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Cricket 07 Mini Review
Gwynne Dixon
24/11/2006
Ashes fever has failed to become contagious in England this winter. Can EA revive it with Cricket 07...
Let me cast you back to the summer of 2005. England is putting up a resilient performance against the Aussies in The Ashes and the people of England slowly begin to regain faith in one of their sporting institutions. In what could be called a stroke of genius, or pure luck, Codemasters were busy developing a remake of their cult classic from the PS1 days, Brian Lara Cricket, in the months leading up to The Ashes. Due to the hysteria surrounding all things cricket at the time, the game shot to the number one spot in the all formats best-seller lists (the first cricket game ever to do so).
EA released their last cricket game in 2005 (at the same time as Codemasters) and yet their title didn't fair nearly as well in sales. This time, EA's Cricket 07 is the only new cricket gaming title on the shelves as England bid to defend their title down-under. Codemasters' next outing of BLC is scheduled for March 2007, when it will coincide with the ICC Cricket World Cup (for which they have the official rights). Unfortunately, EA have failed to take a couple of factors into account in marketing Cricket 07: 1) The Ashes will be on British TV during the very early hours of the morning. 2) The English XI has been underachieving and plagued with injuries.
As we now know, England have failed to defend The Ashes and the English public has raised an uninterested, if slightly defeatist, eyebrow at the proceedings.
What of the main improvements by EA since Cricket 2005? Well, perhaps the most interesting new feature in Cricket 07 is the various game modes that have been added with EA's official rights for the Ashes tours of 2005 and 2007. You are given the opportunity to replay critical moments in the 2005 Ashes series by taking part in a number of scenarios. These are enjoyable for the most part and you can unlock video footage by completing the various scenarios, adding that extra element of nostalgia.
Additionally, you can simulate your own campaigns for The Ashes of 2005 and 2007 (either the whole tour including one day matches, or just the test series). This leads me to the main problem with cricket computer games: in the real world, test cricket is the peak of the game. Unfortunately, it is yet to be well translated into a computer game. When I'm in bat on Cricket 07, the last thing I want to do is carefully leave a few tempting balls, followed by playing some well timed defensive strokes to deliveries of good line and length. I want to be blasting sixes over the boundary and glancing fours between the slips - on every ball!
There remain no cricketing computer games which balance these desires well (in a test cricket simulation at least). Unfortunately, this leaves the main features of EA's Ashes modes fairly redundant. However, the AI for test games on Cricket 07 is exceptionally good. The batters respond very believably: they bat conservatively to periods of pressure and aggressively to inconsistencies from the bowlers. What's more, a well set field can genuinely make the difference between winning and losing.
Nevertheless, we gamers desire action and, unless you're playing incredibly obsessively, most tests will be over by the end of the second day. This is a shame because EA have clearly put a lot of effort into producing an accurate simulation of test cricket.
The next major change that EA have introduced is the century stick - read: converted the batting controls from the D-pad to the analogue stick. EA get a lot of stick these days for utilising the analogue sticks on control pads for their own gimmicky purposes. Personally, I think this is unfair. The original highly popular analogue EA Sports incarnation was for Tiger Woods and this definitely made a golf swing feel more realistic. Following this success, EA have utilised the use of analogue sticks in new features on a number of their sports titles (the "hit-stick" on their Madden American football game, for example).
Unfortunately, this simply isn't the case in Cricket 07. With the century stick controls on the PS2, the left thumbstick controls front and back foot shots (up for back foot, down for front), while the right thumbstick determines the type of shot (down for a drive etc.). This is uncannily similar to the controls in Cricket 2005, where the D-pad determined the type of shot and the triangle and X buttons controlled front and back foot shots. Essentially, all EA have done is change the control configuration onto the two thumbsticks, called the "new feature" a "century stick" and let their clever marketing team do the rest. Pretty weak EA, it's got to be said. The batting is marginally more immersing as it seems (and the key word here is seems) a bit less rigid and defined, but the general experience is much the same.
Surprisingly for an EA Sports game, there are holes in the official licensing net of Cricket 07. Generally speaking though, the game provides a wide range of teams and tournaments (domestic and international), with most of them being secured under an official license. This is very strong competition for BLC as, in comparison, their range of teams, tournaments and official licenses is considerably smaller. That said, the unclockables in Cricket 07 are nowhere near as interesting as BLC's. In BLC, you could get hold of Classic and World XI teams by winning the major tournaments. These sorts of unlockables, which keep you plugging away at the single player features in a sports game, are considerably less evident in Cricket 07.
However, what it really comes down to is gameplay. EA have improved the gameplay in Cricket 07 since their last title in 2005, with the all around play being that little bit sleeker. But, while EA has bettered itself, they still haven't quite managed to better Codemasters. BLC still just pips EA's 07 efforts with their 2005 game, which makes me think that you're best bet is to wait for BLC 2007 if you're looking to purchase a new cricket game. With it being winter and our boys performing so badly down-under, there's no need to buy any cricket games before March anyway.
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