I have played both Cricket 2005 and Brian Lara 2005 on PS2 for more than a month now and let me complement EA by saying that I have found Cricket 2005 to be a much better and more realistic game. Even though it takes quite a while to get hang of the game, especially batting, it's a must-have for any genuine cricket fan. I found Brian lara 2005 too arcadey and easy. However there are still a plenty of things that need to be improved in EA Cricket 2005 and here's my list :-
1. Some of the LBWs given during the game are plain not out... especially when the ball pitches outside leg.
2. Batsmen take ages to get back in case you cancel a run... in fact I have never made it safely after canceling a run. Maybe it shouldn't take such a long time for the batsman to return back to the crease... I have been playing the game for 4 weeks now and I still average 3 run-outs an innings!
3. Reduced file-save size. Currently a saved game takes a lot of memory... this is simply too much! Brian Lara 2005 only takes up 150 KB or so to save the game.
4. Batsman should be able to place the ball anywhere in a 360 degree arc. E.g. by using the analog controller on PS2's dualshock2 pad, a player should be able to guide the ball in the gaps, thus evading the fielders. Currently, a batsman can only hit any given shot in a pre-determined path. For example, a cover drive only has 2-3 paths to travel to the boundary and if those gaps are plugged by fielders, u can't find the gaps and get a boundary. In Brian lara 2005, by using the analog controller u can place the ball in a 360 degree arc and thus you have more control over shot placement and thus more chances of evading a fielder. Maybe you should look at Brian Lara 2005 for the same. Maybe there should be an attribute like 'Ability to find gap' for batsmen and better batsmen like Tendulkar and Lara should find it much easier to evade fielders as compared to tailenders.
5. Confidence meter simply takes too long to be filled up. Maybe the confience meter can be filled up at different rates for different batsmen - the better a batsman, quicker it should fill. And maybe the meter is partly filled up depending on how good a batsman is - it could be filled up to a high level for a batsman like Lara or Tendulkar and at a lower level for a player like Collingwood.
6. Too many run outs in the game... this aspect needs to be worked on.
7. Some gameplay glitches need to be fixed. For example a batsman usually edges a ball when on driving a full toss on leg stump to the wicket keeper (especially against spinners)! This never happens in a real match. There are other glitches as well and will post them as I remember them.
8. Fielding and animation should be improved. Brian lara 2005 is much better in this respect. The only aspect where Crkt 2K5 is better is in player similarities but in animation a lot of improvement is required. Sometimes fielders appear to moonwalk and animation of fielders throwing the ball without winding up their arms is plain weird!
9. I can't play against myself in Crkt 2005. For example I bat first in a odi and after the 1st innings I save my match. When I load the saved game I can't change my team to bat and chase the target. I can do this in BL 2K5. I wud love this feature to be included in Crkt 2K5 coz after sometime, when u have mastered the game, u can still play the game against yourself. Unfortunately can't do so now. I should be able to save a match and choose any side (batting or fielding) when I load the game.
10. Timing in the nets is not the same as actual gameplay. Maybe the nets need to reflect the timing in the real match.
11. Commentary is simply pathetic! Commentators are generally wrong about most of the things - the direction in which shot was played, the no. of balls it took to reach a milestone (50 or 100) and other stats.
12. Run rates and reqd run rates are not calculated accurately.
13. When a team wins a match while chasing, the commentator announces that the chasing team won by 1 run. This should be corrected to reflect the number of wkts by which the chasing team wins.
14. The game is a bit too slow as compared to Brian Lara 2005. It takes a longer time to finish a 50 over odi in Crkt 2005 as compared to Brian Lara 2005. Maybe you can speed up things a bit.
15. Occasionally the controller doesn't respond at all - sometimes when you want to cancel a run, the game doesn't respond to the button press for a while. Same thing happens sometimes while taking leg byes... the batsmen refuse to run even though you press the 'Run' button.
16. Batsmen can't take a run when bowlers appeal... this costs plenty of runs and is unrealistic.
17. 'Generate Innings' feature doesn't generate a reasonable score in tests. Most of the times, for a team like Aus the score is between 200 and 300 which is not realistic at all - I found these results when conditions were ideal for batting on 'normal' pitch and on a 'sunny' and 'warm' day.
18. AI shouldn't choose back or front shots on 'Easy' mode for you. The only difference between 'Easy' and other modes should be that the timing should be easier but you should be able to choose which shots you want to play (back foot or front foot). This in fact creates a lot of confusion and thus I moved to 'Medium' mode and am sure 'Easy' mode is of no use because of this 'auto-shot-select' feature of the game. Please note that gamers want to judge line and length for themselves and don't require too much of spoon feeding.
19. Some of the shots are way too tough to time like 'Hook', 'Square Drive', 'Square Cut' and 'Glide to 3rd man'. Trust me, I have tried to successfully play these shots but have simply failed! I agree that some shots shouldn't be too easy but surely pulling a long-hop off a spinner or a medium pacer shouldn't be too tough for most batsmen. Similarly, shots on the off side are way too difficult to time, even for a good batsman, and most of the times gamers rely on 1 or 2 shots to get runs. In fact I get 99% of my runs on the leg side playing on drive, glance or sweep. I don't use any othet shot at all and maybe you can look at this feature a bit.
20. The help book or tutorial should have some hints on timing of a shot. Maybe something like this will do... For on-drive, press direction button (right and down for a right handed batsman) and 'X' just before the ball hits the pitch. Most of the times I had to rely on fellow posters to tell me the exact timing of a shot as Nets are simply no help at all. This way people don't have to go to various forums instead of playing the game
I hope somebody at EA reads this post and incorporate a few things from the list.
