Is there no future for Cricket Simulation games?

[harishankar]

Going by the discouraging reviews of the latest EA Sports game (Cricket 2007) and the fact that generally Cricket simulation does not re-create the real excitement of a cricket match, do you think we will move towards an era of Cricket Management games becoming more popular than Cricket simulation which have ball-by-ball play?

I've wasted too much money on EA Sports Cricket over the years (I've bought Cricket 97, Cricket WC 99, Cricket 2000, Cricket 2004 and Cricket 2005, skipped Cricket 2002). I've also bought and played Shane Warne Cricket 99 which was actually quite a good game for its time, but it had a few bugs which made it very faulty and frustrating. However I think that game came closest to being a great Cricket simulation gam.

DO you think this genre is doomed to failure? How does a Cricket video game really re-capture the true "spirit" of the game as played in real life? Even discounting all the in-game bugs, the game simply doesn't recapture any realism or excitement considering the AI's disability and the stupid computer cheats which make the AI take unfair advantage detracting from the gaming experience.

I personally think that the 1-player ball-by-ball simulation game will die a natural death and we'll see some real strategic and management Cricket games becoming popular as time goes on. I think Internation Cricket Captain 2000 was one of my favourite and most addictive cricket games, but I haven't really followed it up as I read reviews which said that ICC hasn't really evolved since then.

 

[rickyp]

so long as they are like the icc series I wouldn't care, i love those games sooooooooooo much!

 

[aussie1st]

I can't see myself ever getting hooked in those Cricket management games. I bearly like managing games as cricket is a sport where you don't go buying players to build your team to the top.

 

[harishankar]

The thing is ball-by-ball simulation cricket video games tend to have much less variety than the real thing. That's the beauty of Test Cricket. You can never really emulate it in a video game. So it becomes boring.

If you make the game too random, people don't think it involves skill. But if you make it too predictable, then people will complain that it's so boring and doesn't offer a challenge.

 

[manee]

Brian Lara 2005 seemed to emulate the fun aspect of cricket well...a few realistic updates in gameplay for BLIC 07 and we will have a very good game.

 

[barmyarmy]

Online play will straight away remove the biggest problem of recent years which is poor AI. I'd imagine that BLIC2007 will bring back a lot of disillusioned cricket gaming fans to the fold as we have been served up some pretty awful excuses for games in recent years.

 

[Kev]

However poor people think the EA series is (and boy is it poor) its still better than the current crop of cricket management games.

For me until there is a major rethink of game simulation in the management games I wont be drawn to them. I find it so boring clicking through ball by ball and simulating the whole match is also pointless as there is no tatical input. They need to find a way to make the games flow better (sort of football manager style).

 

[harishankar]

I've not really played BLIC 2005. I'm looking forward to BLIC 2007 as I'm not going to purchase another EA Cricket game again.

However, I think that the key is to make the game move faster and still retain a decent simulation aspect.

One of the biggest drawbacks of cricket sims has been the unrealistic movement of the ball - seam and swing. Hopefully future simulations will use real-world physics and not some crappy computer science version of it.

 

[sohum]

I feel, or rather hope, that BLIC 2007 is the last straw for cricket simulation games. I have a feeling that if BLIC 2007 doesn't give and promise enough, enough people will start to lose interest that simulation games will gradually fade out of the market. Playing real cricket is currently still better than playing video game cricket, even if you're bad at the actual form... this is unlike other sports games which enjoy high success--most gamers who like the NFL or NBA series wouldn't really get the enjoyment out of playing the sport.

I've wasted too much money on EA Sports Cricket over the years (I've bought Cricket 97, Cricket WC 99, Cricket 2000, Cricket 2004 and Cricket 2005, skipped Cricket 2002).

You missed the needle in the haystack.

 

[harishankar]

There was a period when Cricket simulation games were moving in the right direction. After the disgrace that was Cricket 2000 (and still worse, Cricket WC 99) I think EA started progressing, but then as you know, it made a mess of the latest installments.

I actually liked Cricket 97 ATE and also Shane Warne Cricket '99 so those were the good days

Today one expects so much more from a Cricket Simulation and it just won't happen since programming can only cover so much areas... for instance you can never really have a confusion run out with the batsmen stranded at the same end in the simulation game. Also the athelicism of real cricket fielding can never be re-created no matter how they manage the fielding system (manual or automatic).

So you miss a lot from a Cricket game which you would get in a real Cricket (even watching it) game. I think flaws apart, a lot of the reason for the failure of Cricket simulation is simply that Cricket is too complex a game to simulate. Period...

I think the biggest way forward is the "Captaining" method of playing where you make decisions on the game and then watch the game unfold like a real match. Much like the International Cricket Captain series, but with much better graphics...

The mental aspect of Cricket has much more potential than the physical simulation aspect of it, gaming wise.

 

[sohum]

Yes, it would be nice to see a managing-oriented game with the graphics of today's leading sports games. I think that would be a nice touch--one thing that is a turn-off about managing games is its too stat oriented and the interfaces aren't really good.

As for simulating real life--it's always going to be difficult; financially too since money isn't pouring into cricket games. I think the programming language is ready to handle many such nuances of real cricket, but the correct programmers are not being used to complete the job. It seems like much of HB's cricket panel are a bunch of hired programmers to code a cricket game, rather than programmers who are cricket enthusiasts.

And finally, it is obviously going to be impossible and expensive to completely simulate real cricket in any scenario, given a reasonable timeframe of development and a reasonable hardware setup. Theoretically, one could probably program enough artificial intelligence into each player in a cricket game to create a game that doesn't run the same everytime, but the resources spent in developing it and required to play it would be unreasonable.

 

[aggression]

I think simulating a real cricket game accurately despite the complexity would be possible...EA sports should take a leaf out of BLIC and vice versa...they both are fairly good games with its own strengths and weaknesses...EA has excellent graphics but not-so-good gameplay...whereas its the opposite for BLIC...by improvising on AI, game physics and using cricket enthusiasts as programmers its is definitely possible for a good cricket game in future...current cricket sims have atleast been able to achieve somewhat close to the real thing....time and the right programmers for cricket sims is the main criteria for a quality cricket sim...taking a slightly longer time to release a quality cricket game is much better than releasing a shoddy cricket game in haste!!

 

[pcfan123]

cricket management is boring to me, i buy every simulation game that comes out, and so do most people, i dont see them going away