What Rubbergenius has told us so far....

[Ste]

What Rubbergenius has told us so far....

I have compiled this list from various postings from Rubbergenius on this, the official Codemasters and other forums as a complete list of what Codemasters Community liaison Rubbergenius has told us about the game. Obviously this is just based on what Rubbergenius knows and is only to the best of his knowledge doing the public relations for the game. The game is also in development so things could change before the release of the game!

I will try and keep the list updated as Rubbergenius tells more about the game!

Facts of the Day

• 40-41 - Screenshots http://www.planetcricket.org/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=2
  
• 39 - Throwing the ball from a fielder will be controlled by a meter shown on-screen. Throw it within the zone and it'll go to the wicket keeper/bowler (whoever is protecting the stumps). Throw it when it's on the line and you'll hit the stumps (obviously the further you are away from the stumps, the smaller the line).
  
  Miss the zone in the meter altogether, and it'll be a misthrow or overthrow.
  
• 38 - While playing a game as the bowling/fielding side, you automatically field the ball to the most dangerous end of the wicket (the one that will most likely result in an out), rather than having a choice of wickets to aim for.
  
  That doesn't mean the CPU does everything for you though...
• 37 - One of the classic matches will be Don Bradman's farewell innings v England (OK, it's not the 'Gentlemen of England' but I'm sure you'll let us off) - you also have to get a 100.
  
• 36 - Bowling incorporates four different types of delivery, along with an extra two special deliveries.
  
• 35 - Their are nine variables you can choose when setting up a one-off match:
  
  Difficulty (measured by village green to test match)
  Match Length (in overs)
  Stadium (chose between all the stadiums in the game)
  Time (day, night, day/night)
  Weather (adds moisture the air, for example)
  Pitch Type (Aussie, northern hemisphere, dry Windies pitch etc - that kind of thing)
  Ball Degradation (how quick the ball ages)
  Ball Type (the usual balls included)
  Ball Condition (how old the ball is to start with)
  
• 34 - One of the classic matches isn't a match as such; you get an innings, as Sir Gary Sobers, to attempt to make six sixes in one over.
  
• 33 - There are 17 One Day International teams in the game.
  
• 32 - While Online play isn't supported in this version of the game, multiplayer can make up for it, with the Double Wicket match (covered last month) supporting up to 16 players at the same time (eight teams selected, two players per team).
  
• 31 - In the Practice Nets section you can select the batsman and/or bowler you want to be - so if you're facing a fearsome fast bowler in your next match, you can practice your batting against him before the game starts. Alternatively, you can also pit your bowling wits against the world-class batsman that you can select, who might hit you for six in next round and find his weak-points
  
• 30 - There's no streakers and no pigeons in the game sadly
  
• 29 - Each player is accurately rated in all batting skill areas ... which affects their timing for each shot type. So as you can see there are a multitude of factors that effectively determine differences between the varying levels of batsman skill whilst playing the game - and we'll have them in the game.
  
• 28 - Key to the difference between top quality, average, and tailend batsmen in Brian Lara 2005 is in the foot movement range associated with each batsman type and the range of shots available to them. The better batsmen have much better foot movement, allowing them to play shots that tailenders would struggle with, and they also have many more shots available to them (as in real life).
  
• 27 - Batting AND bowling can be controlled up until the 'last second' - just as in real life and just as it should be.
  
• 26 - The Customise menu of BLIC2005 will include a Player Editor, to edit existing players in the game.
  
• 25 - Bit of strange one to throw into the fire, just to let you debate this: You don't control your fielder when you're running for the ball. He'll do that automatically
  
• 24 - Brian Lara Cricket will have a plethora of well-known cricket sponsors - ad hoardings, teams, bats, balls and helmets will display that distinctive logo or touch to make the game experience even more immersive and encompassing.
  
• 23 - In BLIC2005 the commentators will be:
  
  David Gower
  Jonathan Agnew
  Bill Lawry
  Ian Bishop
  Tony Greig
  Jeff Thomson
  
  And from the game's designer: "Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 will be the first cricket game to ensure that batting, bowling, and fielding all have fun gameplay (rather than just the batting like most cricket games)."
  
• 22 - Certain key players will have fully artworked faces rather than all of them having generic features. You will be able to recognise them quite easily!
  
• 21 - In the classic match section you get to take over at a critical point and see if you can pull off the same cricketing feats as happened in real life.
  
• 20 - The 'Pavilion' section of the main game menu will contain all of your stats, the cricketing records (so you can try and bet them), and all of the unlocks and rewards available in the game
  
• 19 - In the Classic Match scenarios, part of the Challenge mode, we have initially gone for 10 classics.
  
• 18 - Talking about game modes, 'Challenge', as mentioned on Monday, will have two major parts - the classic matches, and the Beat the All-Stars section.
  
• 17 - There's six Game Modes: Friendly, Tournament, Challenge, Coaching, Custom, and The Pavillon. I've talked about Friendly already, so next I'll move on to talk about the Challenge mode.
  
• 16 - I'll let you know on the full team run down on Monday, but to get you guessing over the weekend, the Classic squad includes 20 members of which 6 are English, 5 Australian, 5 from the West Indies, 2 from South Africa and 1 each from India and Pakistan.
  
• 15 - Further to the classic section I was mentioning yesterday - in BLIC2005 you will also be able to replay classic matches, such as the first Ashes test from 1889.
  
• 14 - The classic squad will contain 20 players - the greatest names in cricket and you can play against them!
  
• 13 - There will be full use of the modern technology that's used in the cricket coverage on TV - more on this very soon, when I can say more - but I'm sure you can guess what innovations will be alongside Hawkeye to add to the 'TV-style' coverage.
  
• 12 - There will be a four-player multiplayer game available (2v2), with the chance for each gamer to join or leave the game at any point.
  
• 11 - There's over 800 players animations in the game, fully motion captured
  
• 10 - "To get you guessing, there will be multiple commentary teams featuring some of the biggest and recognisable names in cricket. Can't say who yet though!"
  
• 9- "Choose 'One Day International' in the 'Friendly' section of the game and you can change the default number of overs (50) to create a 20:20 match instead.
  
• 8- "Double Wicket cricket, included in the 'Friendly' section of the game, is a very accessible way to play BLIC2005 quickly, featuring two batsmen and two bowlers (so it works well as a two- or four-player game).
  
  You choose which players you would like (a batsman and a bowler, or two all-rounders, would be good - at least one player handy with a bat and one with a ball) and then the amount of overs playable and how many penalty runs any wickets cost.
  
  Then you play the game as usual. If the opposition get a wicket it just means that the batting side are docked runs (the penalty runs mentioned before).
  
  After the set number of overs, the side that was previously bowling comes in and they play their overs at bat. Best score, after the penalty runs have been taken off, wins."
  
• 7- "In the Friendly match option, you can play a One Day International, Test Match, or Double Wicket game. More info on Double Wicket to follow in tomorrow's Fact of the Day!"
  
• 6- "If you want to get your skills up to international standards, there are Practice nets to get in shape."
  
• 5- "There's over 800 players animations in the game, fully motion captured"
  
• 4- "Brian Lara International Cricket unlockables include a classic squad of 20 with the greatest names from cricket history - WG Grace included. "
  
• 3- "Adding to the televisual style of presentation, Brian Lara International Cricket will also utilise cutting-edge broadcast devices, including Hawk-Eye - fully licensed from its creators, The Television Corporation (http://www.hawkeyeinnovations.co.uk)."
  
• 2- "All round excellent gameplay: there's fully Intuitive batting, bowling and fielding in the game, and each is as important as each other."
  
• 1 - "There's eight different pitch types and even footmarks which change progressively; this can be used as a guide to put spin on the ball."
  

Bowling?

• "Talking with the producer of the game we're certainly trying to make the bowling as much of a pleasure to play as the batting..."
  
• "You'll notice the difference between the bowling speeds. Speedometer eh? We might have already though of that one"
  
• "swing is in there and is more noticeable with damp conditions."
  
• "We're trying to make bowling as important as batting - something that EA hasn't done IMO"
  
• "Some great special deliveries in there as well more detail to follow."
  
• "I believe reverse swing is in there - remember it being mentioned."
  
• " Bowling incorporates four different types of delivery, along with an extra two special deliveries."

Career mode?

• "It won't be a 'career' mode as such but a good progression through many modes - can't say too much at the moment but to progress and unlock some of the excellent additional content (and there is some beauties in there) it's a long and very well-thought out 'career' section."

Commentators?

• Will have some, "Can't say anything at the moment as to commentators, apart from, we'll have some"
• "doubt [Richie Benaud will] be in the game"
• "To get you guessing, there will be multiple commentary teams featuring some of the biggest and recognisable names in cricket. Can't say who yet though!"

Countries sold in?

• UK, Australia, NZ proberbly others as well
• Called "Ricky Ponting International Cricket" in Australia
• No NTSC version for PS2

Fielding

• Again, with fielding throwing the ball is an art in itself and makes the game a lot more realistic, especially when it comes to the fielding aspect of the game. It's not the boring part of a Cricket game any longer.
  
• "Throwing the ball from a fielder will be controlled by a meter shown on-screen. Throw it within the zone and it'll go to the wicket keeper/bowler (whoever is protecting the stumps). Throw it when it's on the line and you'll hit the stumps (obviously the further you are away from the stumps, the smaller the line).
  Miss the zone in the meter altogether, and it'll be a misthrow or overthrow."
  
• "While playing a game as the bowling/fielding side, you automatically field the ball to the most dangerous end of the wicket (the one that will most likely result in an out), rather than having a choice of wickets to aim for."
  

Game Development Progress

• "Brian Lara's Cricket has been in development for about eight or nine months now. We've got seven/eight months of development and testing left, if we want a late June 2005 release (which we do want!)."
  
• "The Alpha version [to be completed towards the end of the month] is just the mechanics, then we have to tart it up - put in cut scenes, the artwork etc, then we have to test it post-beta and get the AI correct.
  
  And for a release date of mid-June next year we have to submit it to Sony and Microsoft in early May. So in reality we've got little over five months to get from alpha to the finished product, which is a tight (but very do-able schedule).
  
  These time scales aren't exclusive to this game - virtually all console games have the same."

Game Modes

• "In the Friendly match option, you can play a One Day International, Test Match, or Double Wicket game."
• "Choose 'One Day International' in the 'Friendly' section of the game and you can change the default number of overs (50) to create a 20:20 match instead."
• "Rather than just yer easy, medium, hard for the opposition etc, we've made it sound more 'cricket' - so Village Green, County, Test (I think the terms are, could be slightly wrong on them) - it means exactly the same as easy, medium, hard."
• "Their are nine variables you can choose when setting up a one-off match:
  
  Difficulty (meausred by village green to test match)
  Match Length (in overs)
  Stadium (chose between all the stadiums in the game)
  Time (day, night, day/night)
  Weather (adds moisture the air, for example)
  Pitch Type (Aussie, northern hemisphere, dry Windies pitch etc - that kind of thing)
  Ball Degradation (how quick the ball ages)
  Ball Type (the usual balls included)
  Ball Condition (how old the ball is to start with)"
  

General Gameplay/Controls?

• "All round excellent gameplay: there's fully Intuitive batting, bowling and fielding in the game, and each is as important as each other."
  
• "[Intuitive] Means it's dead easy to master the controls. Simple really."
  More information will be released in the next month or so, after the press release (2nd December)
  
• "There's no combos in the game - they tend to be too hard to achieve. We've mapped the buttons well in my opinion."

Graphics/Animation

• "Seeing something as simple as 'caught and bowled' was sweet. It ran fantastically and the animations were great, really well-timed and smooth. It looked like the real thing."
  
• "From a graphical perspective, the crowds are in their seats, and the stadiums look remarkable - nigh-on perfect recreations (although I can't say which stadiums are in there just yet!)."

Hawkeye?

• "Adding to the televisual style of presentation, Brian Lara International Cricket will also utilise cutting-edge broadcast devices, including Hawk-Eye - fully licensed from its creators, The Television Corporation (http://www.hawkeyeinnovations.co.uk)."
  
• Believes will have LBW Decisions, Ball Speed, Swing and Deviation, Fielder Positions, bowler comparisons, statistics etc but not sure as yet.

Motion Capture?

• "Mo-cap can't be done by Brian Lara as sadly he was too busy. This may sound daft, but it was the Codemasters's BLIC game designer that was the model for the mo-cap. He played provincial cricket in South Africa and Zimbabwe and was quite successful there, so he was perfect choice for the motion capture (and, of course, it was cheaper that way )."

Online?

• Not online in first BLIC but possible in next version of the game, "we want the game to be right first, rather than spending time on online."

Pitches?

• "There's eight different pitch types and even footmarks which change progressively; this can be used as a guide to put spin on the ball."
  
• "based around environments - such as a pitch in Australia is different to one in England, which is different to one in the Windies etc."
  
• "photographing and recording pitches in each of the major countries to get pitch colours, bounce, grass etc all correct."
  
• "foot marks increase as the game goes on and obviously this will affect how the ball pitches in flight, so it could spin more, pitch, bounce low etc etc"
  
• "The footmarks on the pitch change progressively throughout each game, and can be used as a guide for spinning the ball."
  

Platforms?

• PC, PS2 and XBOX. " It's unlikely that we would have Mac compatibility for the game unfortunately"

Player Features?

• "the players will show facial expressions in the game, during cut scenes. They're be no talking of course (they will be shouts) as we'd have to translate the conversation into loads of languages. As for sweat or 'hair movement', I doubt it..."

Press Release?

• Will be made on Thursday 2nd December

Price?

• Normal Price for a game ("at a guess)

Release?

• "We're hoping for a June release, tie in with the Ashes' tests."

Screenshots?

• To be released probably in December

Sponsors?

• "We're arranging some at the moment but of curse we can't mention these at the moment as not all discussions
  are finished."
  
• "We'll have sponsors as standard I'd guess, across all platforms."

Teams?

• No Afghan side
• No Domestic teams
• USA should be included
• West Indies as a whole, no individual islands
• There are 17 One Day International teams in the game.

Weather?

• Effects on Batting and Bowling - "depending on whether the air is damp or not, and the time of day, whether the air is dewy or not"

Umpires?

• "Fake umpires I believe"

 

[sarwan]

hope fr 3 wi stadias.jamaica(sabina),t&t(qpo),barbados(kensington).

 

[rubbergenius]

Nice list - all the incriminating evidence in one place...

 

[barmyarmy]

Nice list - all the incriminating evidence in one place...

It's so we know when you've repeated a fact...