Ashes Cricket 2009 Hands On

Playing cricket games on a console against a friend can be extremely good fun and in the past I have wasted many hours this way. A new entry in the genre had me very excited and it was great to get my hands on an early version of Atari’s new title. I only had around 15 minutes on the game, but that was enough to get the gist of it. In short, this is easily one of the greatest cricket games ever produced, but suffers from the fact that it is not a soccer or American sport game. Compared to something like FIFA, Madden or NBA2K, Ashes looks like a pretty poor sports videogame – but that is in no way comparing apples with apples. For a cricket game, Ashes has corrected a lot of past mistakes and should provide many hours of fun for those willing to give it a try.

The basic controls don’t appear to have changed too much from previous cricket games although it is somehow more intuitive. As you run up to bowl, a moving green circle indicates where the ball is going to land and you control it with the analogue stick – same old, same old. One new feature is a dummy function, which means you can change the delivery after first selecting it. This is fantastic for multiplayer and will keep the batter guessing. Another great new feature is how you catch. When a catch is available, it cuts to a first-person view for the fielding team. A coloured ring appears around the ball and you have to get the timing just right in order to make the catch.

With batting again there are no major changes, it has just been improved. You choose where you want to aim the shot with the left analogue stick then get the timing right hitting the appropriate button. The different right thumb buttons select which type of stroke you want to play. Your choice of batting stroke is represented by controller icons in the corner of the screen, with a little silhouette of a man in the batting stance that represents a lofted hit, defensive stroke or attacking drive. The timing can be difficult but does feel natural and once you’ve built your player’s confidence up you’ll be smashing boundaries pretty easily. You can also control whether to perform a back foot or front foot shot instead of letting the computer choose for you which gives more control.

Only England and Australia are licensed – that’s in terms of both grounds and teams. So for Kiwis, instead of playing in Eden Park with Jesse Ryder, you’ll be playing at ‘Auckland’ with ‘Jamie Raider’. For the grounds this is not much of a problem, it just means the real-world advertising is replaced with Codemasters etc. The graphics are, frankly, disappointing. They’re perfectly functional for sure, but there is not much of a noticable improvement on Atari’s previous Ricky Ponting International Cricket 2007. The animations also seem clunky but they may still have some work to be done before the game is ready for release. Aesthetics doesn’t affect the gameplay too much but after playing a lot of sports games recently where the graphics and animations have been incredible (especially in Fight Night Round 4) it is a bit jarring to slide back down the quality scale.

The biggest problem I had with Ricky Ponting may seem trivial but it was the lack of statistics, something that EA cricket games used to excel in. There were no wagon wheels, manhattans, worm graphs etc, which is one of the coolest things about the sport for geeks like me. Ashes rectifies this and then some with a very comprehensive array of stats. It also includes the official Hawk-Eye visualisation system and gives you all sorts of ways of looking at exactly what has taken place on the field from a crazy amount of angles. Sure, this is for the nerds out there – but boy will they love it!

There are a lot of realistic simulation elements in terms of the weather and pitch, but I didn’t get to experience these features as I didn’t have enough time playing the game. I am looking forward to playing a test match against a friend though and having the pitch and ball deteriorate over the course of it.

Ashes Cricket 2009 is the cricket game you are expecting it to be. I am really looking forward to having some decent matches on it, but my excitement has waned quite a bit as there is nothing amazing about the title.

Article courtesy of Daniel Rutledge, 3 News