Batting
- I thought it was really good and fluent. I played a bit against angryangy and you really had to work for your runs. You couldn’t just go out and try and hit every ball for six, you had to take into account a number of factors, like swing (outswing, inswing) cut (off-cutters, leg-cutters.) And for spinners, doosra’s, off break’s, etc.
- I liked the fact you could place the ball pretty much where you wanted it to go. I was impressed when I played a sweep for 4 and it felt satisfying that you had played a good shot.
- I was also impressed that you really had to ‘time’ and ‘perfect’ your shots. Like for example in a match against angry, he bowled about 2 short balls which I tried to smack for six, but my timing was all wrong and therefore I ended up getting smacked twice in a row in the upper body. But he decided to go short again, so I gave myself a bit of room and to my delight hit him for six over point.
- The shots also look really good, especially when you play a good cover drive, it was just one of those things that felt really good. And the animations looked really promising aswell.
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Bowling
- A lot of it has already been mentioned by lazy chestnut and kamy, but I’d like to say that it was really promising. There were plenty of options to choose from the HUD. They were divided up into three sections. Swing, Cut and Reverse (obviously for pace bowlers.) I’m not to familiar with the Xbox 360, but I think if you hit down on one of the triggers it gives a bit of info about the bowler and some other factors, like when reverse swing will play apart (it was usually when the ball was about 75% worn, but it depends what game mode you play, ODI,T20 or a Test match.)
- As lazy chestnut mentioned the bounce sometimes did seem a bit “tennis bally”, I can recall one batsmen playing and missing when the ball was quite full but it went over the top of the stumps by a fair way, although that could have been where I was playing, so I may be incorrect on that one.
Fielding
Fielding was good, but I really sucked at it when a few catches presented (I think I only caught one for the whole night.) Enough has been said about it, but I did like it.
Other Points
Stadiums looked fantastic at amazingly detailed especially the MCG! The pitches looked very realistic, especially the cracking, wear and tear, etc. Also unfortunately didn’t get a chance to play an ODI or T20 under lights.
Menu’s were fantastic, especially choosing the “skin” and having the Australian colours and the Channel Nine opening theme, really great feature.
Finishing Points
Wish I had the chance to play it for a bit longer, because really it was just fantastic once you started playing it. Also it was good to see another dimension and all the effort that the guys at Transmission had been putting into this game. It is so much better than the 05 & 07 versions, just like to thank Heath and Rob again for the oppourtunity and explaining a ████ load throughout the night!
EDIT: *Angry and I played on the same team against the AI in a test match, they were going at about 10 an over on hard difficulty. Don't worry thought we were both spraying the ball all over the place and they punished us, you basically really have to bowl well and try to get their confidence down and attack and try and take wickets.
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