cricket_online
ICC Board Member
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2009
- Online Cricket Games Owned
-
- Don Bradman Cricket 14 - PS3
- Don Bradman Cricket 14 - PS4
Got my hands on the game yesterday and played for around 6 hrs or so and have to say I have been extremely underwhelmed by the game so far. Maybe it was coz of all the great reviews and feedback I saw on PC and had high expectations to begin with.
Started off with the tutorials - weren't too different from AC09 and the main difference was Action Cam as that was my default view. Went through the batting, bowling and fielding tutorials without much trouble. Fielding is exactly the same and the only change in tutorials (other than Action Cam) was on the bowling front as you had to hold the left stick in a particular position. After a couple of no-balls didn't have much trouble.
Then started off with a Test against Eng with me as India in Hard mode and minimal HUD. By the way didn't see too much difference between minimal and full HUD while batting. Stuggled a bit in the first couple of overs as I mistimed shots but by the 3rd over was getting the hang of timing against Anderson and Onions. Reached 30 odd without loss and changed the setting to 'HUD Off'. This is where I was sorely disappointed and disillusionment crept in.
'HUD Off' is a nice idea but implementation left a lot to be desired IMO. You tend to see the bowling marker/reticule way too late for you to judge and play a shot. Initially I thought I wasn't seeing the marker early so changed the setting back to minimal HUD and batted till my batsmen (Gambhir and Dravid) reached full confidence. Switched to HUD Off mode again and didn't see too much difference this time as well - if confidence is a factor in how early you can see the bowling marker in HUD Off mode, I am sorry to say I wasn't able to see any perceptible difference. The problem with current implementation of HUD Off mode is that you see the bowling marker way too late for you to play an intelligent shot based on the line and length. And the reason for the same is that against fast bowlers you are supposed to press 'X', 'O' or 'Square' nearly as soon as the bowler releases the ball so you need to decide your footwork (front or back) and shot direction & power before the bowler releases the ball and by that time the marker is not even visible most of the time, or even if it is it's way too late to act upon.
One anology I can come up with to describe HUD Off in real life is someone playing cricket at club level and scoring heavily regularly. Instead of the player being promoted to play at the County level, basically you ask him to bat left handed (in case the player's right handed) or ask him to bat with one hand tied behind his back. In nutshell instead of ramping up the level of play, you are ramping up the difficulty level and making the game more competitive artificially, which has nothing much to do with cricket. To folks who say 'HUD Off' is similar to real-life as you don't see where the ball is going to be bowled, my response is that in real-life you have a bat in hand and can move and react till the last moment. In a video game you have to press a button by a certain time and can't do much once that press-the-button-timeline is gone. One way HUD Off could have been implemented in a better manner was to have a slider bar setting which you could set to decide how early the marker is visible when you are batting. Slider at 100% means marker is always visible and at 0% would mean the marker is never visible. So depending on your reflex and reaction time you could have a setting (let's say 45%) which would allow you to see the bowling marker at a time which is challenging for you.
Apologize for rant on 'HUD Off' as this was the main selling point of the game and I was really looking forward to see it work but it's not workable IMO.
The only way I could play in 'HUD Off' mode was to pre-mediate the shots, i.e. I always backed away to leg and played in general direction of covers. In case there was a big gap on the off side I went with 'Automatic' footwork and in case there was a smaller gap I opted for back-foot shot. Surprizingly this approach worked just fine and I didn't have too much trouble scoring since you can play pretty much every kind of delivery off the back foot - full or short). In case the ball was way down the leg side it either hit my batsman or I inside-edged the ball.
I didn't derive any enjoyment playing this way and reverted to 'Minimal HUD'. So played a couple of T20s and was able to score around 9-10 an over. In the first game against Eng, scored 180 odd and in the second against Pak scored 200+. And these were my first two T20s. I suspect after I play for some time I should be able to score at an even higher rate without much problem. Came across a bug while batting. I played on and heard the sound of ball hitting the wickets and was out 'bowled' but didn't see bails or wickets dislodged. In the replay I saw the ball going through the stumps without dislodging the bails or stumps. Happened only once so think it's a bug and doesn't happen regularly.
The Good
1. Action Cam seems to be a good feature and something that can be a basis for future cricket games. To me it looked very similar to EA's 'behind the batsman view' with one difference - you can view the field from batsman's perspective and you have the same view while running between the wickets.
2. Power Stick is again something good and had fun trying out shots with varying power. Didn't find it useful in T20s since you can hit a powerful shot to the fielder at the boundary and still run 2.
3. AI's line and length is a lot improved.
4. Bowling speeds are realistic.
5. No-ball problem is solved as you don't see ridiculous number of no-balls from AI bowlers.
6. AI is generally smarter and much more competitive than AC09.
7. Stumps physics is a nice addition. Feels good to see batsman getting bowled and not get a canned 'bowled' animation.
8. AI doesn't get run-out but the downside is AI is extremely conservative while taking runs - they take 1 when 2 are available.
The Bad
1. 'HUD Off' mode is a disappointment to say the least IMO.
2. AI fielding is not improved at all from AC09. I had heard about AI fielders diving in the field but yet to see the same. Plus you can easily take 2 most of the times when you hit to a fielder on the boundary. It seems it's easier to take 2 in IC10 than score a single. Most of the times you deal in 2s and 4s with an occasional single thrown in and the reason for it is AI fielding - the boundary fielders are as slow as ever.
3. AI catching is random at best and pathetic at worst. They still drop way too many catches (I would say around 30-40%) which is not the norm at intl level and which should not be the case especially on Hard mode.
4. AI fields are the same from AC09 and you still see weird fields such as fielders at both mid-off and long-off
5. Edges - Now I heard a lot how improved the edges are but i didn't see too much of a difference other than while pulling'hooking short balls. Most of the times I mis-timed the ball, I inside edged the ball towards leg side and if I played late, the ball went to 3rd man for a single. I only saw one adge fly to 3rd slip and most of the edges now come from short-pitched deliveries. I was caught by the keeper off the top edge while pulling a ball 3-4 times and a couple of times the edge went over the keeper for 2. Also, edges never seem to go for a 4 but for a couple.
6. Shot animations. They are practically the same from AC09 and it really bugs me when you try flicking an over-pitched ball on your legs to fine or square leg and the batsman plays an ugly swipe. Even though the end result is the same - you hit the ball in the right direction for runs, the shots are ugly at best and generally you don't even see tailenders playing such kind of shots, forget the likes of Tendulkar, Ponting, Kallis etc. Codies, work on shot animations as they are pathetic. Some of the shots which needs rework on animations are leg side flicks, forward defensive, square & late cuts, square & backfoot off drive (backfoot off drive looks like a defensive push). Pls look at EA 2004 & EA 2007's shot animations.
7. Spinners are too easy to hit in IC10 as well. Spinners generally concede around 50 odd runs in a T20 off their 4 overs. Gotta work on spinners Codies.
8. Stats. How can a cricket game ever be complete without Stats? Cricket, like baseball, which is defined by Stats and Stats is an integral part of the sport. I can't imagine how EA was able to include stats in Cricket 2004 & Cricket 2007 but Codies still struggle to include it in the game.
9. You can still play anything off the back-foot - even yorkers and full-pitched deliveries. In fact most of the time you will end up playing back-foot shots as the default AI length is good length or just short of good length.
10. Lofted Shots are way too powerful and often even poorly timed lofted shots go for a 4 which was seldom the case in AC09.
11. IC10 online seems to be broken. Lots of connection issues, both on PS3 and Xbox, and it's way too easy to slog runs. Plus quitters are not penalized and sportsmanship rating is a moot point since you can't boot out folks who join an online match and have poor rating. I don't really know whether any thought process went in while thinking about IC10 online.
On the whole I would rate the game 6.5 offline and factoring in online gameplay I give the game a solid 5.5, or 6 at best. Other than Action Cam & power stick feature it's patched up AC09 and the online gameplay has regressed quite a lot since AC09.
Started off with the tutorials - weren't too different from AC09 and the main difference was Action Cam as that was my default view. Went through the batting, bowling and fielding tutorials without much trouble. Fielding is exactly the same and the only change in tutorials (other than Action Cam) was on the bowling front as you had to hold the left stick in a particular position. After a couple of no-balls didn't have much trouble.
Then started off with a Test against Eng with me as India in Hard mode and minimal HUD. By the way didn't see too much difference between minimal and full HUD while batting. Stuggled a bit in the first couple of overs as I mistimed shots but by the 3rd over was getting the hang of timing against Anderson and Onions. Reached 30 odd without loss and changed the setting to 'HUD Off'. This is where I was sorely disappointed and disillusionment crept in.
'HUD Off' is a nice idea but implementation left a lot to be desired IMO. You tend to see the bowling marker/reticule way too late for you to judge and play a shot. Initially I thought I wasn't seeing the marker early so changed the setting back to minimal HUD and batted till my batsmen (Gambhir and Dravid) reached full confidence. Switched to HUD Off mode again and didn't see too much difference this time as well - if confidence is a factor in how early you can see the bowling marker in HUD Off mode, I am sorry to say I wasn't able to see any perceptible difference. The problem with current implementation of HUD Off mode is that you see the bowling marker way too late for you to play an intelligent shot based on the line and length. And the reason for the same is that against fast bowlers you are supposed to press 'X', 'O' or 'Square' nearly as soon as the bowler releases the ball so you need to decide your footwork (front or back) and shot direction & power before the bowler releases the ball and by that time the marker is not even visible most of the time, or even if it is it's way too late to act upon.
One anology I can come up with to describe HUD Off in real life is someone playing cricket at club level and scoring heavily regularly. Instead of the player being promoted to play at the County level, basically you ask him to bat left handed (in case the player's right handed) or ask him to bat with one hand tied behind his back. In nutshell instead of ramping up the level of play, you are ramping up the difficulty level and making the game more competitive artificially, which has nothing much to do with cricket. To folks who say 'HUD Off' is similar to real-life as you don't see where the ball is going to be bowled, my response is that in real-life you have a bat in hand and can move and react till the last moment. In a video game you have to press a button by a certain time and can't do much once that press-the-button-timeline is gone. One way HUD Off could have been implemented in a better manner was to have a slider bar setting which you could set to decide how early the marker is visible when you are batting. Slider at 100% means marker is always visible and at 0% would mean the marker is never visible. So depending on your reflex and reaction time you could have a setting (let's say 45%) which would allow you to see the bowling marker at a time which is challenging for you.
Apologize for rant on 'HUD Off' as this was the main selling point of the game and I was really looking forward to see it work but it's not workable IMO.
The only way I could play in 'HUD Off' mode was to pre-mediate the shots, i.e. I always backed away to leg and played in general direction of covers. In case there was a big gap on the off side I went with 'Automatic' footwork and in case there was a smaller gap I opted for back-foot shot. Surprizingly this approach worked just fine and I didn't have too much trouble scoring since you can play pretty much every kind of delivery off the back foot - full or short). In case the ball was way down the leg side it either hit my batsman or I inside-edged the ball.
I didn't derive any enjoyment playing this way and reverted to 'Minimal HUD'. So played a couple of T20s and was able to score around 9-10 an over. In the first game against Eng, scored 180 odd and in the second against Pak scored 200+. And these were my first two T20s. I suspect after I play for some time I should be able to score at an even higher rate without much problem. Came across a bug while batting. I played on and heard the sound of ball hitting the wickets and was out 'bowled' but didn't see bails or wickets dislodged. In the replay I saw the ball going through the stumps without dislodging the bails or stumps. Happened only once so think it's a bug and doesn't happen regularly.
The Good
1. Action Cam seems to be a good feature and something that can be a basis for future cricket games. To me it looked very similar to EA's 'behind the batsman view' with one difference - you can view the field from batsman's perspective and you have the same view while running between the wickets.
2. Power Stick is again something good and had fun trying out shots with varying power. Didn't find it useful in T20s since you can hit a powerful shot to the fielder at the boundary and still run 2.
3. AI's line and length is a lot improved.
4. Bowling speeds are realistic.
5. No-ball problem is solved as you don't see ridiculous number of no-balls from AI bowlers.
6. AI is generally smarter and much more competitive than AC09.
7. Stumps physics is a nice addition. Feels good to see batsman getting bowled and not get a canned 'bowled' animation.
8. AI doesn't get run-out but the downside is AI is extremely conservative while taking runs - they take 1 when 2 are available.
The Bad
1. 'HUD Off' mode is a disappointment to say the least IMO.
2. AI fielding is not improved at all from AC09. I had heard about AI fielders diving in the field but yet to see the same. Plus you can easily take 2 most of the times when you hit to a fielder on the boundary. It seems it's easier to take 2 in IC10 than score a single. Most of the times you deal in 2s and 4s with an occasional single thrown in and the reason for it is AI fielding - the boundary fielders are as slow as ever.
3. AI catching is random at best and pathetic at worst. They still drop way too many catches (I would say around 30-40%) which is not the norm at intl level and which should not be the case especially on Hard mode.
4. AI fields are the same from AC09 and you still see weird fields such as fielders at both mid-off and long-off
5. Edges - Now I heard a lot how improved the edges are but i didn't see too much of a difference other than while pulling'hooking short balls. Most of the times I mis-timed the ball, I inside edged the ball towards leg side and if I played late, the ball went to 3rd man for a single. I only saw one adge fly to 3rd slip and most of the edges now come from short-pitched deliveries. I was caught by the keeper off the top edge while pulling a ball 3-4 times and a couple of times the edge went over the keeper for 2. Also, edges never seem to go for a 4 but for a couple.
6. Shot animations. They are practically the same from AC09 and it really bugs me when you try flicking an over-pitched ball on your legs to fine or square leg and the batsman plays an ugly swipe. Even though the end result is the same - you hit the ball in the right direction for runs, the shots are ugly at best and generally you don't even see tailenders playing such kind of shots, forget the likes of Tendulkar, Ponting, Kallis etc. Codies, work on shot animations as they are pathetic. Some of the shots which needs rework on animations are leg side flicks, forward defensive, square & late cuts, square & backfoot off drive (backfoot off drive looks like a defensive push). Pls look at EA 2004 & EA 2007's shot animations.
7. Spinners are too easy to hit in IC10 as well. Spinners generally concede around 50 odd runs in a T20 off their 4 overs. Gotta work on spinners Codies.
8. Stats. How can a cricket game ever be complete without Stats? Cricket, like baseball, which is defined by Stats and Stats is an integral part of the sport. I can't imagine how EA was able to include stats in Cricket 2004 & Cricket 2007 but Codies still struggle to include it in the game.
9. You can still play anything off the back-foot - even yorkers and full-pitched deliveries. In fact most of the time you will end up playing back-foot shots as the default AI length is good length or just short of good length.
10. Lofted Shots are way too powerful and often even poorly timed lofted shots go for a 4 which was seldom the case in AC09.
11. IC10 online seems to be broken. Lots of connection issues, both on PS3 and Xbox, and it's way too easy to slog runs. Plus quitters are not penalized and sportsmanship rating is a moot point since you can't boot out folks who join an online match and have poor rating. I don't really know whether any thought process went in while thinking about IC10 online.
On the whole I would rate the game 6.5 offline and factoring in online gameplay I give the game a solid 5.5, or 6 at best. Other than Action Cam & power stick feature it's patched up AC09 and the online gameplay has regressed quite a lot since AC09.
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Once again, it was a good review that didn't just slate the game (unlike some). After last year's game and this one, it appears that cricket games are finally getting on track.
