Cricket; a double-edged sword when it comes to translating the sport into a videogame. In a sports title like Fifa, you can always add some extra layer of control on top of it and call it an all-new system. Whereas in cricket, there isn’t that benefit, since the limited amount of play in one match has been explored to its far reaches.
Codemasters’ International Cricket 2010 adds absolutely nothing new to this formula.
A quick disclaimer, it’s never been a favourite sport of mine since an unfortunate groin throw by a hard ball as a kid. However I do see the attraction to watching such a sport, and this is the most faithful game of cricket you’ll be playing on a console.
Just a simple, very unfortunate question: where’s the fun?
I’m sure that people will “get” what this game is going for: a true, balls-to-the-wall experience of sheer cricketing realism. Likenesses are faithfully recreated, player movement looks realistic; the game of cricket looks as faithful to the real thing as it possibly can. It also sounds faithful, real-time commentary is done well, with little repeat of dialogue, and all sound effects are realistic.
But we end up back at the same question: where’s the fun?
Maybe the gameplay makes things interesting. For bowling, there’s an interesting mechanic, using the analogue stick almost catapult-like propel the ball in as straight of a bowling path as you can. Fielding is mostly done for you, bar a few timed button presses: what we’ve come to expect from any cricket game in the last few years. Batting is still your run-of-the-mill button press affair: different types of hit mapped to different buttons. In terms of singleplayer action, you’re going to get a season mode and an option to play friendlies: nothing explored particularly deeply; but not an offensively small amount of content.
You have your usual array of online options, duking it out in matches against other players around the world. It has limited stopping power except for tracking your online progress: I can see some attraction to keeping a positive win/lose ratio. Local multiplayer is really where the game shines. Much like Fifa, a fun competitive atmosphere is created the first few times you play, just make sure you keep the games short and sweet though!
As you look back over a rather contradictory breakdown of the game, Cricket 2010 is by no means a bad game. All the components are there for sure; but as you turn the console off after a session of play, you’ll find yourself asking that one everso important question.
Where is the fun?
1 comments:
Where is the scoring!
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