PlanetCricket
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- Joined
- Jan 13, 2010
On Friday two PlanetCricket members went to the Codemasters studios in Leamington Spa and had some time to play the game. Below is a bit of their feedback on the game. Further discussion and comments on this is in the IC10 playtest thread on the forums. Myself and Dean (aus5892) will be going along to developer Trickstar Games later in the week for a further preview, and will be able to try and answer some of the remaining issues/questions from the initial test in the UK.
Review from Sureshot:
We’ve all heard about the action cam and many of the critics are “It’s only a camera.” I tell you what, this action cam transforms the game. Not only is batting very immersive but it adds a new dimension to bowling in a cricket game, it makes it very difficult to land the ball in the same spot, more on this with the HUD later.
When you are running the action cam stays with the batsman, so you are watching the batsman run down the pitch with the camera focused on the ball, you can switch your view with the shoulder buttons so that you look down to the crease you are running to, or to your batting partner.
Bowling has a new twist, you have to hold the analog sticks in place to keep the ball pitching at x point, which makes yorkers quite difficult. Though they were quite easy in our 2-player cam as it only works with broadcast cam, for obvious reasons. I played New Zealand in a T20 on Normal and got hit for 170, it’s not easy.
HUD – You have an option to turn this off, which means you see no bowling reticule, swing or timing meter. When I turned this off, I hated it, it was so difficult. Then I worked with it a bit, I cannot give this option enough credit. The hardcore players will love it, by love it, I mean love it. It’s you against the bowler and it feels fantastic in action cam, this will be the way to play it.
Customisation – Much more in depth than AC’09, I remember a figure of 300 items, might have been 400. I didn’t look in to it in much depth as it doesn’t really interest me, but it looks better and it is certainly bigger.
Tournaments – They showed us the options for these and it looks like there is a lot of depth of gameplay in these. Fully customisable or set tournaments, your choice.
The AI seemed good, I didn’t have them chasing a total at any point but they seemed good when setting a total, and that was on normal.
The edges were good, thick edges tended to go down or squirt out to gully area, thin edges carrying through nicely. I didn’t find any exploits like the off-spinner one in AC’09, the game felt quite solid. The fielders felt a bit slow at times, but fast at other times. But with the action cam, running is very difficult and not as simple as you think.
Don’t undervalue something that sounds as simple as an action cam, it turns a cricket game in to something we’ve not seen before. I thoroughly enjoyed playing IC’10 yesterday. I had a grin on most of the day.
Lastly, a big thanks to Andy, Ian and the whole of Codemasters for yesterday and their continuing support of us and the whole community. Nice bunch of guys and an impressive set of studios.
Review by rlfan82:
I suppose the first question would be, is this game an improvement on the console version of AC09, particularly the offline experience against the AI? If it is an improvement, which ways has it improved, if it is worse then in what ways is it worse?
It is certainly an improvement. I put it on easy and slogged the CPU around a bit, so I restarted and cranked it up to hard. Again I played Bermuda, then one of the blokes from codies (I’m useless with names) was very amused at me getting duck, after duck, after golden duck.
Eventually I got better but this was not the Bermuda whipping boys of past games. i am certain the AI has improved, or has batting system just got harder?
I struggled to cope with FOUR batting elements at once. BATTER POSITION, SHOT SELECTION, POWER, FOOT. It really makes you think. Just in case anyone on here thinks they are a chief, try turning the HUD’s off. I do not use these letters often but ‘OMG’ it was impossible, but also highly rewarding when you bowled a good ball. This will definitely stretch even the most experienced gamers.
Action Cam is a great addition – it really puts you in the game. Not available in 2 player mode on the same machine though, unsurprisingly.
Seeing as I have ended up writing more here than I thought, I have 2 negatives…
Article by Matt Whitehorn - Read More...
Review from Sureshot:
We’ve all heard about the action cam and many of the critics are “It’s only a camera.” I tell you what, this action cam transforms the game. Not only is batting very immersive but it adds a new dimension to bowling in a cricket game, it makes it very difficult to land the ball in the same spot, more on this with the HUD later.
When you are running the action cam stays with the batsman, so you are watching the batsman run down the pitch with the camera focused on the ball, you can switch your view with the shoulder buttons so that you look down to the crease you are running to, or to your batting partner.
Bowling has a new twist, you have to hold the analog sticks in place to keep the ball pitching at x point, which makes yorkers quite difficult. Though they were quite easy in our 2-player cam as it only works with broadcast cam, for obvious reasons. I played New Zealand in a T20 on Normal and got hit for 170, it’s not easy.
HUD – You have an option to turn this off, which means you see no bowling reticule, swing or timing meter. When I turned this off, I hated it, it was so difficult. Then I worked with it a bit, I cannot give this option enough credit. The hardcore players will love it, by love it, I mean love it. It’s you against the bowler and it feels fantastic in action cam, this will be the way to play it.
Customisation – Much more in depth than AC’09, I remember a figure of 300 items, might have been 400. I didn’t look in to it in much depth as it doesn’t really interest me, but it looks better and it is certainly bigger.
Tournaments – They showed us the options for these and it looks like there is a lot of depth of gameplay in these. Fully customisable or set tournaments, your choice.
The AI seemed good, I didn’t have them chasing a total at any point but they seemed good when setting a total, and that was on normal.
The edges were good, thick edges tended to go down or squirt out to gully area, thin edges carrying through nicely. I didn’t find any exploits like the off-spinner one in AC’09, the game felt quite solid. The fielders felt a bit slow at times, but fast at other times. But with the action cam, running is very difficult and not as simple as you think.
Don’t undervalue something that sounds as simple as an action cam, it turns a cricket game in to something we’ve not seen before. I thoroughly enjoyed playing IC’10 yesterday. I had a grin on most of the day.
Lastly, a big thanks to Andy, Ian and the whole of Codemasters for yesterday and their continuing support of us and the whole community. Nice bunch of guys and an impressive set of studios.
Review by rlfan82:
I suppose the first question would be, is this game an improvement on the console version of AC09, particularly the offline experience against the AI? If it is an improvement, which ways has it improved, if it is worse then in what ways is it worse?
It is certainly an improvement. I put it on easy and slogged the CPU around a bit, so I restarted and cranked it up to hard. Again I played Bermuda, then one of the blokes from codies (I’m useless with names) was very amused at me getting duck, after duck, after golden duck.
Eventually I got better but this was not the Bermuda whipping boys of past games. i am certain the AI has improved, or has batting system just got harder?
I struggled to cope with FOUR batting elements at once. BATTER POSITION, SHOT SELECTION, POWER, FOOT. It really makes you think. Just in case anyone on here thinks they are a chief, try turning the HUD’s off. I do not use these letters often but ‘OMG’ it was impossible, but also highly rewarding when you bowled a good ball. This will definitely stretch even the most experienced gamers.
Action Cam is a great addition – it really puts you in the game. Not available in 2 player mode on the same machine though, unsurprisingly.
Seeing as I have ended up writing more here than I thought, I have 2 negatives…
- I advanced down the wicket, in plenty of time my batsman put his bat back ‘in the crease’ and was then stumped, closer inspection showed the bat was just short. Error in the game maybe?
- No random option for ground, ball wear or team selection. This really annoyed me as it is such a simple addition and is already there for Wind and Temperature
Article by Matt Whitehorn - Read More...
