Interesting..but not mind blowing
The tutorial is not as useless as it often is in sports games. It highlights the fact that you have to bowl fuller than usual, so you know not to bowl what would be considered a good length in real life. Of course, this is a good and bad thing – good because it alerts a player to the fact that it's necessary, but bad because there's no reason why bowling lengths couldn't have been correctly implemented. Also, Beefy and Warney sometimes think you've got a real ball in your hand – they tell you to 'bowl more slowly' to flight a spinner's delivery for example, without telling you how to actually do that. Taking into account some of the game's problems (as we'll come to later), Transmission/Codemasters (developer/publisher) would've been sensible to use one of these legends as a consultant, as well as just using them for their voice.
The tutorial would be of most use to someone less experienced with cricket, as it takes you through all the basics including annoying the bowler by taking quick singles when boundary balls aren't being served up and where to play defensive shots to be able to take such singles, as well as other things. Unfortunately, for more experienced players, it only really serves to highlight one of the game's major failings – the bowling lengths. It would be nice if the tutorial made an attempt to show and name each fielding position as well – some of the names still confuse me and I've been watching cricket for around twenty years!
Gameplay:
Now then, this is why you're here.
It feels like cricket. Playing a defensive shot feels nice and solid – you really 'see the maker's name' (unlike EA's animation that always makes an opener look like a tailender). Lower order batsmen are visibly less confident with their defence – a nice touch. Batting and bowling animations are on the whole quite good, but some variations such as Malinga's 'Slinga' action would've been nice. Batsmen meet between balls for mid wicket chats and bowlers trudge back to their marks, which all adds to the TV styling of the game.
The Batting is probably the best thing about the game. There are three buttons: attack, defense and loft, as well as two more to select front or back foot. As the bowler begins his run up, you choose a direction to hit the ball in (there is an aiming cone in the fielding radar) with the left stick (get a gamepad – this game is crap with keyboard/mouse) - you have 360 degree freedom and then press one of the buttons. The direction you've chosen will govern the shot choice, for example, if you aim straight down the ground, you will play a straight drive. Aiming through the covers gets you an.....ummm....cover drive (!) Playing behind square will result in a sweep or hook, depending on whether you've chosen front foot or back foot. Thanks to the 360 degree system, it is possible to stroke the ball between the gaps in the field, which gives the batting a fluid, intuitive feel, unlike EA Cricket 07's clunky 8 way system, which more often than not resulted in finding a fielder. There is also a dive button for when you need to make the crease urgently, but once again, no leave or duck button, which results in you wearing a few too many bouncers, which of course knocks your confidence (this goes up or down depending on how well you're doing. It ranges from 'timid, all the way up to 'fearless'; it goes up when you hit boundaries and down when you play & miss or get hit by the ball. Not scoring for a prolonged period of time also reduces the confidence meter).
A quick note about batting. If you try to slog every ball out of the ground, you'll get out. A lot. But once you get used to the timing, you'll be able to hit boundaries easily. To get the best out of the game, play realistically (defending balls that you would in real life, leaving balls that you would in real life), so that when you do get treated to the one that's wide outside the off stump and you crash it for four, it feels all the more satisfying. Besides which, building an innings and your batsman's confidence while playing realistically is so much more fun and satisfying. It requires a lot of patience of course, but my advice if you're getting bored is save and stop playing. Don't start slogging, because that spoils the game.
If the ball 'isn't there' for any particular type of shot that you play, you're more likely to be punished for it. Indeed, the timing window is much smaller than if you try the correct shot for any particular delivery – a nice touch. As mentioned before, if you get the timing down, you can slog a lot of deliveries, but my recommendation is to play realistically; hopefully this is one of the issues that'll be addressed in the patch.
The bowling is a lot more fun than in most cricket games. There are many variations for each type of bowler, as well as certain special deliveries that get unlocked when your confidence is very high ( bowler's confidence works much the same way as the batsmen's does – so taking wickets, hitting the batsman and tying them down will build confidence, whereas being carted around the park will lower it). Bowlers will also tire eventually; this is governed by the heat and how well they're doing – a bowler that's being flayed to all parts will tire faster than one who is in control of the batsman. It is possible to change a delivery type at the very last moment (which simulates being able to disguise a delivery in real life). This is essential to getting the AI to make mistakes.
The single main problem with the bowling is the bowling lengths. 'Default' good lengths as you'd find in real life will not help in this game as much as they do in real cricket. The bowling cursor changes colour depending on where you're bowling – a good length in this game is fairly full and results in a yellow cursor, whereas serving one full and wide outside off stump will lead to a dark green cursor: a delivery that will most likely be smashed for four or six. This problem is made worse ten-fold whenever you bowl a spinner. The 'good' length for a spinner is far too full, taking away all the fun of spin bowling. This situation is so bad that a lot of people have stopped using spinners – I myself always pick four seamers, maybe even five.
The bounce appears to me to be too high on fuller areas and not high enough on shorter areas. This makes bouncers feel particularly tame, even if being bowled by a fully pumped up fast bowler. The AI often plays a back foot defensive/drive to a bouncer(!) That should just earn them a close, intimate and very painful encounter involving their head and the ball!
Edges are partially broken in my opinion. Back foot edges seem to work reasonably well, often carrying, but front foot edges all too often just go along the ground, resulting in much frustration. The good thing is the edges are not scripted like they are in EA's games. Edges will often go flying straight to where second/third slip 'should've been', which is a far cry from EA's game where edges always went straight to a fielder; or they didn't happen at all. There are also 'invisible' edges which drastically reduce the chances of LBW – a ball that appears to hit the pads and nothing but the pads, which should have the fielding team screaming their heads off, is all too often described as an edge, when it clearly isn't. There's no appeal button once again, and even when the game doesn't call it as an edge, the fielders often don't appeal, when if there was an appeal button, you'd be hammering it for all you're worth. Some LBWs that are clearly going miles past the stumps are given, while those heading straight for the stumps are often not appealed at all.
When an appeal is being heard, Transmission have done a wonderful job disguising whether or not it will be given out. Whereas in EA's game, the camera switched to a certain angle when an appeal would be out, in this game, you have to wait for the Umpire to put his finger up (or not). This can take a long time and it can also vary from a quick finger to Rudi Koertzen's 'slow finger of death'. Sometimes, the umpire will move his hand upwards, but then just rest it on his stomach – a great touch! You will never know whether the batsman is out until the decision is given.
3rd Umpire decisions have a similar amount of tension to them, several replays are shown while the Umpire is making his decision. The problem is, all the replays are from exactly the same angle! It would be a lot less tempting to just skip straight to the decision if the replays were shown from different angles. Worse than that, some of the decisions are clearly in, yet the Umpire insists on rewinding the action five or six times! In fact, some run-out decisions that are clearly in are often referred. Also, it would be nice if the decision was displayed on a big screen with a fancy graphics as happens on TV; there isn't even a red or green light in the game. On the plus side, I've never seen the AI get a run-out decision wrong.
Graphics:
Quite good – the game looks nice (running on a decent system), the stadiums themselves look fantastic and the crowd have some personality; they applaud and stand up/sit down at appropriate moments. The pitch displays wear and tear as the match progresses, in the form of cracks and footmarks and the lighting changes to reflect the time of day and how the weather is (although I have never seen the weather change from good to bad in the course of a day). Unfortunately at the moment, it appears said wear and tear doesn't make it onto saved games – something Transmission should look at if the wear or tear affects the gameplay, not so vital if it is only a cosmetic touch (which it shouldn't be, but there you go).
There are real time electronic scoreboards, which is a nice touch, but no '3rd Umpire' screen, which would've added some tension to those close run-out decisions.
Faces vary from good (like Collingwood, Anderson and Panesar, to name a few), to terrible, (such as Flintoff). The 'licence' part of the game, namely the Ashes series, feels like a missed opportunity. Codemasters/Transmission stumps/pitch ads abound, instead of the proper graphics that Codemasters should have made better use of, since they bothered to acquire the Ashes 2009 licence in the first place.
Sound:
It's passable. The general cricket ambiance is good – it feels like being at a cricket match. Unfortunately, it doesn't feel like being at an Ashes cricket match. There are no chants to speak of, no 'Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oi Oi Oi!' or the infamous England Barmy Army chants. Now, I appreciate that the Barmy Army chants are licensed (which is a ridiculous situation), but what was stopping them from at least making some generic chants that at least sound like English or Australian fans? The closest thing I can hear to a chant sounds very much like a very faint 'Pakistan! Zindabad', something that definitely shouldn't be heard at an Ashes match! I don't know about other test series, but since the game is called 'Ashes Cricket 2009', I'd expect better there.
There is music played for boundaries/wickets in Twenty/20 and ODIs, but it's disappointingly generic; some real tracks as heard on TV would've been nice, or at least an option to be able to add them to the game ourselves.
Appeals range from the passable, to the awful 'hoowwsieee' (when have you ever heard an appeal like that?) They're also far too quiet and get drowned out by the crowd. We've all heard how loud appeals are on TV: they drown out the crowd, not the other way round. Indeed, the crowd all appeal as well!
The iconic sound of leather on willow is better than most cricket games, it's a good, solid thwack that doesn't get drowned out by the crowd, but it doesn't sound like it's happening in a stadium. Some reverb effect added to the sounds would've helped a lot. There are also pointless sounds, such as the ball bouncing in the outfield – it makes the ground sound as though it's made of plastic, while the ball is strangely silent when it smashes into the boundary adboards.
The fielding is mostly automated, but you can choose which end you wish to return the ball to. There is also a new catching system which takes the form of a minigame: the camera switches to a view from behind the catching fielder and as the ball approaches, a circle appears round it, which changes colour from orange, green, to red. The trick is to press the catch button when it's green – this will more often than not (but not always) lead to a catch. It's a good system, and makes you feel like it was your doing whenever a good catch is pulled off; conversely, it's also your fault if it was dropped. Some catches seem to have too much of a 'green zone', for example, sharp slip/keeper, or caught and bowled chances are far easier to catch than an outfield steepler (which can often have less than a second in which to press the button). This has obviously been done to balance out the different types of catch, but it is in need of some gentle tweaking to make close in catches tougher and outfield catches easier. Fielders also seem to be too keen to 'make it look good for the camera', when simply getting in position and taking the catch would be far less risky.
Maybe a similar 'minigame' for run-out attempts would make the player feel even more involved in the fielding.
Overthrows also happen – a nice touch, but sometimes there can be a situation where the ball is returned, the keeper misses it, it's returned again and he misses it again! Still, it's no biggie and doesn't spoil the game. Fielders dive around a lot more now, but they always stop the ball when they dive – it'd be nice if sometimes they make a mess of the dive. They also don't seem to put enough into it when it comes to diving for balls on the boundary. There are frequent situations where they seem to give up too early where if they'd kept going and put a dive in, they'd have a good chance of saving the boundary.
The outfields seem a bit slow to me – sometimes a ball could be racing away for a clear boundary, but then it inexplicably slows down, allowing the fielder to catch it. It would be so much more exciting if the fielder's running speeds were increased, allowing them to have a chance of catching such balls.
Bugs: You know them, you hate them; they plague all games to some extent. In this game, they undo a lot of the good work that Transmission have done. The worst bug by far is the AI's infamous fondness for suicide-o-runs, leading to comical run-outs. Saving each over and reloading if this happens is one way round it, but loading times can often be infuriatingly long, so you'll be hanging around for a few minutes before getting back into the action. There are people who say that altering fielder's abilities reduces the AI's risky runs, but I haven't done it yet, so can't comment.
Another huge bug happens when the AI bowls a full ball that you try to play a front foot shot across the line to. Invariably, the game will select a backfoot shot, often a hook or pull, resulting of course in a dismissal and much cursing. Again, save/reload is a way round this, but it isn't acceptable, especially given that the game only came out in time for the penultimate test of the Ashes series. For now, I'd recommend playing straight shots to such balls – this is usually a lot less risky.
It's far too easy to bowl no-balls with spinners – the no-ball meter should be a lot more forgiving for spinners. The AI bowls too many no-balls with all bowler types and as mentioned before, edges just don't fly enough – this is probably due in turn to the lack of bounce on the pitch.
Commentary:
Commentary is probably the weakest aspect of the game. Firstly, the limited amount of phrases are repeated far too often, with a commentator going on and on about 'playing Test cricket being the high point of his career' (for example), while the game is continuing with shots being played and so on.
Secondly, it's always a dead giveaway when a ball will reach the boundary, because as soon as the shot is played, the commentator says 'great shot' or something like that. It'd be far better if the commentators praised all good shots, not just ones that are definitely making it to the boundary.
Thirdly, there is no mention of team milestones such as '100 up for England', no recognition of an innings of 50+ when the batsman is out (good knock, or similar), no mention of when it's the last over before lunch/tea/stumps.
Fourthly, there is no mention if a wicket is taken off a no-ball and no mention of when a bowler/batsman is tiring (for example).
Finally, it would've been a good idea to use the reasonable number of commentators in the game to swap between them over the course of a day – it would break up the monotony a bit, at least.
Content:
The game really falls down here. You have the titular Ashes series, complete with all the stadiums and both squads, ODIs and Twenty20s. Since Codemasters don't have the license for these tournaments, they haven't got their real names, but you get the idea of what they're supposed to be. The problem is, you can't setup a tournament that starts any earlier than the Quarter Final stage. No group stages, not even a knockout tournament featuring all the teams. No ODI series, or Twenty20 series either. This leads me to believe that, once the Ashes are over (as they will be in a few days) many people will lose interest in the game, since the only real longevity is with the Test matches/series (as well as the Ashes, you can setup Test series around the world). Without that, this game would've been a shameless cash in, similar to EA's World Cup games that you never play after the tournament is over. Thankfully however, it should keep us happy for the winter series (unless EA or Trine manage to better it, which in EA's case is most unlikely). The fact that the game was only released in time for the fourth Test doesn't help much, either. The game really should've been ready for the start of the series.
Conclusion:
It's a decent enough game, at times it feels very realistic, at other times it can make you want to tear your hair out as the AI seemingly go into Twenty/20 mode and try to hit everything for six. As mentioned before, making some 'concessions' to the AI is necessary to get the best out of this game – playing realistically and not slogging everything in sight. It would be marvellous to have a cricket game that lets you slog away, but if the ball isn't there for the shot, then you get punished. Maybe an 'invisible' unplayable delivery should be introduced for balls bowled in the 'corridor of uncertainty'. That way, you'll be more circumspect in your choice of which ball to slog, as you never know which one is going to be that 'unplayable' one, leading to more cautious play for those balls just on/outside off stump.
Overall, it's not quite the 'Messiah' of cricket games that we've been building it up to be, but it's a commendable first attempt by Transmission, who will hopefully release patches to sort out at least some of the issues and build on this excellent foundation (for that's all it really is) in future games of the series.
Hence:
73%