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

[CaptainOZ]

Originally Posted by lazy_chesnut

It might probably is but it's hard to tell as I've only played it for a couple of hours, and only about half an hour against the AI. There are a lot of things which are definitely better.

If you think about BLC99 was missing a lot of stuff. Think about what you can do now that you couldn't in BLC99:
- swing the ball with pace bowlers
- do your own catching
- do your own throwing
- set your own fields
- choose to play front- and back-foot shots
- defend the ball in a certain direction
- notice bowler and batsman confidence and stamina


There are probably more. The reason BLC99 is so highly regarded is that it was tremendously well balanced. What I mean by that is, the competition between bat and ball was very fair and scores and run rates seemed to be about right in both ODI and Test matches.

Also, a lot of the core things were just 'right', like the bounce of the ball, the speed of the ball, the amount of spin, and even the way the various environmental factors would affect the gameplay. I remember that a green pitch was always a real struggle to bat on, and felt genuinely difficult, and batting on hard pitches required faster reactions but was ultimately easier to score on.

Once a new game gets close to getting these core things right, it will be absolutely miles ahead of BLC99.

Being able to defend the ball in certain directions is pretty huge. It's such an integral part of cricket - pushing the ball into the gap or dropping it short of cover and running through for the quick single. Not only does it keep the scoreboard ticking over, it's a handy way to get off the mark!

[King Cricket]

One thing I would like to know, in all the EA cricket games, you could pause a match and watch the replay of the previous delivery anytime, is this the same in AC09?

[chaitanyaraghav]

@Lazy
was the ball bouncing high on all kinds of pitches or was the bounce related to that specific kind of pitch?

[hMarka]

anyone know when the aussie reviews can be expected? tonight in melbourne time? or tomorrow?

[isrararrafi]

i just have one question. if i remember correctly, in BLIC 07 u can come down the ground to hit the ball only if your confidence is full (i might be wrong, because i played it a long time ago. if i am wrong, ignore this question) Are we allowed to come down the pitch now anytime we want?

[chaitanyaraghav]

Originally Posted by isrararrafi

i just have one question. if i remember correctly, in BLIC 07 u can come down the ground to hit the ball only if your confidence is full (i might be wrong, because i played it a long time ago. if i am wrong, ignore this question) Are we allowed to come down the pitch now anytime we want?

Anyone please answer this!

[stevo1]

Originally Posted by Hmarkas

anyone know when the aussie reviews can be expected? tonight in melbourne time? or tomorrow?

I'm in the process of writing something now as I finished school a little earlier today. I have a couple of other things to do aswell, so I may be able to post something up by tonight or in an hour or so. I'm sure Matt, Dean and angry might have something aswell later on.

[sami ullah khan]

Waiting for your two cents stevo.
Please do confirm if there is a classic matches or scenario mode in Ashes cricket. And also mention your judgement of AI or lack of it.

[stevo1]

Batting

- I thought it was really good and fluent. I played a bit against angryangy and you really had to work for your runs. You couldn’t just go out and try and hit every ball for six, you had to take into account a number of factors, like swing (outswing, inswing) cut (off-cutters, leg-cutters.) And for spinners, doosra’s, off break’s, etc.

- I liked the fact you could place the ball pretty much where you wanted it to go. I was impressed when I played a sweep for 4 and it felt satisfying that you had played a good shot.

- I was also impressed that you really had to ‘time’ and ‘perfect’ your shots. Like for example in a match against angry, he bowled about 2 short balls which I tried to smack for six, but my timing was all wrong and therefore I ended up getting smacked twice in a row in the upper body. But he decided to go short again, so I gave myself a bit of room and to my delight hit him for six over point.

- The shots also look really good, especially when you play a good cover drive, it was just one of those things that felt really good. And the animations looked really promising aswell.

-


Bowling

- A lot of it has already been mentioned by lazy chestnut and kamy, but I’d like to say that it was really promising. There were plenty of options to choose from the HUD. They were divided up into three sections. Swing, Cut and Reverse (obviously for pace bowlers.) I’m not to familiar with the Xbox 360, but I think if you hit down on one of the triggers it gives a bit of info about the bowler and some other factors, like when reverse swing will play apart (it was usually when the ball was about 75% worn, but it depends what game mode you play, ODI,T20 or a Test match.)

- As lazy chestnut mentioned the bounce sometimes did seem a bit “tennis bally”, I can recall one batsmen playing and missing when the ball was quite full but it went over the top of the stumps by a fair way, although that could have been where I was playing, so I may be incorrect on that one.

Fielding

Fielding was good, but I really sucked at it when a few catches presented (I think I only caught one for the whole night.) Enough has been said about it, but I did like it.

Other Points

Stadiums looked fantastic at amazingly detailed especially the MCG! The pitches looked very realistic, especially the cracking, wear and tear, etc. Also unfortunately didn’t get a chance to play an ODI or T20 under lights.

Menu’s were fantastic, especially choosing the “skin” and having the Australian colours and the Channel Nine opening theme, really great feature.

Finishing Points

Wish I had the chance to play it for a bit longer, because really it was just fantastic once you started playing it. Also it was good to see another dimension and all the effort that the guys at Transmission had been putting into this game. It is so much better than the 05 & 07 versions, just like to thank Heath and Rob again for the oppourtunity and explaining a ████ load throughout the night!

EDIT: *Angry and I played on the same team against the AI in a test match, they were going at about 10 an over on hard difficulty. Don't worry thought we were both spraying the ball all over the place and they punished us, you basically really have to bowl well and try to get their confidence down and attack and try and take wickets.

[chaitanyaraghav]

good one there! could you clarify the question of dancing down the wicket please?

[stevo1]

Originally Posted by chaitanyaraghav

good one there! could you clarify the question of dancing down the wicket please?

LOL! I wish I could but I actually didn't really know how to advance down the wicket and my lack of xbox 360 skills didn't help much either (I wasn't very good at the game .)

[hMarka]

is there an online ranking system?

[chaitanyaraghav]

Originally Posted by stevo1

LOL! I wish I could but I actually didn't really know how to advance down the wicket and my lack of xbox 360 skills didn't help much either (I wasn't very good at the game .)

haha!
maybe WHM will be able to answer it!

[stevo1]

Originally Posted by Hmarkas

is there an online ranking system?

Don't know, stop asking questions.

[max_dillon2007]

Nice review stevo, i hope we get some news bout deom or release date this week.