Ashes Cricket 09 – just not cricket?
Ashes Cricket 09 has probably been one of the most hyped cricket games in recent years. With the developers, Transmission Games, and the producers, Codemasters explicitly referencing Brian Lara ’99 as the benchmark (accessible but with depth) this latest Grail Quest has brought the illusory cup seemingly closer than ever before.
Even as a non-believer I have felt sucked into the whirlwind by positive play-test previews, informative Q&As and the engagement with the forum shown by both companies.
Reality hits after a proper road-test though. This, for me, is an improvement over BLIC2007 and better than any other cricket game I’ve played but it still doesn’t feel like the kind of cricket we either play or watch. Is it just not cricket?
When was the last time we saw Ricky Ponting come to the crease and blast 51 off 17 balls in a test match? Why are bowlers being punished for bowling a “good” length? When was the last test innings to feature 6 runouts? (more than 2 in fact?) And since when did point fielders and gullies take catches running forwards?
This game has the potential to be really good and there is clearly a lot of depth in it. The developers have taken on feedback from the community and used it well. For example in 2007 I criticised the catching meter and fielding system as being good concepts but not well implemented. They’ve now been improved so catching is smooth and intuitive and overthrows from 2 yards don’t occur. There is a scaled difficulty taking into account the player skills and the actual catch/throw involved. It actually works and gives hope that next time round some of the other issues can be sorted too.
Since I’ve started by talking about fielding I’ll move onto the bowling system. Batting timing zone now depends on where the ball is pitched and where you hit the execution meter. Very sound again as far as I’m concerned. There are thin edges and drag-ons; being able to mask the delivery is great in two player games and the range of deliveries available by different bowlers (and depending on confidence and ball wear) is a big improvement.
There are positives about the batting as well. It’s definitely harder on test level - certainly hard enough for me and the real experts can always edit player skill levels. The addition of front foot and back foot shots adds realism (although it has exposes the length problems) and the ability to dive when running is long overdue. Well timed shots beat fielders to the boundary and the game can be a lot of fun to bat in. The spider below shows good placement variety (and lovely graphics).
At times though the game leaves me with an overwhelming sense of frustration. From reading the comments on the forums I’m not alone in this bipolar viewpoint. Just when you think you’re enjoying it, something inexplicable happens making you want to bang your head against the wall.
The starting point for me was that I had no idea where to bowl in this game. The light green zone is supposed to be the place (although there seem to be two green zones and a yellow zone to me) yet, as in 2007, the “right area” is patently the “wrong area”. In my review then I noted that:
“The first thing that struck me is the discrepancy between what the game says is a good length and what is actually a good length. Essentially if you bowl a ‘good length’ delivery in this game it will always go well over the top of the stumps. Thus you are forced to pitch the ball well up giving the computer a much larger timing zone.”
Bizarrely Transmission seem to have read the last part of this and grasped the wrong end of the proverbial stick. Batsmen no longer have a larger timing zone when the ball is pitched well up; they have made this the ideal length to bowl instead!
Of course what I intended was for the bounce to be reduced so length balls actually hit the stumps. Bowling at the stumps in the legends mode show how bad this now is. Only balls pitching around the 3 or 4 metre mark will actually hit the stumps. Compare the pitch map produced by Australia’s seamers at Headingley (on a pitch-it-up, swinging strip) and you’ll see most in the 6-8 metre “good length” part. As the same coloured in-game pitch map from Lionel Baker shows 80% of the deliveries in this game are way too full. Bearing in mind what I just said about a/ good length balls going over and b/ the computer rewarding full balls and this becomes an issue that compromises player vs player as well as player vs AI.
I mention player vs player as once again the AI and pacing of the computer during test matches is simply not realistic. It is improved in the sense that if you bowl well you can keep the runrate down for the first 15/20 overs. Then, without fail in my matches, and seemingly in others' experiences too the AI goes super-aggressive (usually after the fall of a wicket). For all the talk of “playing themselves in” AI batsman march up to the crease and hit for 6 the first ball off the same kind of line and length that was restricting the opposition before. This crazed aggression extends to runouts too - suddenly the computer is pushing for runs everywhere and is in final-over-of-Twenty20 mindset not first-morning-of-a-test-match. For me the suicidal runouts are akin to playing Fifa or PES for the first time and watching the opposition deliberately score 5 own goals or get 6 players sent off. I know it’s a clich by now but how did it get through testing?
Again in 2007 I highlighted failure to react to a match situation (i.e. leaving a delivery with 1 to win or continuing to play high-risk shots when above the runrate but losing wickets). This made it doubly disappointing after catching Chanderpaul in the deep (on the first morning of a test match – see above) and then for the next player to come in and play exactly the same way before getting out for 20 off 7 balls in similar fashion. These were middle order batsmen with the team 4 or 5 wickets down – not Stuart Clark slogging at the end of the innings.
Moving on, being able to leave shots without losing confidence is certainly an improvement although the game gives no sense of leaving on length or playing and missing outside off stump as the lengths are so poor. In fact the problem with the edges system in this game is that it relies on playing a shot early or late rather than playing down the wrong line. Wickets that occur because of movement in real life have little to do with how well the batsman is timing it and all to do with how late he has played it, has he used soft hands and does he know where his off stump is? Playing this game I have no sense of challenging a batsman to play or leave; only of pitch it up as far as possible and then hope he mistimes it. It’s far too easy to play short bowling and whilst there is an area for a light green short ball I can’t imagine the ball rearing up and striking the handle or the glove and going behind. Out to a short ball means out at square leg, fine leg or midwicket. Having been unable to work out how to duck thus far (leaving gets you hit) I’m just playing attacking shots to all the short balls no with no difficulty.
In this incarnation statistics and graphs have been improved but for such a stat-hungry sport they still come up way short. I would envisage stat tracking, partnership stats, records for every ground, spiders/wagon wheels/hawkeyes upon demand and series stats as prerequisites for a cricket game these days. Easy enough to code and once again adding to the experience and the realism that gamers crave.
I don’t know why they appealed for this but even Rudi Koertzen wouldn’t give it out.
A few other niggles to mention before I sum up. The inability to save online games will make test cricket a purely offline activity – a real shame considering the fact this is an Ashes licensed and focused game. There is a distinct lack of gamepad support once again; no list of controls, no option to change them and, for example, my gamepad has been mapped so that I have no front foot shots when batting and no ability to choose my throwing end when fielding.
Despite assurances to the contrary about most PCs being able to run the game it is definitely high end even on lowest settings. I worry about the ball and ground physics when the computer knows instantly if it has hit a boundary or not (no throw to end appears). Overthows when the computer isn’t running happen too often; the computer itself is totally deadly from anywhere on the square and will run you our 9 times out of 10 if you start a run and cancel it straight away and I’ve also had one or two crashes and freezes despite a clean install of Windows and a brand new computer.
I know that I've focused almost entirely on test cricket in this review but for me that has to be the essence of a game named Ashes Cricket. Most of what I have said applies to limited overs games anyway. Despite all this overall I’m still positive about the game even if I’m not convinced that it’s really anything like test cricket. Just about saved by the depth of gameplay for me. It isn’t as good as Transmission and Codemasters think it is but it’s a solid base to build from if they do something about the issues outlined above.
Rating
Graphics: 9
Gameplay: 6
Longevity: 8
Patchability: 7
Overall: 75/100
Graphics: 9
Gameplay: 6
Longevity: 8
Patchability: 7
Overall: 75/100
