Bowl a maiden over
Graphically, at first glance, Cricket 2005 looks pretty good. The players are nicely modelled and don’t just use a generic skeleton that has different textures laid over for different players. That said, though in the main animations are good, they are places where you just wish that motion capture was either used more extensively or not at all. The problem is that the players still have that little ‘pause and jump’ as they switch from one animation to another. In some places, the animations just aren’t there at all, such as the lack of wind up for fielder’s throws, and that impacts on the gameplay as it takes part of the fun and excitement out of the game as after being run out a few times you quickly learn to not try and stretch a single to a double… at least not to try it when you’ve got no clue as to when the fielder is going to fire a homing rocket straight at either the wicket or the wicket keeper.
The stadia look good too, though they suffer from a strange fuzziness when you see them up close. There’s 35 or so stadiums included, and I’ve only seen the inside of Lords so I can safely vouch that it looks pretty much like it’s real life counterpart. In fact, now I look at it again while writing this, the whole game seems to have this slight fuzziness to it, almost as if my TV is ever so slightly out of focus. To be fair, this isn’t really noticeable unless you’re looking for it and doesn’t detract from the gameplay at all.
EA have swung into action with the full range of televisual effects, as they’ve done with pretty much all of their sports sims to date. You’ve got camera views aplenty to play with and the now obligatory slow-motion replay from every angle when a wicket falls or a batter knocks one into the stands. The front end has a ‘Sky Sports’ feel to it too with the menu and option screens, the player stats and the fielding map all having the same polished look and TV info sheet feel to them. This polished presentation is let down by the lack of in-game cutscenes so prevalent in all of other EA’s sports titles.
Once again, the commentary problem that EA always seem to suffer is here and although Richie Benuad is a class act to listen to, he soon becomes annoying. The repertoire of phrases is so limited as to not even cover the most obvious of outcomes. For example, I missed the ball (no surprise there) and took a fast ball on the pad. What does Richie have to say? “Ooh, that’ll be sore in the morning…”. Sorry? Richie, what exactly will be sore in the morning? The pad that could stop a charging rhino on steroids? Most of the commentary in cricket has very little to do with the actual game, the guys are there to fill the blank airtime with prattle whilst the players have a dawdle around and the bowler surreptitiously rubs himself up in a thinly veiled show of cleaning the ball. To recreate that you’d need far more dialogue than has been recorded here and, because there’s so little to cover so much playing time, it isn’t long before the game is recycling quotes that have only the most tenuous of links with the action on the screen.
