Brian Lara International Cricket
21/04/2005
By: Derek dela Fuente
Exclusive: Brian Lara Cricket Q&A
Lara makes a return this summer, and no we don't mean the big-breasted one...
The cricket season is upon us and now is the time to get really excited about the summer ahead. The Aussies are here to get a real thrashing in the test, the 20 20 series and the one day matches and to top it all a new Brian Lara Cricket game, 10 years after the first, is on the horizon?. Football ? who needs it!
Our very own cricket fan at Totalvideogames, Derek dela Fuente, spoke with Justin Forrest (Chief Game Designer, External Development Studio) at Codemasters.
TVG: Please can you tell us a little about the team creating the game, what you have done before and where your expertise lay?
My expertise as a designer really lies in sports games. I?ve worked on many different sports titles before, but cricket is by far my favourite sport and the end quality of this game really reflects that. The dev team at Swordfish Studios (previously Rage Birmingham) is very experienced and has worked on many sports titles in the past. This includes the recent release of World Championship Rugby (PS2, XBox, & PC), and a history dating back to the Jonah Lomu Rugby and Striker series of days gone by. Much of the focus of the team has been in making mainstream and niche sports titles accessible to a wider game-playing audience.
TVG: A Dev team will always say they are great cricket fans but does most of the team watch cricket and also play it and how important do you feel it is to really understand the ethos of this great game?
In my opinion as a designer, it?s necessary to instil and encourage a certain level of interest and rudimentary knowledge of the subject matter in the Dev team for any game in development. Certain key development staff should have a higher understanding of the sport to really make a good game. Having played and followed cricket all my life, I understand how technically demanding and complex cricket is as a sport, and I don?t think that it?s ever likely that every member of a dev team working on a cricket game would be huge fans of the sport. That doesn?t necessarily mean that the dev staff can?t do a good job ? and the dev staff at Swordfish have proved that. It?s been remarkable to see how they have really tried to get a real feel for a sport that has a rulebook the size of an encyclopaedia and an evolution that dates back a few centuries. When they also have key individuals that really enjoy cricket and understand and appreciate the complexity and key features of the sport that make it accessible and exciting, you have the right ingredients for a really good video game interpretation.
TVG: Cricket like Rugby games have always been secondary to football games, so do you see this as more to do with the fan base or are there certain mechanics of football that work better or even the fact that there has been few Rugby and Cricket games and so competition may have slowed the evolution?
An interesting question. Football is obviously a more mass market sport, and would naturally generate more interest from developers and publishers and therefore result in a greater variety of games on the market. Whether that creates better variety and quality through evolution I wouldn?t want to comment, but there are clearly obvious differences between various football games on the market in terms of quality and playability even though they?ve had a great deal of time to evolve. I am a big fan of all the three sports in question and the core mechanics that define them are all pretty applicable to great fun gameplay if done well. The key for me is not whether the game has had enough time to evolve over numerous versions over a long period of time, but rather decent development times, a focused motivation to create a really good game, a high level of understanding of what makes the sport fun, and the skill of the development team. These factors are what really make the difference in the end.
TVG: How much interaction have you had with Brian Lara and other cricketers and what are the kinds of elements you would take from a player and adopt in the game?
When you design a cricket game that has a key headline license of the calibre of Brian Lara, it?s inevitable that the style of the player becomes integrated into the game. When you are batting as Brian Lara in the game, you will see his trademark style clearly demonstrated in the animations used. As a designer I always spend time talking to the experts to ensure that what goes into the game accurately captures key elements of the sport. Both Brian Lara and Ricky Ponting have imparted some invaluable insights into the sport that end up improving the overall quality of the game. The commentators we have used (including David Gower, Ian Bishop, and Jonathan Agnew) also give specialist information on the sport that has assisted me in refining the design of the game. Accurate stats supplied by Wisden and pitch and ball degradation discussions with former England all-rounder Dougie Brown at Warwickshire CC all play a part in producing a quality cricket game in the end.
TVG: Tell us about some of the modes and teams that will be on offer?
Brian Lara Cricket has a wide spectrum of game modes that will appeal to both the hardcore and part-time cricket fan. The game modes are loosely divided into Exhibition Matches, Tournaments, Challenges, Career Mode, and Practice Nets. The Exhibition Modes include One Day Internationals, Test Matches, and quickplay Double Wicket Matches. Both the ICC World Cup and Champion?s Trophy are included in the tournament section of the game, alongside Double Wicket Tournaments, World Tours, and more including fully customisable cups and leagues. The Challenge section includes Classic Matches, World XI and Classic XI Challenges, which all provide a different challenge from the more traditional tournament modes. These varied modes are also supplemented with a very in depth Career Mode and Nets Practice area and a vast number of unlocks and rewards for breaking records and hitting significant batting, bowling, fielding, and team milestones. All the top Test Match and One Day teams will feature, as well as custom built teams for each hemisphere, continent, and great retired players.
TVG: It is 5 years since the last Brian Lara so apart from better machines to play on, also to develop the game, are there any real changes in the format or presentation? If you had to offer one new innovation what would it be?
The whole game has been completely overhauled, with brand new design and use of technology. We have retained the most playable and accessible style of gameplay from the last Brian Lara game, but have built and refined the areas that were not so strong. A great amount of work has been done on increasing the number of shots and batting styles available to the user, as well as improving the bowling and fielding parts of the game. If I was to focus on one specific area of the game, then I would have to say that the overall gameplay (which encompasses batting, bowling, and fielding) has been massively improved in terms of fluidity, reality, excitement, and user involvement.
TVG: How important is physics and AI within the game and is this an area you may have focused specifically on? To add, within live cricket the mysteries of the pitch and the weather conditions and the way the ball spins and reacts is still a puzzle to players, so how do you add this unknown factor into the game - like the changing condition of the pitch ? and will this all be a part of the game?
Obviously in any sports game, physics and AI play a fundamental role in bringing the sport to life. The AI deals largely with key statistics that have been provided by Wisden. These include variables like ability to spin, seam, and swing the ball ? power rating for the batsman, and a whole host of important statistics. Different difficulty levels in the game allow the user to play the game in different ways where the stats have a more realistic or more arcade like impact on gameplay. The physics also play a major part in incorporating elements such as the amount of bounce off certain pitch types, the effect of the ball getting degraded and older ? allowing for increased swing and spin, and variable weather conditions that have an impact on the speed and the amount the ball moves around in the air. Again, these elements are highly customisable and have different impacts on gameplay depending on which elements are selected in the match settings screen and the difficulty the user selects. For example, the user can select from 8 different pitch types, 4 different ball types, varied levels of ball degradation, weather conditions, etc ? which will appeal to cricket purists. For the quickplay cricket fan, select Slog Mode and smash the ball to all corners of the park without having to worry about the customisable elements described above.
TVG: What are some of the grounds included and will they have the same kind of effect ? Indian pitches better for spin, whilst Australian good for fast bowlers and bounce?
Each area of the world will have different playing conditions ? e.g. most grounds in India will be dry and will take more spin, have a generally lower bounce, and a faster outfield. Pitches in Australia will display characteristics typical of the different climatic regions of that country. This is applicable to all the cricketing countries included in the game, producing different balances between bat and ball and variable gameplay as an intentional consequence. To be more specific, playing in England at a ground like The Oval will be different from playing at Newlands in Cape Town, South Africa. The outfields, pitch types, weather conditions, and cricket ball used (at least for test matches) will all be different and accurate to the individual venues in question.
TVG: Can you tell us about the basic controls to playing the game?
As a basic overview, I?ll give a quick breakdown of the controls used for batting, bowling and fielding. Starting with batting, the user has the facility to move his batsman around the crease while the bowler is running in, and then the direction pressed on the stick or pad defines the direction of the shot. The timing of the shot is defined by pressing a shot button within an appropriate window of opportunity. There are 4 basic shot types; normal attacking (where the intention is to hit the ball hard along the ground), lofted (hitting over fielders and big sixes), defensive (which also includes deflections for boundaries and quick singles), and evades (allowing the user to leave the ball alone or get out of the way of bouncers). You?ll see a whole range of different batting animations here where batsmen of different abilities will have different moves.
Bowling is somewhat different from the last Brian Lara game, but that?s an important improvement in my opinion. The bowler has the ability to bowl from different positions on the crease, allowing the user to change the basic angle of approach. This is done prior to starting the bowler run-up. Once the bowler starts running, the ?pitch point marker? is active. The user can move the pitch point around with the direction keys/controls. Once the bowler reaches a certain point in his run-up, the ?pitch point marker? pulses to indicate that it?s about to set. This occurs in tandem with a power bar rising that determines the relative speed of the ball. The user then has the ability to select what ball type they wish to bowl, and this varies depending upon what type of bowler has been selected. The system is really simple in that the direction that the ball moves off the pitch is very intuitive with ?Cross? being a straight or flat ball, ?Triangle? a slower ball, ?Square? moves the ball from right to left, and ?Circle? moving the ball left to right (using PS2 controls as an example). The basic principle remains the same for all bowler types with some subtle variations. You also have manual control over ball movement in the air (swing), which is on the triggers, and you can activate ?special deliveries? through good bowling which allow you to surprise the batsman with bouncers, yorkers, flippers, etc.
Fielding is pretty simple as most is done automatically. The manual elements of the fielding are a far cry from the crazy ?try and drive your fielder across the outfield? manual fielding that was in the last Brian Lara. The fielder will automatically run towards the ball, with running speed, reactions, and catching/stopping skill ratings having an influence on the player. Throwing the ball is a manual skill, where timing accuracy of the button press determines the trajectory and accuracy of the throw. This can be the difference between a quick single and a run-out ? and although simple, is pretty good fun.
TVG: To finish, one interesting fact about the game that you want our readers to know!
Ok ? difficult to pick one as there are so many ? but here goes.
The ?Special Deliveries? for a fast bowler are ?bouncer and yorker?. For those who are unfamiliar with what these are ? in short a ?bouncer? is a ball that bounces up towards the head of the batsman, and a ?yorker? is a ball that is bowled right at the foot of the batsman (usually at high speed). These are both surprise deliveries and are activated by consistent good bowling. Hitting a batsman with one of these fast and furious deliveries will result in the batsman losing confidence. Once his confidence is down ? he?s easier to get out. Intimidatory bowling may be frowned on in cricket, but it plays an important part in the sport ? as it does in Brian Lara International Cricket!
TVG would like to thank Justin Forrest for taking the time to talk at great lengths about Brian Lara International Cricket; scheduled for release during the summer on Playstation2, Xbox and PC, we?ll have a closer look soon.
ill be one of the first people to notice if anything is rong or inacurate about the way the game plays to real life and effects that swing has, ball conditions etc.
