Review Playtest Review/Preview(Review Links, Updated in First Post)

[coolz_hari]

Thank a lot Tom. The only problem i have is with wicket keeper & we can't save online games

 

[gudduthemaster]

thanks tom for your detailed review,one question to you, rate this game out of 10

 

[graham]

i see GAME in the uk have the 360 version for release on the 07/08/09 which means 45 days to go :crying

 

[MasterBlaster76]

I said I would post some more reaction to my playtest and here we go:

Fielding
The fielding mechanics are, in general, good. There is heavy usage of Jamie's risk/reward mantra in the fielding. Firstly there is the catching. As we all know by now, when a catch is on offer, the ball gets a coloured corona, going from red to orange to green. Press X/A or whatever in the red and you drop it, in the green you catch it, and in the orange, it depends on how near to the green you were, and also on the abilities of the player. I suspect there may be some dependence on the catch difficulty, but I'm not really sure about that. I found that this works pretty well, and even though the game is slowed to 'bullet-time' during the catching process, you still need good reactions and timing to succeed. The best point about this system compared to 2007 is that it actually feels like it was your fault if you drop it, rather than because the game cheated you (I know this idea was something Jamie was keen on throughout the entire game, and it shows).

Ground fielding is automatic and is well executed by the fielders, who behave quite realistically. For example, if you have a guy a short extra cover, and you smack it straight at him, he will probably stop it, rather than running off like a loony as in 2007. When it comes to throwing, you can either press nothing, in which case the ball is returned to the 'keeper (and I think with 0% chance of overthrows, but I may be wrong) with a kind throw. If there is a chance of a run-out, you can use the right stick to direct the throw to either end, and the end glows orange in the picture-in-picture of the pitch. This leads to a much harder throw, and can result in overthrows, especially if you throw to the bowler's end before the bowler (or someone else) has got to cover the stumps. These powerful throws along with the cool running-between-the-wickets system lead to genuine excitement when there is a run-out chance, especially when an attempted direct hit misses with you clean out of your ground.


Bad Points
These are all the bad points I can think of about the game, in no particular order.

Strange, out of context animations
During slip catches, often the slip will be running in whilst catching the ball, which looks a bit odd, but doesn't affect the way it plays. It's not every time, but more often than seems proper.

Crazy 'keeper
The wicket keeper still does his one-handed takes when the ball is wide of him, rather than moving his feet. Again, this is aesthetic and doesn't affect the way the game plays. Also, the 'keeper seemed to take some stupendous catches off edges from spinners. I'm talking diving catches with about 1ft of reaction time.

Overthrows
I'm not entirely sure on this one, but it seemed that there were slightly too many overthrows going on. However, this may have been because I was always choosing a powerful throw, even when there wasn't really a run-out chance. Time will tell on this one.

Loopy bounce
Already covered in this thread, but it seems that the bounce of the pitch is too high still.

Too many back-foot shots to full balls
I suspect that this may be due to the bounce of the ball being a bit tennis-bally, but basically, the default shots tend to sway heavily towards back-foot shots even when the ball would be too full to play that way in real life. Which leads onto....

'Good' length is actually a pretty bad length
When bowling, your cursor will change colour to tell you if the ball is aiming in a good position, but this 'good' position seems invariably to be a half-volley on or outside off-stump. Possibly due to the too-loopy bounce.

Dodgy cut shots to third man still in
A few times, the CPU spanked me for 6 over fine third man. This really made me cringe.

Test Match Batting AI
On hard difficulty, I got spanked for around 10 an over. However, this may have been because I had got the bowling marker colour the wrong way around, thinking green meant good for the bowler, when it actually means, easy for the batsman. Once their confidence was up they went mental.

No online save games
Same as in 2007, there is no way of saving a Test match online, which is a big shame. This is especially true if the AI isn't the best, and has the potential to make 'The Ashes' pointless.

When will I ever bowl a bad ball?
You can aim your delivery wherever you like, with no difficulty. This means you can essentially bowl perfect line and length every ball. You can bowl 'bad balls' by not getting into the light green section of the bowling 'goodness meter', but that just makes the ball easier to hit harder, rather than changing its pitch position (there is a good reason for this, which is that bowling a 'bad ball' would surprise the batsman and therefore make it a better ball). It would be nice if there was some degree of wobbling, latency or classic 'BLC99 floating' of the pitch point marker when aiming. Or at least have a bigger aiming circle for worse bowlers which then goes to a specific point at a time dependent on the bowler's ability (better bowlers should go to the specific point later on). There would then be some random element to the pitch point, which could be affected by skill, stamina, confidence, etc. At the moment the skill, stamina and confidence values only work with the 'goodness meter' to effectively give you a ball difficulty rating for the batsman to hit. This seems a little shallow to me. I'm sure it'll be worked on for the next version though.


That's the lot unless I can think of any others later on.

Uh oh. The ones I've emboldened, especially the last one, sound like game killers to me. What's the point if you can put the ball exactly where you want every single time! It cannot be released in that state surely: some sort of wobbly cursor is required, the better the bowler, the less the wobble. When you say 'next version', I really hope you mean 'next build' (of this current game).

Edit: About the run outs, has any attempt been made to build tension while you wait for the decision? The appeal, the referral to third umpire, the long agonising wait while the big screen does its 'fruit machine' thing with the letters before out/not out and the 'Jaws' music in ODIs/Twenty20s? Last time round, it was immediately obvious whether you'd made it or not: the light came on immediately! No tension build up at all! Also, I can't remember which game, but there were some games where you could tell at a glance by the animation of the umpire, or the camera angle when appealing whether it was out or not. It'd be great if the decision could be hidden until the very moment the umpire puts up the finger!

 

[zimrahil]

The 2 sections masterblaster has highlighted are the same 2 deal busting things for me too

A good length always resulting in back foot shots by AI/human would ruin it for me quite quickly. No realism

Also fact you can bowl perfect line and length at will it seems again will remove a lot of the fun quite quickly

I will wait for reviews of the full game methinks

 

[aussie1st]

One can only hope that they have enough time to change those bolded points. As I agree that would kill the life of the game.

 

[stannie65]

Lazy,

Thanks for all your work on the previews...

Just wondered if any of these "bad points" were brought up with Jamie or anyone at Codemasters? As players from the outside, you are able to see things that they might not, and surely it would be good for them to react on some of these points before the game goes gold?

Would it be worth PC or lazy getting back in touch with Jamie and giving him this feedback so that they can act on it, or calm our/your fears by saying that these things have been acted on?

It is almost like a beta game that people can try and give feedback on, they would be silly not to act on it in my opinion...

Rob

 

[barmyarmy]

Yup. I've highlighted that as one of my main gripes from 2007 and 2005 so a bit disappointing to find that the lengths are still all over the place.

barmyarmy added 1 Minutes and 54 Seconds later...

Lazy,

Thanks for all your work on the previews...

Just wondered if any of these "bad points" were brought up with Jamie or anyone at Codemasters? As players from the outside, you are able to see things that they might not, and surely it would be good for them to react on some of these points before the game goes gold?

Would it be worth PC or lazy getting back in touch with Jamie and giving him this feedback so that they can act on it, or calm our/your fears by saying that these things have been acted on?

It is almost like a beta game that people can try and give feedback on, they would be silly not to act on it in my opinion...

Rob

I'm sure both Jamie (and Heath and others at Transmission) will be keeping an eye on these threads. As Tom said earlier the length issue is one that would have a lot of repurcussions for shots played etc so I doubt it will be fixed. It was one of the first things I highlighted in my 2007 review though so I'm a bit suprised it's not been dealt with.

 

[pcfan123]

can anyone comment on the system of online play, if there is a ranking system , punishment for quitters, voice chat etc

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Lazy,

Thanks for all your work on the previews...

Just wondered if any of these "bad points" were brought up with Jamie or anyone at Codemasters? As players from the outside, you are able to see things that they might not, and surely it would be good for them to react on some of these points before the game goes gold?

Would it be worth PC or lazy getting back in touch with Jamie and giving him this feedback so that they can act on it, or calm our/your fears by saying that these things have been acted on?

It is almost like a beta game that people can try and give feedback on, they would be silly not to act on it in my opinion...

Rob

Agreed. What's the point of these invitations if they don't listen to the feedback?

Shame, and all when it looked so good if it wasn't for these stupid little niggles that, I'm sure, could be fixed very quickly, if they want to. Or maybe we'll have to wait for a patch! Good God, do you remember the song and dance over the patch last time?? Did the damned thing ever actually appear; I can't remember!

 

[Max Peters]

How do the faces look? Are they better then cricket 07 and BLIC 07 faces? Do they resemble the players?
Can you play as teams other than Australia and England, such as Sri Lanka, South Africa, etc...? Also, do the batsmen take off their helmets when they reach a milestone such as a century? Thanks

 

[MasterBlaster76]

There are plenty of screenies posted, so check 'em out! Of course, unless the problems outlined above are fixed, it won't matter a damn what the faces look like.

 

[hramnani]

I think 4-5 guys went from pc for the playtest... and only Lazy and Kamy took out time to post reviews...???

Are the others too busy, not happy with the game or just don't like sharing their experience.

C'mon guys. Not taking anything away from Lazy and Kamy. They have done an excellent job with the reviews. But the others should be posting something too.

Wake up....

 

[pcfan123]

i think its morning in AUS. so hopefully they arent too hungover to write us something

 

[Hooper]

Its about 10:45 in Australia in the Eastern States where the test is happening. So maybe in a few hours after they have finished work/school.