Review: Playtest Review/Preview(Review Links, Updated in First Post)

[sami ullah khan]

^Thats too bad. Cricket in Asia is so big. I Cant believe they won't release an NTSC-J or region free version.

[surendar]

Hats off to the people who have gone and cooperated well to Codies invitation! And like reviewers mentioned in their posts, lot of thanks to the Codies for giving such a golden opportunity for PC members. It's really nice.

After reading the reviews, the games is certainly looking sweet and exciting. Though there may be some negatives, but remember there are lots of positives. This inturn imply, the game is on right track for the future versions. I am definitely buying this game since this sounds to have lot of positives from the previous versions. Inparticular, when lazy_chestnut had mentioned some features as awesome, definitely there is something awesome in it!

One point which keeps bugging my mind is the speed of the bowlers. The reviewers have said that Harmison was 90ish and Anderson/Broad & others were 75ish. Now my worries are, since they have England/Aussies as licenced ones, we can expect the bowlers speed to be fixed for those. But what about other non-licenced nations like India, SA, Pakistan? It would be annoying to have Ishant, Zaheer, Gul and Steyn bowling 70 mph.

Hopefully they normalize the speed limits for the faster bowlers. Eagerly waiting for the demo now.

[coolz_hari]

Looks to be a lot more promising game. If any reviewer online please answer about bowling actions.
Thank you

[ajdude]

Hey, two quick questions;

1. For the Wii version, were the shots pre-animated (for example, Wii Sports Tennis), or more to do with actual motion (ex. Wii Sports baseball)?

2. More technical; any idea if the PC version will have the Starforce protection this time around? Last time I installed RP05, Vista didn't like it and wouldn't start up until I deleted 5 or 6 files in system32/drivers to do with SF.

[CaptainOZ]

Originally Posted by dhaliwalmanvir

believe it or not, but i can tell u guys one thing. u all gonna love this game for a week but after that there will be millions of complaints about the game.

On what basis do you make that claim? None, because you don't have one.

[dhaliwalmanvir]

we will discuss this after its release. Then you will know about all my basis for these claims....

[kamy100]

Originally Posted by coolz_hari

Looks to be a lot more promising game. If any reviewer online please answer about bowling actions.
Thank you

Bowling actions were ok, nothing earth shattering but the run up and the delivery action was better than BLIC 07, it was something that I wasn't really concentrating on but from memory I can remember thinking there were a variety of actions. I think Cymro was playing as Sri Lanka on the PS3 so he may be able to talk about people like Malinga's bowling action.

I have a load more notes that I made about various other things but just at work so will try and type some of that stuff up this evening. I had to leave at 4pm but I think the rest of the guys stayed for a bit longer so may have done a proper QA with James Firth and after I left Lazy (he was playing against me all the time) may have played against the AI.

Thanks to PC for giving me the opportunity to go down there and am sure that the guys going to play it Melbourne tonight will have a positive experience as well.

[saladguy]

Any news on the 'Edit Mode'?

[Hitterman]

It was really a nice review Kamran, Tom. I would like to ask few questions.

♦ How were the tail-enders playing against the AI? Were they playing exactly like the top order or middle order batsman or there was a change in their batting style as tail-enders can't bat properly?

♦ In the T20 Mode, did you see any AI batman going for a big shot on the free hit ball or they were simple playing a defensive stroke or cutting the ball?

♦ You both mentioned that it is a way better than BLIC, was it better than EA's C07 too?

♦ Once Jamie told that crowds won't be dull or something like that. They will be moving and from time to time there will be some changes in the crowds of the stadium?

I know I have asked too many questions. Please take your time to answer these. I am not in a hurry

Thanks!

[lazy_chesnut]

Just picking up on a few points asked about.

The lack of NSTC XBox 360 version is probably nothing to do with Codemasters/Transmission and more to do with Microsoft. I may be wrong but it seems that the developers/publisher are in a constant struggle with both MS and Sony to get things through and out to the public. This includes things like screenshots, demos, etc. so you have to be patient with these things.

Secondly, the Wii version is not as fully-featured as the next-gen versions. The graphics are not as good (due to the available hardware) and it does seem to lean more towards slogging the ball about and having a laugh. Kamy mentioned that we're not supposed to mention much about the Wii version. Not sure where he got that idea from but I'm not going to risk it until I hear otherwise from CM.

Bowling actions are definitely different for different players, now I think about it. Like I said though, you spend most time looking at the 'goodness bar' (does that thing have an actual name?!) when bowling rather than the bowler.

As this thread has got absolutely hugely bloated already, I will be starting a separate thread listing all the bad points that I can think of from yesterday. This game is not without its issues, and the developers and publisher are well aware of them. However, these tend to be limited to smaller things like the WK taking the ball with one hand, diving around behind the stumps a bit much to spinners, etc. but to be honest, it doesn't affect the gameplay, but just looks a little silly in the replays. This could most likely be fixed by adding extra animations. It's just a shame that most of the animations came from the BLIC 2007 mo-cap, and clearly during that session there were far too many people who don't know much about cricket directing the 'actors'.

Basically, they have got a lot right in this game. If you consider that they re-wrote almost everything (I think the batting AI mechanism is from 2007, as is the reaction of the ball off the stumps, and I think that's about it) then they have done a good job to get where they have. In Jamie they have got a producer who knows a good amount about cricket, but also has good ideas about implementing certain features into the game, and keeping them easy to pick up, but with extra 'layers' of detail behind. In Transmission they have a team of people who clearly know a LOT more about cricket than the Codies in-house team did for 2007 (they're Australian, of course they know about cricket!) and they seem to have built up a solid code base.

An example of this solid code base is the backup up of fielders when going for run-outs, etc. Sometimes, if you go for a throw at the non-striker's end the bowler or another fielder won't be able to get to the stumps in time, so there is no-one right by the wickets. However, fielders seem to back up quite well when they can which is good. What really surprised me on one ball though, was when the ball was hit to long off, the batsmen ran, and the bowler couldn't get back to the stumps in time for the run-out attempt, but could get to the ball about 4 yards after it had passed the stumps, so ran there to intercept it, taking the ball on the run. This proves that it's not just code which says "bowler, you go and stand by your stumps as soon as you can, fielder you do some backing up". It seems to say "bowler or fielder or whoever, the ball has been thrown at the bowler's end and you need to stop it. Do your best." This may have just been a fluke or a 'glitch' but it looked really good.

Right, am off to work now - got a 4 hour round trip to the office and back for an installation and demo - but will post my negative points in another thread, and also mention some more stuff about the fielding.

[Skater]

Sounds better than I expected. Can I just ask:

Do the animations look as rushed and jagged as they did in the videos we have seen?

The controls you talk about sound confusing to me - are they actually simple to get used to?

[coolz_hari]

Originally Posted by kamy100

Bowling actions were ok, nothing earth shattering but the run up and the delivery action was better than BLIC 07, it was something that I wasn't really concentrating on but from memory I can remember thinking there were a variety of actions. I think Cymro was playing as Sri Lanka on the PS3 so he may be able to talk about people like Malinga's bowling action.

I have a load more notes that I made about various other things but just at work so will try and type some of that stuff up this evening. I had to leave at 4pm but I think the rest of the guys stayed for a bit longer so may have done a proper QA with James Firth and after I left Lazy (he was playing against me all the time) may have played against the AI.

Thanks to PC for giving me the opportunity to go down there and am sure that the guys going to play it Melbourne tonight will have a positive experience as well.

Thanks for answering my question. I am buying this game

[Allrounder18]

Did any one get their hands on the edit mode? how many skill types there are in the game?

How easy is to control the "Goodness bar"? and is there any possibility to patch it up to make it more hard for hardcore players?

[Hitterman]

After reading this, I am 100% agree with the claim by Transmission Games and Jamie that they have really done a hard work and its a lot better than BLIC.

Just looking forward to the reviews from Colin, Ste and Matt, Stevo and Dean.

[Gilly Fan]

According to another thread, Colin didn't go.

Matt, Stevo and Dean don't go until tomorrow night.