M
meatspx
Guest
I've been playing the game on Medium, 20 over matches and autoplaying when bowling. This is not meant to be an impartial review, i'm just poiting out all the problems of the game. Personally I rate the entire game 6/10
Criticisms:
BATTING
I'm not the best player admittingly - I can only score about 140 runs max on normal in a 20 over match.
When the computer bowls short outside the offstump on a hard pitch it is really difficuilt to get bat on ball, all you can hope for is a wide call by the umpire. The batsman doesn't have the option to slash wildly playing a high cut, trying to ramp the ball over the slips or point. All he can do is flick his wrists and play close to his body. If the ball is at head height then it is impossible to to get bat on ball. Maybe i'm not doing something right, but this is REALLY frustrating.
When the ball is pitched outside the offstump you have to shuffle accross your stumps and you leave them exposed before the bowler realeases - this would never happen in real life. You can turn off the ball marker - but if the ball is wide outside the offstump and you're still covering your stumps then you will have trouble reaching the ball.
When on low and mid confidence (havent reached high yet :/) hitting really full balls over the top is near impossible. This is alright - but most dissapointing is the way in which you are dismissed. The ball goes STRAIGHT UP in the air and usually lands about 2 meatres in front of the batsman. How can a batsman attempting to it a full ball for six end up skying it virtually straight up in the air? It's impossible to get a top edge so you tell me.
RUNNING
The running is absolutely shocking. The players are slow and sometimes when I call no action is taken. BUT most dissapointing is when a run is completed the batsman runs about 2-3 metres past the crease. So if there is a misfield you can't capitalise and run another run (without being disavantaged by the 2-3 metres). You can say YES for 2 runs and cancell if there is no misfield, but often it takes the batsman 2-3 metres to stop running and turn around.
RUNNING AND FIELDING
Short singles are WAY TOO EASY. Sometimes when you block it short on the onside a fieldsman races in at a fast pace, looking that he will run you out my a mile. But he goes straight to the stumps and instead the wicketkeeper fields the ball.
Also fielders innapropriately throw the ball overarm instead of underarm. When a fielder is about 2 metres away from the stumps he will throw it, or when mid-on picks the ball up low and should quickly underarm it looking for a quick run-out. I'm not sure if this happens on hard mode but i'm assuming it does. As a rule all throwing close to the pitch should be underarm and aiming for a direct hit.
FIELDING
The fielding isn't much better. Sometimes fieldsmen dive when they have no chance of fielding the ball (the batsman drives to long-off and a fielder at short cover dives). Once the fielder missed the ball via a misfield and the ball traveled behind him - you'd think he would turn around and chase the ball. Well he didn't, he ran to the right for about 4-5 metres and let the ball go for 4. The misfields are unrelealstic - fielders run in and riskly try and pick up the ball on nearly every occassion. When they invariably miss the ball it usually jets to the boundary.
It is great that the CPU moves fielders around according to where the batsman is scoring runs (Abit like Ganguly). But sometimes the same position is virtually packed with 2 fielders. The CPU can place 2 fieldsmen at long-on (4-5 metres space between each other), and have a mid-on at the same time to cap it off! Also at the start of an ODI match the 2 fielders outside the circle are traditionally placed at third-man, and at either fine-leg or deep square leg - but not in this game! The most popular position in such a case is long-off in my experience.
THE CROWD.
Pathetic. The colours are lifeless and everyone jumps up in the air in unison - from what i've seen no-one sits down whilst clapping. Not every crowd acts like an Indian crowd! I don't mind if the crowd hasn't been worked on because it isn't an important part of the game for me personally. But at least the game's developers could have made the crowd more different and varying eg. You're playing an ODI at Melbourne - therefore 1/4 of the crowd should be wearing yellow clothing..........this is really simple to add to the game.
OTHER ASPECTS
The outfield is dissapointing too. The ball doesn't bounce when it is rolls along the outfield - it just smoothly rolls as if the batsman had hit the ball accross the ground at a low angle when he played his shot. Really unrealistic.
The CPU decision making when bowling via autoplay is poor. I play as New Zealand, and instead as Scott Styris being a bowling option batsman who never bowl like Sinclair or Vincent are given 2 overs! Maybe this is a problem in part of attributing the necessary bowling skill points to Scott Styris, not computer intelligence.
MENUES.
Can't use the mouse whilst in game - absolutley idiotic. There is an array of statistical analysis options but they are cumbersome to navigate too; shortcut keys could have been added, or instead of showing a camera angle of the ground in between balls a statistical graph could have been shown.
In my humble opinion this game could have been great if these problems never existed or can be fixed (which they can't). HB studios screwed up - possibly they were rushed, I don't know...............
Criticisms:
BATTING
I'm not the best player admittingly - I can only score about 140 runs max on normal in a 20 over match.
When the computer bowls short outside the offstump on a hard pitch it is really difficuilt to get bat on ball, all you can hope for is a wide call by the umpire. The batsman doesn't have the option to slash wildly playing a high cut, trying to ramp the ball over the slips or point. All he can do is flick his wrists and play close to his body. If the ball is at head height then it is impossible to to get bat on ball. Maybe i'm not doing something right, but this is REALLY frustrating.
When the ball is pitched outside the offstump you have to shuffle accross your stumps and you leave them exposed before the bowler realeases - this would never happen in real life. You can turn off the ball marker - but if the ball is wide outside the offstump and you're still covering your stumps then you will have trouble reaching the ball.
When on low and mid confidence (havent reached high yet :/) hitting really full balls over the top is near impossible. This is alright - but most dissapointing is the way in which you are dismissed. The ball goes STRAIGHT UP in the air and usually lands about 2 meatres in front of the batsman. How can a batsman attempting to it a full ball for six end up skying it virtually straight up in the air? It's impossible to get a top edge so you tell me.
RUNNING
The running is absolutely shocking. The players are slow and sometimes when I call no action is taken. BUT most dissapointing is when a run is completed the batsman runs about 2-3 metres past the crease. So if there is a misfield you can't capitalise and run another run (without being disavantaged by the 2-3 metres). You can say YES for 2 runs and cancell if there is no misfield, but often it takes the batsman 2-3 metres to stop running and turn around.
RUNNING AND FIELDING
Short singles are WAY TOO EASY. Sometimes when you block it short on the onside a fieldsman races in at a fast pace, looking that he will run you out my a mile. But he goes straight to the stumps and instead the wicketkeeper fields the ball.
Also fielders innapropriately throw the ball overarm instead of underarm. When a fielder is about 2 metres away from the stumps he will throw it, or when mid-on picks the ball up low and should quickly underarm it looking for a quick run-out. I'm not sure if this happens on hard mode but i'm assuming it does. As a rule all throwing close to the pitch should be underarm and aiming for a direct hit.
FIELDING
The fielding isn't much better. Sometimes fieldsmen dive when they have no chance of fielding the ball (the batsman drives to long-off and a fielder at short cover dives). Once the fielder missed the ball via a misfield and the ball traveled behind him - you'd think he would turn around and chase the ball. Well he didn't, he ran to the right for about 4-5 metres and let the ball go for 4. The misfields are unrelealstic - fielders run in and riskly try and pick up the ball on nearly every occassion. When they invariably miss the ball it usually jets to the boundary.
It is great that the CPU moves fielders around according to where the batsman is scoring runs (Abit like Ganguly). But sometimes the same position is virtually packed with 2 fielders. The CPU can place 2 fieldsmen at long-on (4-5 metres space between each other), and have a mid-on at the same time to cap it off! Also at the start of an ODI match the 2 fielders outside the circle are traditionally placed at third-man, and at either fine-leg or deep square leg - but not in this game! The most popular position in such a case is long-off in my experience.
THE CROWD.
Pathetic. The colours are lifeless and everyone jumps up in the air in unison - from what i've seen no-one sits down whilst clapping. Not every crowd acts like an Indian crowd! I don't mind if the crowd hasn't been worked on because it isn't an important part of the game for me personally. But at least the game's developers could have made the crowd more different and varying eg. You're playing an ODI at Melbourne - therefore 1/4 of the crowd should be wearing yellow clothing..........this is really simple to add to the game.
OTHER ASPECTS
The outfield is dissapointing too. The ball doesn't bounce when it is rolls along the outfield - it just smoothly rolls as if the batsman had hit the ball accross the ground at a low angle when he played his shot. Really unrealistic.
The CPU decision making when bowling via autoplay is poor. I play as New Zealand, and instead as Scott Styris being a bowling option batsman who never bowl like Sinclair or Vincent are given 2 overs! Maybe this is a problem in part of attributing the necessary bowling skill points to Scott Styris, not computer intelligence.
MENUES.
Can't use the mouse whilst in game - absolutley idiotic. There is an array of statistical analysis options but they are cumbersome to navigate too; shortcut keys could have been added, or instead of showing a camera angle of the ground in between balls a statistical graph could have been shown.
In my humble opinion this game could have been great if these problems never existed or can be fixed (which they can't). HB studios screwed up - possibly they were rushed, I don't know...............