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Ricky Ponting's International Cricket (Reviews)31/10/2005 14:22:23
HOWZAT!? Pretty bloody awesome thank God! Finally, after slogging through sub-par offerings for years, the legends over at Codemasters have produced a cricket title that doesn't suck googlies. In fact, cricket fans might as well just jump up and start their own personal Mexican wave in celebration right now - just don't go overboard and chuck your pie at the screen. Yes gamers, it's not a choice idea to mix your lunch and/or dinner with your electrical appliances, but it is choice finding such a plentiful array of game options as seen in this title. All the stalwarts are here - Exhibition, Tournament (covering everything from the ICC Cricket World Cup, ICC Champions Trophy, World Tour, World XI Series to the new multiplayer friendly Double Wicket Tournament) and The Nets - as well as Create Your Own Player and Challenge Mode. And while the mode themselves aren't original, what they showcase is far beyond your expectation. When starting a match, you have control over everything from weather conditions to ball brand, pitch type, ball condition and fielding restrictions - it's quite in-depth. In The Nets, you can choose which bowler or batter to practice against and determine where you would like the ball to be pitched allowing you to hone your skills in your weaker areas. And when you create a player you have control over their bowling, fielding and batting statistics as well as their general appearance (although more depth here would have been nice) and even bat type. Then there is the cool Challenge Mode that sees you face off against World and Classic XIs or compete in classic games: for example, you can play a Bodyline test, complete with black and white graphics and models dressed to the times. What RPIC doesn't have is the sport's full license and while you will recognise some of the faces, you may not identify many of the names. Indeed, seeing Gelchrast keeping to the awesome bowling attack of Worde, MacGrith and Guisseppi (hey, at least they have a sense of humour) is kind of disconcerting. But the Create a Player feature kind of counters this. Indeed, any character you create can be spliced straight into your favourite team and as they play they earn experience which can be used to increase their stats, providing a fun type of Career Mode. But anyway, onto the gameplay, where RICP really begins to target the, ahem, middle-stump. Believe it or bloody not, Codemasters have made bowling as much fun as batting, actually brought some skill into fielding and brought strategic importance to every single ball delivered. We can scarcely believe it. It's up to the gamer to out-think the opposition on every delivery whether it's in their field settings (which can be custom edited), type of deliver, timing of stroke or stroke choice.
When batting, you have block/deflect, lofted shot and standard stroke options with the analogue stick controlling the direction and in-turn the type of stroke played. The engine reacts impressively to your combination of these options allowing you to drive, hook, pool, leg glance, guide past the slips and whatever else you can think of with relative ease. However, you can't head in with any preconceived shots and you must play each delivery on its merits. This is thanks to the awesome variety and unpredictable shifts of Bowling. Once you have selected your beginning marker, you will start your approach. Before you get to the crease you must define where the ball will land and the type of delivery (all mapped to specific buttons) before using a power-bar to measure the quality of the ball. Once the ball is in the air, you can place swing on it (or drift for the spinners) which shifts the landing point slightly, taking the advantage away from the batter. All this feels intuitive and there is a massive range of deliveries: Fast and Medium pacers have Fast, Slow, Leg Cutter, Off Cutter, Bouncer and Yorker; Leg Spin bowlers add the likes of Top Spin, Googly, flipper; Off Spin bowlers throw The Donora and 'Quick One' into the mix. So when a bowler comes charging in, the batter really has a lot to consider and timing is essential. When the ball leaves the bowler's hand the landing marker will show direction of movement and positional shift according to any swing or drift and you must adjust for that immediately. With a slow bowler this is easier, but with a fast bowler responding quickly takes some nifty fingers and plenty of skill. The net result of this is, as a batter you must be prepared for anything which provides plenty of rewards for both parties. And on a side note, unlike previous games running between wickets is well-measured and if you a run out, it's because you screwed up, not because of a design flaw. And this is largely thanks to the smart camera that swings into gear when the action focuses on fielding, an essential component to the game which is well developed. You do not control a fielders running, but when they pick up the ball a power-bar will appear with a marked zone in it. Hitting that zone will provide a quick, sharp throw, but outside of it will produce a poor effort, often providing plenty of anxiety during close run out. Similarly, when the ball heads to a fielder in the air, a power-bar appears and hitting the zone will determine whether you make the catch. Obviously, a catch close to the batter requires plenty of quick thinking. So where does RPIC fall down? Well the graphics aren't crash hot. There acceptable and there are some excellent animations, but you're unlikely to be blown away. There are other good points to the presentation however, like good commentary from the likes of Tony Greig, hearty 'Howzat!' calls, hawk-eye, a video referee and ball tracking which does add that TV presence to the gameplay. Indeed, this is the game you have been waiting for cricket fans: the gameplay is just well-balanced. You will scratch your chin and consider moving that extra slip to deep cover, you will bowl an out-swinging off-cutter to a packed slip cordon, you will check the field placing and try the lofted drive over mid-on and you will have exciting run out chances - yep, this is just the type of cricket game we've been waiting for!
Score = 9.0/10
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