Review This game is like beer - tough at first but you enjoy it with time

[fanirama]

I skipped the last couple of Codies attempts because tbh they were sub-par and I was deriving far more joy from EA Cricket 07 and I got busy with other things.

Fast forward to 2010 and I finally decided to buy one more effort of theirs seeing how few cricket games are made. After finally getting someone (thehut.com who're now spamming me. lol ) to ship it to the good ol' USA, I was off and playing on my PS3.

I must say I went from excitement to a feeling of huh? to a feeling of dismay within the first few hours of gaming. But eventually, over time, I'm coming to appreciate the game more, although I still find EA Cricket 2007 to be my best game* of all, even with its cheesiness (* with several patches mind you ).

Coming to this game - here are some things I liked/disliked -

+ graphics are acceptable
+ game is tougher with no HUD
+ I like the action cam even though its a rip off of EA Cricket 07's cam
+ I like the stick so I can place the ball anywhere really with control on shot power, although it works better in theory many times
+ if you play in short bursts - 45min-1hr tops for me, its actually fun for that time
+ sometimes you feel like you have control of the shot
+ weather/lighting seems to be changing as I play and pitch wear tear seems more apparent although not sure if it has impact on game
+ playing nice flowing ground strokes feels rewarding
+ commentary is acceptable although sparse and devoid of life at times
+ one odi I played felt exciting as I gave chase but eventually lost due to ridiculous swing of the ball getting my players out by both fast and spin bowlers.
+ some plumb lbw's not given. LOL. "Human element".

Some negatives

- replays should be free cam like EA Cricket 07 with recording capability
- couldn't do sweeps or reverse sweeps
- couldn't do advance down the wicket shots. This is a must in any cricket game
- AI punishes my bowling even on easy
- batting control is a little touchy - you get edges easily
- no free play mode where you just bat in a net or in free stadium mode
- crowds look terrible
- ball contact sound isn't very appealing
- with action cam, you don't get a good feel of the depth of your shot i.e. you don't really understand how far its going from your view. Perhaps after you hit it, it should zoom out a bit and flatter
- I scored 50 with a player with only leg side shots, mostly lofted ones. WTF.
- cannot seem to play flick off the legs and other wristy shots or proper square cuts.
- wrong animations at times. AI hitting yorker for back foot six ?
- too short window to cancel run call and turn back
- dive doesn't actually dive

and here's the biggest drawback -
- all the individual pieces look good, but something seems missing. Its like the game has no soul. Its like a zombie game.

Overall, I would rate this a 7/10

Hopefully, with the World Cup next year, we will see few more Cricket games.

 

[alioz]

This game is like beer - tough at first but you enjoy it with time

That is becasue you are getting drunk You didnt even mention the online play. Thats where this game is the biggest let down.

 

[79cricket]

There is sweeps in ic2010 and they look ok unlike some other shots, no reverse sweeps yeah your right about that one. To go down the wicket just press r1 and l1 togetther dude. But yeah your right about the rest, its a good cricket game offline but there is much more to do. Lets hope some good news comes by ashes time or world cup.

 

[csnbharathi]

There is sweeps in ic2010 and they look ok unlike some other shots, no reverse sweeps yeah your right about that one. To go down the wicket just press r1 and l1 togetther dude. But yeah your right about the rest, its a good cricket game offline but there is much more to do. Lets hope some good news comes by ashes time or world cup.

Sweep shot works only when you aim towards square of the wicket or between sq. leg and mid wicket, not behind fine/sq leg, it usually settles with a weird pull shot... i think that is what he meant.

The "advance down the track" shot do exist in theory, but you cannot use it since the timing window is too early (for spinners included), rendering this shot useless. I assume, they did it to fix the slog fest

 

[fanirama]

Ah ! Thats how you do Advance Shot ( L1+L2 on PS3 ). Ok, so I take that negative back. I also did the tutorials for batting and its in there as well. Cool.
I could successfully do the Advance down the wicket shot several times although the window is quite narrow so you can do it better when your batsman is Confident or Fearless and bowler is Timid. Then it works quite well.

A few things I like about this game is that sixes are not that easy on Normal or Hard especially so its not a slogfest with 30 runs per over or something.

Online - this one is a joke. It says there's no games at all. Perhaps because its connecting to the US PSN. This sucks because its probably better to play against a human opponent instead of the preset AI.

 

[barmyarmy]

There's no-one to play as everyone has given up due to the disconnects. I'll probably try again when they do the Aussie release and hopefully a DRC update/patch.
No secret info beind that - just hoping...

 

[fanirama]

Hooray ! I managed to do proper sweeps as well. It looked elegant when I played it but sadly there's no replay so I couldn't see it again. I even tried an Advance down the wicket sweep and it actually worked. He took a step forward and swept back. Nice stuff.

Also, I hit 2 sixes in a row after building my Fearless meter and commentator said "lets look at it from another angle". I think he meant "from one of 2 angles". LOL.

BUT, the AI changed the field and banged the ball in short and I tried a diff shot and I got caught. Good stuff. It felt plausible that the opposing team would change something if I hit 2 sixes in a row and it did !

This game IS like beer - its an acquired taste and the more you take in, the more you enjoy it for what it is.

But I will say this - this is light beer. Not strong. Perhaps in 2011, we'll get strong proper beer to enjoy !

 

[jaraarrow]

Game

Yea the game is like beer,once you have had a few to many games you dont bother with it for a while,it also gives me a hangover.
Seriously this game is a disgrace,fancy releasing a game you cannot play online.:

 

[cooks1st100]

I don't recall any of the EA games being online, why Don't you just invite some friends round to your place and play it that way, you just might enjoy it then

 

[jaraarrow]

Ea

I don't recall any of the EA games being online, why Don't you just invite some friends round to your place and play it that way, you just might enjoy it then

Ea cricket didnt claim to support online play,whereas ic 2010 did,So in my mind codemasters have misleed the customer.I say again, its a dam disgrace.

 

[cooks1st100]

Each to their own I suppose, I didn't buy the game for online play therefore I am reasonably pleased with it. I do think it's out of order that staff were on here bigging it up before the release but have now mysteriously vanished into thin air! Has anyone attempted to contact codemasters at all and if so did they get a response?

 

[alioz]

Each to their own I suppose, I didn't buy the game for online play therefore I am reasonably pleased with it. I do think it's out of order that staff were on here bigging it up before the release but have now mysteriously vanished into thin air! Has anyone attempted to contact codemasters at all and if so did they get a response?

They will not show there faces here....You are so right, they came on this forum before the release and now they dont even bother.... SHAME ON YOU. Game is advertised in Australia for around $99.00. Who will pay that much for a game with no online?

 

[barmyarmy]

Each to their own I suppose, I didn't buy the game for online play therefore I am reasonably pleased with it. I do think it's out of order that staff were on here bigging it up before the release but have now mysteriously vanished into thin air! Has anyone attempted to contact codemasters at all and if so did they get a response?

They always seem to go quiet. EA used to do the same.
I'm still waiting on responses to my e-mails.

@alioz - they certainly are still visiting; just not posting.

 

[alioz]

@alioz - they certainly are still visiting; just not posting.

But how does that help us...I am sure they are aware of all the problems with this game as most of us have send emails to them as well. But being aware and doing something about it is two different things. They use this forum to advertise their product.But if the product is broken, they dont wana talk about it anymore. I would understand if the game itself was not good (graphic wise, animation wise etc)....as there are many games out there that are not worth anything.

But problem with this game is not how good or bad it is. Problem is that they advertise online play and yet we cant play online as when we hit 4 or 6, it disconnects. Its like you buy a car but you cant take it over the speed of 60kmh. But its advertised to go upto 300kmh. I sound like a broken record now.

 

[boycs]

I'm noticing this with a lot of games' companies. They communicate with the community while the game is developed then go silent after it's released.

It's as if we're being used so that, in their marketing campaign, when the game's released, they can say 'We developed this with the largest cricketing games community on the net'. Then, when we've served our purpose, we get ignored.