The best cricket game available (Cricket 2002 (PS2))

Member Name: JonnyM79

Product:	Cricket 2002 (PS2)
Date:	18/04/02 (1736 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Captured the feeling of the sport, Plenty of action, Andy Caddick looks REAL

Disadvantages: minor graphical flaws, If you don't like cricket, this won't turn you

Ah, Cricket. The sound of leather on willow. Sipping cider on a sunny saturday afternoon at Taunton as the mighty cidermen cruise towards another triumph. You just can't beat it. There, at least you know where I'm coming from, because I do accept that the majority of the population thinks that any sport that takes several days to finish is an utterly stupid idea, so this review is written essentially for the cricket enthusiast (cricket's just not the type of game the casually curious might elect to buy a computer game about, as opposed to, say, snowboarding).

Up until now the finest cricket game on any format has been Brian Lara Cricket; kind of strange when you consider that bowling the other side out on any level was just about impossible with their infallible batting. Previous EA Sports attempts to emulate cricket have been frankly abysmal, suffering from gameplay problems such as being able to sweep any ball for 2 runs no matter where it pitched. EA have at least done the decent thing and recruited the developers from Brian Lara setting them loose on the Playstation 2's more powerful hardware. So what have they come up with?

For a start the presentation (as it always is with EA sports) is excellent with a nice intro sequence and slick menus that are easy on the eye. The game comes with a number of options to ease you in such as 3 levels of difficulty, auto-fielding and an indicator when you're batting to tell you if a run is available. All the international teams are present with up to date squads, although disappointingly for buffs there are no county sides. A neat feature is the ability to unlock all-time great sides from the past for each country, such as a West Indies side featuring Viv Richards and Malcolm Marshall. These are obtained by doing things such as winning the World Cup or (for a real challenge) beating Australia in a test series, and act as an extra hook to keep you playing.
r> The game itself is on the whole a very creditable performance. The graphics of the grounds are excellent and the players are well drawn. I do have 2 gripes, though. First the motion capture is oddly stilted; as another opinion mentioned the stilted running is oddly reminiscent of Andy Caddick (and the animation of him stomping back to his mark with a scowl on his face is so real it's uncanny), but it's strange to see young athletic players animated in such a fashion. Secondly the crowd are very 2-dimensional; fine when the action's in the middle, but hitting the ball into the grandstand isn't quite so satisfying when all it hits is an army of John Smiths cardboard men. On the other hand the diving fielder animations are perfect and lead to some stunning catches that look great on replay. The sound features commentary by Richie Benaud and is no more repetitive than any other game and links in well with what's actually hapenning. They've also captured the essential "Thwack" sound very nicely.

One thing I can't knock is the gameplay. The batting is superbly executed with different buttons for front and back foot shots (drive a bouncer and pick it out of your teeth if you want), and leaving the ball. The feeling of timing on the shots is just right and creaming a cover drive to the boundary is difficult but immensely satisfying. One of thee shoulder buttons is a power button and holding this as you play the shot means that you belt the ball through the air, although risks spooning a catch straight to the fielder if you misstime the shot. This is the first cricket game I've played where they've really captured the effects of different pitch conditions. In slow wet wickets you really have to wait for the ball to come on, while in hard dry conditions you feel rushed in your shots. The pitch also affects the difficulty dramatically - playing the Aussies on a green seamer at Headingley I was reduce
d at Lunch to about 30 for 6 (emulating real life almost exactly). Bowling took a little while longer than batting to master - the umpires are very strict on wides and no-balls are also easy to bowl, and like all cricket games is slightly less satisfying in that you often need the computer to make a slight error to achieve success. At least it's an improvement on Brian Lara and there is an autoplay feature to generate the innings if you don't want to bother with this 1/2 of the game.

The developers have clearly made the right decision here in concentrating on the real cricket fan to pitch this game at. It's full of little touches that will be appreciated by anyone who plays or watches the game even occasionally. They've also concentrated heavily on 1-day cricket and you spend more time belting the ball over deep midwicket than grinding along at an Atherton-like pace. Cricket is a notoriously difficult sport to capture in a computer game and this is a very creditable attempt. As such every cricket fan with a Playstation 2 should own this game.