I was bored, so I wrote this preview, it incorperates much information about the game into it + some reasons why BLIC 07 may not live up to the hype.
BLIC 07, the next Pro Evo? Or the next sub par cricket game?
Cricket gaming fans are unlucky people, year after year; they have to deal with poor graphics, terrible gameplay and customer support worse than a wooden chair in the waiting room?In my opinion, when March 2007 rolls in, cricket gaming fans will no longer have to deal with that?enter Codemasters Brian Lara International Cricket 2007.
The graphics has shown both positives and negatives. The negatives are that the game has nowhere near the amount of shading or lighting effects that EA have, hence the game still looks very cartoony and lacks the polygon count that e.g. the Smackdown series has. The positives are that the graphics are extremely high definition and it seems the artists behind the game have put much effort into pushing all their resources to the limit.
GRAPHICS SO FAR: 8/10 because of lack of licensing
The gameplay promises many things that ruined the realism of BLIC. Stumpings have been promised for the first time in a codemasters produced cricket game (other than autoplay in Brian Lara Cricket) as well as advancing down the wicket. Stumpings have been made slow and sluggish by EA and hopefully Codemasters can include fumbles, subtle stumpings and regulation stumpings for a complete gaming experience.
The 30mph deliveries bowled by fast bowlers are said to be no more and I hope that this is true because this ruined BLIC, the AI is said to be improved but this cannot be appreciated or tested until the game releases.
Sadly, Planetcricket?s visit to Codemasters Studio told of negatives too. Apparently, nothing has been done to rectify the eight-way directional path of shots without use of the difficult (for me, not Stevie
) analogue stick system.
But Codemasters are never short of suggestions as they have brought in John Crawley, Shaun Udal and Jonathon Agnew (to name a few) to help them with production of the game, and I am sure any fixable bugs will be fixed either; by BETA release in January 2007 or full release in March 2007.
BLIC 07 is built off the previous version which does not mean that it is re-hashed or an update but that (hopefully) it will build off the many positives of BLIC?the yorker animation; the unique paces for bowlers, intriguing ways batsman get hit on the body and the fantastic (though limited) catching system. Speaking of which, a reflex slip catching system has been implemented to add to this system. This could go very well and be extremely fun OR could slow play significantly and be tedious, and we don?t want that do we?!
GAMEPLAY promises: 6 to 10/10 because of potential of disaster from lack of stamina bar for bowlers slip catching system.
The customer support on Codemasters part has been fantastic. Their forums are efficient, well represented if not slightly low on coding. They are providing information for the game well before release, showing that the game is being made well before the release; with excess time used to fix bugs and that they care about the anticipation of the fans. The community liaison appears on many forums, no matter how pitiful, and gives great insight into the making of the game.
Customer support: 10/10
10/10 for effort for Codemasters but BLIC had massive problems in it merely in the fundamentals of the game, such as the pace of the bowlers. What new bugs face us this time? Will we be able to access stats from the end of an over and will Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh let someone else open the bowling and bowl the first 80 overs, only time will tell...
Overall Anticipation: 9/10 but nothing can be sure with the game ruining bugs in BLIC 05
BLIC 07, the next Pro Evo? Or the next sub par cricket game?
Cricket gaming fans are unlucky people, year after year; they have to deal with poor graphics, terrible gameplay and customer support worse than a wooden chair in the waiting room?In my opinion, when March 2007 rolls in, cricket gaming fans will no longer have to deal with that?enter Codemasters Brian Lara International Cricket 2007.
The graphics has shown both positives and negatives. The negatives are that the game has nowhere near the amount of shading or lighting effects that EA have, hence the game still looks very cartoony and lacks the polygon count that e.g. the Smackdown series has. The positives are that the graphics are extremely high definition and it seems the artists behind the game have put much effort into pushing all their resources to the limit.
GRAPHICS SO FAR: 8/10 because of lack of licensing
The gameplay promises many things that ruined the realism of BLIC. Stumpings have been promised for the first time in a codemasters produced cricket game (other than autoplay in Brian Lara Cricket) as well as advancing down the wicket. Stumpings have been made slow and sluggish by EA and hopefully Codemasters can include fumbles, subtle stumpings and regulation stumpings for a complete gaming experience.
The 30mph deliveries bowled by fast bowlers are said to be no more and I hope that this is true because this ruined BLIC, the AI is said to be improved but this cannot be appreciated or tested until the game releases.
Sadly, Planetcricket?s visit to Codemasters Studio told of negatives too. Apparently, nothing has been done to rectify the eight-way directional path of shots without use of the difficult (for me, not Stevie
) analogue stick system. But Codemasters are never short of suggestions as they have brought in John Crawley, Shaun Udal and Jonathon Agnew (to name a few) to help them with production of the game, and I am sure any fixable bugs will be fixed either; by BETA release in January 2007 or full release in March 2007.
BLIC 07 is built off the previous version which does not mean that it is re-hashed or an update but that (hopefully) it will build off the many positives of BLIC?the yorker animation; the unique paces for bowlers, intriguing ways batsman get hit on the body and the fantastic (though limited) catching system. Speaking of which, a reflex slip catching system has been implemented to add to this system. This could go very well and be extremely fun OR could slow play significantly and be tedious, and we don?t want that do we?!
GAMEPLAY promises: 6 to 10/10 because of potential of disaster from lack of stamina bar for bowlers slip catching system.
The customer support on Codemasters part has been fantastic. Their forums are efficient, well represented if not slightly low on coding. They are providing information for the game well before release, showing that the game is being made well before the release; with excess time used to fix bugs and that they care about the anticipation of the fans. The community liaison appears on many forums, no matter how pitiful, and gives great insight into the making of the game.
Customer support: 10/10
10/10 for effort for Codemasters but BLIC had massive problems in it merely in the fundamentals of the game, such as the pace of the bowlers. What new bugs face us this time? Will we be able to access stats from the end of an over and will Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh let someone else open the bowling and bowl the first 80 overs, only time will tell...
Overall Anticipation: 9/10 but nothing can be sure with the game ruining bugs in BLIC 05
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