Timeless Tests

[LilleeWilleyDilley]

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[weetabixharry]

I wouldn't mind having a crack at this. I usually stick to cricket management games, rather than these fancy high-tech cricket simulators, but I think this could be interesting.

I don't fancy my chances at changing the CPU batsman behaviour, but I reckon changing the number of overs per day should be fairly doable with a disassembler and some poking around.

I haven't played GGWCC, but I did play (a lot) the later version of Brian Lara Cricket (~1998) on Playstation and, eventually, PC. I recall selling information for £0.99 on eBay about how to get BLC working under Windows XP! I made about 3 quid - a fortune!

I couldn't find a DOS version of GGWCC for download, but Allan Border's Cricket is apparently available as free abandonware (here). Did you download GGWCC, or are you using original installation media?

 

[weetabixharry]

Also, if you fancy a trip back in time, the game developer's website still exists: http://www.audiogenic.com/

 

[LilleeWilleyDilley]

Also, if you fancy a trip back in time, the game developer's website still exists: http://www.audiogenic.com/

I think I once emailed them a few years ago. They said they don't know how to increase overs per day in test matches and they don't know how to enhance the difficulty of CPU batsmen. They said I need to experiment with a hex editor, as that is what they would also have to do.

 

[LilleeWilleyDilley]

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I wouldn't mind having a crack at this. I usually stick to cricket management games, rather than these fancy high-tech cricket simulators, but I think this could be interesting.

I don't fancy my chances at changing the CPU batsman behaviour, but I reckon changing the number of overs per day should be fairly doable with a disassembler and some poking around.

I haven't played GGWCC, but I did play (a lot) the later version of Brian Lara Cricket (~1998) on Playstation and, eventually, PC. I recall selling information for £0.99 on eBay about how to get BLC working under Windows XP! I made about 3 quid - a fortune!

I couldn't find a DOS version of GGWCC for download, but Allan Border's Cricket is apparently available as free abandonware (here). Did you download GGWCC, or are you using original installation media?

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I wouldn't mind having a crack at this. I usually stick to cricket management games, rather than these fancy high-tech cricket simulators, but I think this could be interesting.

I don't fancy my chances at changing the CPU batsman behaviour, but I reckon changing the number of overs per day should be fairly doable with a disassembler and some poking around.

I haven't played GGWCC, but I did play (a lot) the later version of Brian Lara Cricket (~1998) on Playstation and, eventually, PC. I recall selling information for £0.99 on eBay about how to get BLC working under Windows XP! I made about 3 quid - a fortune!

I couldn't find a DOS version of GGWCC for download, but Allan Border's Cricket is apparently available as free abandonware (here). Did you download GGWCC, or are you using original installation media?

I downloaded the abandonware version.

I want to enhance the difficulty of CPU batsmen in this game because I almost always bowl them out for unrealistic scores...

I also don't think it's possible as a batsman to run for 3 runs in this game - Have you ever seen this happen?

In all fairness, I just want a cricket game where everything is authentic. Most if not all cricket video games have some kind of drawback, whether it's the inability of the bowlers to bowl the occasional no-ball, or the inability of the batsmen to score at realistic run-rates, or the inability of test matches to last longer than 3 days, etc. etc. I wish there was a simple cricket game that didn't have any drawback.

So far Im thinking EA Cricket 2004 for the PC comes closest to being authentic, but only if you can fully and correctly patch the game up. But just like all cricket games since 2004, it will probably take weeks to research and accurately change ALL the player attributes in the player editor to the proper ones.

 

[weetabixharry]

In all fairness, I just want a cricket game where everything is authentic. Most if not all cricket video games have some kind of drawback

It really depends what you mean by authentic. If it were totally authentic, then you'd have to devote your life to playing the game and only the most talented and dedicated would be able to compete at the professional level. I don't think that would be much fun for the casual idiot like me. But I get your point - it would be nice if there weren't really glaring, basic errors in these games.

If you want statistical accuracy, then the best I know of is the Cricket Captain series, as those games are based on a vast database of historical statistics (and a carefully refined match engine). You'll still see plenty of people complaining that it's unrealistic. The same people would probably be furious if, for example, Ben Stokes smashed a ridiculously unrealistic 135* to win an Ashes test from a totally lost position, after blocking out his first 73 balls. (My point being that that actually did happen and it's important that unexpected things do happen in sport).

One thing I can say for sure is that a game designed in 1993 and required to fit on a ~1MB floppy disk will be incredibly limited in what it can offer. It is frankly miraculous that it can mimic anything even vaguely resembling cricket, given those constraints. Cricket games are also a niche market, so development budgets are always very small (hence the glaring, basic errors you mentioned). It would be interesting to see what a cricket game could be made to do on a $1 billion budget, but sadly I don't think we'll ever find out.

 

[LilleeWilleyDilley]

It really depends what you mean by authentic. If it were totally authentic, then you'd have to devote your life to playing the game and only the most talented and dedicated would be able to compete at the professional level. I don't think that would be much fun for the casual idiot like me. But I get your point - it would be nice if there weren't really glaring, basic errors in these games.

If you want statistical accuracy, then the best I know of is the Cricket Captain series, as those games are based on a vast database of historical statistics (and a carefully refined match engine). You'll still see plenty of people complaining that it's unrealistic. The same people would probably be furious if, for example, Ben Stokes smashed a ridiculously unrealistic 135* to win an Ashes test from a totally lost position, after blocking out his first 73 balls. (My point being that that actually did happen and it's important that unexpected things do happen in sport).

One thing I can say for sure is that a game designed in 1993 and required to fit on a ~1MB floppy disk will be incredibly limited in what it can offer. It is frankly miraculous that it can mimic anything even vaguely resembling cricket, given those constraints. Cricket games are also a niche market, so development budgets are always very small (hence the glaring, basic errors you mentioned). It would be interesting to see what a cricket game could be made to do on a $1 billion budget, but sadly I don't think we'll ever find out.

By authentic I mean a cricket game where anything we have seen in a real cricket match, is possible, or at least where there is enough variety to prevent the same things happening again and again. For example, in a 50-over game, you want the batting team to, on average, score between 250 and 300 runs, as in real life, and only very, very occasionally score around the 400 mark, and only very, very occasionally get less than the 200 mark - this is definitely possible on EA Cricket 2004 under certain patched conditions... You certainly don't want to continuously see the batting team get around 200 to 250 in a 50-over game ALL the time, as that is not variety.

In the few years I played test matches on Brian Lara 99 for the PS1, I definitely remember seeing one or 2 batsmen play a Ben Stokes-like innings. (Well almost) Scenarios like that were definitely possible even in BL 99, otherwise it would have been pointless for the game to have a classic match option to try and emulate Ian Botham's match-winning hundred he made against Aus in Leeds in 1981, for example.

However, I think I'll dedicate the rest of this year to patching, editing and playing EA Cricket 2004, which will be a big commitment, but it appears to have a lot of allround "authentic potential"

While some cricket games do what others can't, every single cricket game has it's own unique disadvantages when you think about it. One could actually write a whole article on this.

GGWCC 1993 (and in 1994 for DOS) was definitely the first cricket game that was actually worth playing. For a game that was only just above 1mb, you could create an unlimited number of teams and save an unlimited number of matches, without taking too much space at all on your HDD.

I think game developers should stop putting so much emphasis on graphics and put more emphasis on realism, especially in sports games and in sports as intricate as cricket. Graphics typically account for most of the data in a game. Think how authentic a cricket game could be if it was around 10 or 15 GB (excluding saves) and the emphasis was not placed too much on the graphics but rather on tweaks and realism... Pretty authentic, I'd say.

 

[weetabixharry]

I'm giving up on this as I can't make the matches last long enough to make any kind of progress reverse-engineering the game. I can't find the keyboard controls anywhere online and I've been bowled out for 4, 0 and 0. The 4 was an immaculate cover drive by batting legend Angus Fraser!

 

[LilleeWilleyDilley]

I'm giving up on this as I can't make the matches last long enough to make any kind of progress reverse-engineering the game. I can't find the keyboard controls anywhere online and I've been bowled out for 4, 0 and 0. The 4 was an immaculate cover drive by batting legend Angus Fraser!

Are you referring to the game GGWCC?

 

[LilleeWilleyDilley]

The cover drives in GGWCC cricket are by no means immaculate... lol.

 

[LilleeWilleyDilley]

I'm giving up on this as I can't make the matches last long enough to make any kind of progress reverse-engineering the game. I can't find the keyboard controls anywhere online and I've been bowled out for 4, 0 and 0. The 4 was an immaculate cover drive by batting legend Angus Fraser!

Use the Arrow Keys:

Up = Defensive Block
Down = Straight Drive
Left = Square Drive
Down + Left = Cover Drive
Left + Up = Cut
Down + Right = On Drive
Right = Leg Glance
Up + Right = Hook / Sweep

(For a Right-Handed batsman)

 

[LilleeWilleyDilley]

Hi are you still around? After months of trying I have finally found out how to hex edit the test matches in GGWCC (or Allan Border) to around 90 overs per day instead of 60 overs per day. The edit hasn't appeared to disturb the checksum or integrity of the game files, and the CPU seems to adjust its play according to the new amount of overs too... I cannot believe it... I wonder what Audiogenic would have to say about this, because last time I emailed them (and actually got a response) they said they didnt know which hex edits would allow this...

Let's see if I can use the same logical approach to increase the overs in the test matches in Brian Lara 99...

 

[Atanupaul]

I would like to know if you have found a way to change the overs of test match from 75 to 90 in blc 1999

 

[LilleeWilleyDilley]

I would like to know if you have found a way to change the overs of test match from 75 to 90 in blc 1999

Yes I did. In fact, I managed to do it exactly 2 days ago.