots of coppers in yellow tunics around the crowd. Not really a big imrovement in quality over 2002, but then 2002 was pretty good itself. Nice that New Road was there..and other than lots of extra seating, was pretty accurate (It was in World Cup '99 as well and looked like the back alley with the cat in Coronation Street)
PLayers models.
Hmmm, well befroe these were very angular and built around 1 standard model with different textures. Their are now 11 (i think) different models, short and tall , fat and thin. Bruce Reid to Mike Gatting and everything in between.
They aren't blocky, but they are errmm "Lumpy". They are cetainly adequate for purpose, I haven't decided whether they are my cup of tea or not yet tho'
The textures are FAR too limited. Everyone is (allmost) either Waqar Younis or Graham Thorpe (Worcester has 8 players who look exactly like Graham Thorpe..it's un-nerving. It's not like he's non-descript, he's an aqualine, square jawwed lisper (bless his little cotton socks) and here he is OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
Fielding
Don't bother doing it yourself...nuff said. Sadly "Magic" fielders who ignore ball then "glide" at about 200MPH up to the ball occur too often. In fact fielding is easily the weakest part of the game.
Short Cover wanders on to the pitch as you are about to bowl, guys dive towards a ball that would bounce 18ft in front of them..THEN CATCH IT ??!?, and worse of all is the Runouts.
CPU will hit the ball between cover and midwicket.wait till the fielder has the ballin his hand, then set off for a suicide run.
Now this is something that I have really looked in to. I find very little difference between user defined fields and the set ones. Some matches you are "lucky" and get only one or two run outs per innings, but the average is about 4 or 5. Then it doesn't feel right when you win under these circumstances.
Good News.
To finish, the good news. The CPU fielding AI I reckon will be a relatively simple bug fix, the paucity of textures DITTO. If EA don't admit to releasing this game, I reckon a 3rd party could fix these issues quite swiftly and leave a VERY good game underneath,
I haven't covered in detail create a player options, but anyone who has PESoccer will know the score. It's an excellent feature, and must stay with the franchise now. Like I said before IT WORKS.
So overall
Graphics 6.5/10 (Not much better than 2002, but good enough)
SOund 9/10 (Cricket sounds are first rte. Turn off the awfull music)
Animation 7.5/10 (OK, not sure, certainly "good enough" though)
Gameplay 9/10 (The best so far..with the proviso that the fielding bugs are addressed, at least the runout one, as it is a major "unbalancer""
Overall 8.5/10 (Not a mean average of the above, just my gut thought - room for improvement, but definately the best arcade cricket ever - then again it;s only competition was its predecessor and Brian Lara's (Shane Warne's)
Cheers
Clarker
PS Despite what it says on the box, this is a DVD only game..No DVD drive, no playee gameee !
(Oh typed this in a box. no spell check and its half eleven at night, and I've still got a hangover from last night, so sorry for the speilling mistakes)
Firstly the presentation is on a par with 2002, opening scenes and inappropriate music, pretty much EA style.
Menus got to me a bit, some let you use joypad, only for other to insist on mouse click..perhaps just my system, but not brilliant.
Nets
Exactly the same set up as every game since '99 . Indoors, pick bowler type, then bat or bowl. Jom Maxwell gives you some advice, but spends so long rambling that you tend to "click" off his advice to get on with the next ball. I made a point of listening though, and it's mostly ok. Tries a back foot cut to a ball that went past my throat off stumpish, only to be told "You should have played a front foot shot to that ball" Hmmm
Controls
Ahh the first big plus. Batting is instinctive, very similar to 2002, but when you are on the hard level, you realise how finely tuned the batting side is, you really need to have a good idea about your shots. So direction - WASD keys for shots (combo for 45 degree shots, cut, glance , on drive and cover drive) as per usual. "leave" key and "advance" key. All I will say is that all of these have more animation and variations than 2002.
Now I played 2002 with the number pad as shot selector, number pad 0 as "power" or "six hit" selector, and the arrow keys for back foot, front foot etc. 2004 won't let you map to these, but I soon adapted to a different method.
Bowling.
Very similar to before in method, quite different in result. The ball really does do what you want. And all the bowling levels are much harder. Certainly find it difficult to bowl the same ball over and over. The more rushed you get the faster the cursor rushes around.
Bad point - as before the "shrinking circle" means that a weak bowler has a much larger circle, therefore can only decide on the rough "area" not like the bowlers with a small circle that pin points more or less exactly where the ball will pitch. Is it just me, or is that a disadvantage to the batsman as well ? (Answer - Of course it bloody well is)
The stats (more later) really make an impact. My favourite is the "special ball" stat. You can't decide to bowl the magic ball, but the higher the rating the more likely you will bowl one (i think 100% may give you about one every 6 to 8 balls..maybe?) It is much more dramatic. Realistic swing, seam and spin (far more realsitic) You can't get a part time swing bowler like Graham Thorpe to bowl "Bananas" (in a 2 player game they were lethal in 2002, CPU in 2002 played them as if they were straight as a die - and clobbered them all over the place...not good).
That brings me to the stats. And this is a major event here. THEY WORK. I haven't studied the effect of every stat in scientific detail ..but they definately do make a difference, and better still it's a "realistic" difference.
The game seemes designed around the "Hard" playing level, this is where for the first time I can remember, realstic scores can be gleaned (just...but that's becasue despite all the playing I'm not that good with th bat yet) Stats and skills really pan out into realistic life like differences in performance.esspecially on Hard skill level.
Graphics.
Lots more stadiums (mentioned listed elsewhere) All pretty good. UK stadiums have lots of coppers in yellow tunics around the crowd. Not really a big imrovement in quality over 2002, but then 2002 was pretty good itself. Nice that New Road was there..and other than lots of extra seating, was pretty accurate (It was in World Cup '99 as well and looked like the back alley with the cat in Coronation Street)
PLayers models.
Hmmm, well befroe these were very angular and built around 1 standard model with different textures. Their are now 11 (i think) different models, short and tall , fat and thin. Bruce Reid to Mike Gatting and everything in between.
They aren't blocky, but they are errmm "Lumpy". They are cetainly adequate for purpose, I haven't decided whether they are my cup of tea or not yet tho'
The textures are FAR too limited. Everyone is (allmost) either Waqar Younis or Graham Thorpe (Worcester has 8 players who look exactly like Graham Thorpe..it's un-nerving. It's not like he's non-descript, he's an aqualine, square jawwed lisper (bless his little cotton socks) and here he is OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
Fielding
Don't bother doing it yourself...nuff said. Sadly "Magic" fielders who ignore ball then "glide" at about 200MPH up to the ball occur too often. In fact fielding is easily the weakest part of the game.
Short Cover wanders on to the pitch as you are about to bowl, guys dive towards a ball that would bounce 18ft in front of them..THEN CATCH IT ??!?, and worse of all is the Runouts.
CPU will hit the ball between cover and midwicket.wait till the fielder has the ballin his hand, then set off for a suicide run.
Now this is something that I have really looked in to. I find very little difference between user defined fields and the set ones. Some matches you are "lucky" and get only one or two run outs per innings, but the average is about 4 or 5. Then it doesn't feel right when you win under these circumstances.
Good News.
To finish, the good news. The CPU fielding AI I reckon will be a relatively simple bug fix, the paucity of textures DITTO. If EA don't admit to releasing this game, I reckon a 3rd party could fix these issues quite swiftly and leave a VERY good game underneath,
I haven't covered in detail create a player options, but anyone who has PESoccer will know the score. It's an excellent feature, and must stay with the franchise now. Like I said before IT WORKS.
So overall
Graphics 6.5/10 (Not much better than 2002, but good enough)
SOund 9/10 (Cricket sounds are first rte. Turn off the awfull music)
Animation 7.5/10 (OK, not sure, certainly "good enough" though)
Gameplay 9/10 (The best so far..with the proviso that the fielding bugs are addressed, at least the runout one, as it is a major "unbalancer""
Overall 8.5/10 (Not a mean average of the above, just my gut thought - room for improvement, but definately the best arcade cricket ever - then again it;s only competition was its predecessor and Brian Lara's (Shane Warne's)
Cheers
Clarker
PS Despite what it says on the box, this is a DVD only game..No DVD drive, no playee gameee !
(Oh typed this in a box. no spell check and its half eleven at night, and I've still got a hangover from last night, so sorry for the speilling mistakes)
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