Cricket 2005 Review *TE Exclusive*

EA Sports Cricket 2005 Review *TE Exclusive*

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Introduction:

This is my second game review after the FIFA 2004 review I did a year or two ago. I know its a long gap but I don't always have the opportunity to obtain the latest games. This time though, I was lucky to get my hands on the latest EA offering, Cricket 2005. However, the icing on the cake is that my ageing MX440 graphics card is still young enough to play the game without any problems. Let's go straight into the review then but first a bit of introduction for those who are not followers of EA or cricket games in general.

Cricket as a sport doesn't enjoy the popularity of other big sports like football or rugby. Moreover, the demand for cricket in countries like US or Canada is next to nil. As a result, the game developers don't always feel like investing their money and resources for small markets like UK, Australia or India. While saying this, I'd like to thank EA Sports and Codemasters (the makers of Brian Lara Cricket series) for having identified the needs of cricket gamers and accordingly giving their best to please them. With every offering, both are improving but the stage of perfection is still far away. Cricket 2005 happens to be EA Sports desperate attempt at capturing the market share from Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 (published by Codemasters). EA policy, till now, was to come out with annual sequels to the most popular games like FIFA, NBA etc. and a sequel every two years for comparatively less popular games such as Cricket. After Cricket 2002 and Cricket 2004, EA was to come up with a game titled Cricket 2006 but now it seems that the re-incarnation of BLC series forced EA to rename its Cricket 2006 game as Cricket 2005. The result, as expected, a half baked product and far from complete.

Graphics:

When I started the game for the first time, it felt much like re-modeled Cricket 2004 barring a few changes here and there. The noticeable among those are a completely new player models. This is due to the utilization of technology from other EA blockbuster sports games such as FIFA, NBA & Rugby but it seems they have used the older technology because players in FIFA 2005 look ten times better than this. Infact, the cricket players now look more like body builders straight out of the gym and into the cricket ground. Maybe they've just put in the rugby player models without much modification. As a whole, this one is a welcome change from the lifeless models of Cricket 2004. EA have tried hard to re-create the player faces to match their real life counterparts and to some extent they've succeeded in doing so for most of the players (mostly Australian and English players). Sadly, the Indian players missed out as there is no similarity between real players and models. Sachin Tendulkar with a moustache looks like Md. Azharuddin (as mentioned by someone in our forums). The height and body mass of all players look the same. So, Cricket 2005 in this respect has a lot of scope for improvement.
 
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The game features well known stadiums from all over the world accurately modeled as in real life. There are 35+ officially licensed stadiums but the number is much less than that of Cricket 2004. Actually, they didn't get the time to create all of those because they had to rush their product in a hurry. The textures and other graphics are almost the same as Cricket 2004 in higher resolutions which makes things pretty. The presentation is okay with TV style coverage, an array of statistical analysis, useable interface, field editors etc. Cricket 2005 also includes an improved player editor taken straight from FIFA series where you can create your very own player and edit various attributes of his face, body, clothes, accessories and more. Overall, the graphics and presentation is an improvement over previous cricket games released by EA.

Sounds:

Sound in Cricket 2005 can be classified in three groups which include stadium and crowd effects, in-game commentary and EA Trax that’s finally introduced in Cricket 2005 as well. Improvements in Stadium sounds and crowd effects can't really be noted as such but EA claims to have put in real crowd sounds from all over the world that accurately reflects peaks and troughs in the game in a 3D environment. The commentary once again features the legendary Richie Benaud and Jim Maxwell. Its the same as Cricket 2004 with some additions here and there. The commentary is repetitive and gets boring after a while. Also, there is some kind of a synchronization problem with commentary and actual game events that’s carried over from Cricket 2004. The proprietary EA Trax makes its appearance in Cricket 2005 with a few good sound tracks that are not irritating and feels good in the background while browsing through the interface. The sound department too is improved but only slightly. The inclusion of EA Trax is a good one.

Gameplay:

Let’s move on to the most important aspect of a review, the gameplay. Cricket 2005 comes with full licenses from the Cricket Australia, ECB, NZ Cricket, the South African Cricket team. It features both Australian and English county teams and competitions including the latest craze in cricket called Twenty20 Cup. It’s fully licensed and comes with 2005 season fixtures. You can also generate random fixtures for replay ability. Apart from that, Cricket 2005 includes all international teams, their A teams and competitions including World Cup, ICC Knock out, Ashes and tours to various part of the world. Everything is very much the same as cricket 2004. Cricket 2005 lets you play with up to four players at a time with 2 player co-operative play. You can select every attribute of a match including teams, venue, match type (ODI/Test Match), pitch type, weather etc. while playing a quick game. On the other hand, all these things are randomly selected for you if you're playing in a tournament or series.

The three aspects of a Cricket game that needs to be discussed are Batting, Bowling and Fielding. Let’s start with Fielding since it’s the one which is often neglected. Cricket 2005 lets you choose between manual and auto fielding. In auto fielding, the computer does all the hard work for you like fielding, catching and throwing. In manual fielding, you are in charge and have to do the running around. You can select which end to throw the ball to but you can't decide the speed and accuracy of the throw though it’s always accurate. The fielders in Cricket 2005 are athletic, energetic and very fast. They run at tremendous speed, dive and slide all over the field and take some outstanding catches. Sometimes, you might just feel that you are playing against a bunch of supermen. While on some other times, those supermen misses the easiest of fielding opportunities and drops the easiest of catches which adds to frustration if you are the fielding side.
 
Batting in Cricket 2005 is a bit tough in medium mode which gets easier in easy mode and tougher in hard mode. It’s all about timing and your willingness to spend time at the crease or rather your PC. There's a confidence meter which instantly builds up when you hit a good shot and drops when you mistimed a shot or get hit by the bowler. A full confidence meter will ensure better timing and more runs as a result. You can play various kinds of shots – back-foot, front-foot, lofted, sweep and even reverse sweep. However, it takes time getting used to the controls when you’re playing with a keyboard. Batting has improved in comparison to Cricket 2004 and is towards being more realistic. Bowling on the other hand is easier! The bowling marker is always placed in the good line and good length spot and seems to be attached with an invisible rubber band. You can stretch the marker wherever you like on the pitch but it tries to get back to its original position. You can lock the marker in any position with the help of various types of delivery keys which appear on screen at that time. The types of deliveries available depend on the type of bowler, his skill and his confidence. Yes, bowlers too have a confidence meter in Cricket 2005. When you hit a batsman or make him miss-time a shot, your confidence increases. However, when you get hit for a four or a six, it decreases instantly. While the bowler confidence meter remains full, you get to use special deliveries like bouncer, googly or flipper etc. which then appear on the screen. It’s a welcome addition and makes bowling more interesting.

Conclusion:

With that we come to the end of this review and to conclude, once again I'd like to believe that it’s a game that is not yet complete. It’s a makeover of Cricket 2004 with few bugs sorted and a few added, improved graphics and half implemented new features. It a game that needed some more time to get complete but we can understand the position of EA Sports in this case. It’s definitely and improvement over Cricket 2004 and worth a buy if you are a cricket gaming fan and don't own Cricket 2004. With BLIC 2005 sitting on another shelf of your game store, I'm not quite sure if I should recommend this game for everyone. I'll be in a better position to judge after I've finished playing BLIC 2005.

Ratings:

Graphics: 6/10
Sound: 5/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Overall: 6/10

Recommended Specs:

700 MHz Intel Pentium III or equivalent
128 MB of RAM (256 MB for Windows 2000 and Windows XP)
DirectX 9.0c compatible 3D accelerated 32 MB video card or equivalent
1200 MB free HDD space plus space for saved games and DirectX 9.0c installation
32X Speed CD-ROM/DVD-ROM
DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher
MS-compatible mouse and Keyboard
Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, or Windows XP
Note: Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 are not supported.

My System:

2.8 GHz Intel Pentium 4 (HT)
512 MB of RAM (DDR400 - Dual Channel)
GeForce4 MX440 (64 MB - AGP 8X)
Windows XP Professional (SP2)

Fansites:

Cricket 2005 (Planet Cricket)
 
This is SOME review man!

Maybe I'll put my fingers to this one after months of my "mathapacchi" with StickCricket.

Keep up the good work "O' Man ahead of times." :p
 
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