EA Cricket 2005

[Nick]

Yep, I'm tampering with my balls this weekend....



First impressions are that its the usual highly polished EA sports sim which seems to be a formulaic thing with them now... the front end feels likes any other EA sports game, which is good for being familiar to navigate but does make it feel a tad generic. They've licensed the voice talents of Richie Benaud and Jim Maxwell, so it feels like a televised match all the time, though it has to be said that the commentary falls foul of the usual pitfalls of having a limited repetoire of phrases and sometimes Richie either pre-empts the result of a hit or just gets it plain wrong...



I'm not far enough in to make any solid judgements yet but my gut feeling is of an accomplished, if generic feeling, cricket sim...

Oh, and batting is a bloody devil to hit anything... but at least a ball in the knackers doesn't hurt as much as it does in real life...

[jonneymendoza]

i played this game down hmv in selfridges and its a cool game atcualy, im not into cricket at all but like this game!! maybe cuz i admire all types of sprts games that some i dont even watch or follow at all!!

for example nfl games are sooooooo coool. i remember playing one in dreamcast that got me hooked for a while. good times

[speedy_s]

liking the game!!! good graphics
s better then the brain lara cricket ?

[alexander]

I need to decide between this and Brian Lara Cricket. Any suggestions?

[MD]

wait for the full review

m@

[Nick]

Depending on home commitments (ie, how much the missus ropes me into) the full review will be up on Monday.

[alexander]

I bought it as an impulse buy in the late afternoon.

I've played it and it is absolutely impossible, the manual tells you a bit but it isn't substantional enough.

The timing is impossible and you can't score any runs, I scored 2 all out and then they hit a 6 of my first ball.

[Firebar]

I can hazard a guess that Brian Lara will be quite a bit better.

[luke313]

There is a demo of the latest Brian Lara out - though for the 'commentary' version it is 900mb. Non-commentary is about 300mb.

It's pretty good, though you can't really tell what the whole game is like after a 6 over match...

[YorkieBen]

Ive got this, its good but batting is a pain in the arse, timing is very difficult indeed.

A word of warning - DO NOT BUY THE PS2 version - I bought it first and the loading times were insane, over a minute between each over and several seconds between each ball.

the pc version doesnt have the problem of bad loading times

[Nick]

My review goes live tomorrow... and I'll smugly sit back and say that everything you're talking about now has been well and truly flagged up. I'm on the X-Box version, btw.

[Nick]

For those that are interested... the review is up on HEXUS.gaming now... you can't miss it!

[alexander]

I agree with that, but on the PC version you can move your feet for as long as you want.

I find the fielders actually retarded when it comes to catching, they drop maybe 1/3 sitters which would never happen usually.


I think overall, it is a terrible game, and yes I do play cricket and like it so it isn't the sport.

[JimNastics]

Well I've played the EA and Brian Lara demos to death, and my vote goes to Brian Lara - they've definitely come up trumps with this one and I think have taken the cricket game on a step, whereas EA just feels like the same old standard cricket game with a bit of polish. The BL games just plays a lot better, more natural, better animations, better control system. The graphics might not be as nice, but it's the gameplay that counts. Only thing that bugs me a bit is that they seem to have used Lara and Chanderpaul for motion capture animation duties, both of whom have very distinctive techniques, so all the batsmen look like Lara or Chanderpaul whenever they play a shot!! Most noticeable is the Lara pull (very classy Caribbean, front foot in the air, wristy flick off the hip) and Chanderpaul's back foot, flat-footed on/off drive (which I hate).