Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #795 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Released on: 2006-11-23
• Platform: PlayStation2

Manufacturer's Description
With its fully licensed squads, groundbreaking Century Stick control system and more natural camera perspective, Cricket 07 will bring players the most immersive gameplay experience to date. Thanks to the groundbreaking EA SPORTS Century Stick control system, batting has become more intuitive, responsive and rewarding than ever. For the first time in a cricket game, players can enjoy full control over foot choice, shot, direction, power and timing, all governed through the use of both analogue sticks. A back or front foot stroke is selected with the left stick, and then shot timing and direction are judged with the right stick. Power is determined by how far the stick is moved a slight tap can nudge the ball for a quick single or a firm push can send the ball fizzing away to the boundary. Allied to new cameras that deliver a more natural behind-the-stumps batting perspective and a wider view of the field, cricket has never been so easily accessible. With embellished gameplay, a wealth of tournaments, genuine equipment and authoritative new commentary from Mark Nicholas and Richie Benaud, you won't experience cricket this authentic without donning whites and walking down the pavilion steps yourself.

Groundbreaking Control: Use the intuitive dual analogue Century Stick batting system to select foot choice, shot direction, power and timing. With button controls to loft shots and advance down the track, you're free to crack a full array of shots all around the wicket. Success with the bat also relies upon your batsman's individual skills, allied with his confidence level. A confident batsman maximises his potential to time his shots sweetly maintaining high confidence can make or break his ability to build a big innings.

New Cameras: Innovative views from behind the batsman offer a realistic batting perspective, and a reworked Broadcast camera gives you a wider view of the play for more authentic coverage.

Quickplay Cricket: Play cricket your way by setting your own pace. Crank up the game speed, ease back the difficulty setting and revel in the razzmatazz of Limited Overs or fully-licensed Twenty20 extravaganzas by playing a fast-blast match of hard-hitting sixes or slow the pace down, slide the difficulty up and steel yourself for a five day Test.

Greater Depth: A new picture-in-picture display with a shot timing gauge coupled with a running assistance indicator and radar help you make those snap decisions out there in the middle. On-the-fly Dynamic Field Positioning and Quickswitch bowling give you the ability to ratchet up the pressure on the batsmen by changing the field and the bowler's line of attack without a break in play.

Tournament Options: Lead this year's eagerly anticipated 3 mobile Ashes campaign Down Under, replay the legendary 2005 npower Test Series or unlock a stack of rewards by accomplishing Ashes challenges. Take part in the frenzy of the fully-loaded, fully-licensed English and Australian One Day blitz of extreme Twenty20 cricket, dive into a complete schedule of Australian State and English County tournaments, tour the world, win the World championship or compete for glory in Test matches and One Day Series games with all the top cricketing nations of the world.

Authentic Content: For the first time in an EA SPORTSTM Cricket title, renowned bat manufacturers Gray-Nicolls, Puma, Slazenger, Kookaburra and Gunn & Moore bring their weight of authenticity to the day's play. Relish the big game atmosphere with new broadcast visuals, wicket textures and astute new commentary from the masterly broadcast team of Mark Nicholas and Richie Benaud as you play out a nail-biter against the faithfully realised backdrop of a legendary international venue or a cherished domestic ground.

Customer Reviews

Good but room for improvement
Cricket games have not really got the attention that other EA Sports games such as Tiger Woods PGA Tour or FIFA. And now with Codemasters' Brian Lara series out EA needed to make big improvements or they will not sell.

Batting is now massively improved since 05 with the new so called 'Century Stick' where you move the analog stick in the direction where you want to hit it. Sometimes it is a bit unresponsive so you may end up blocking a shot rather than hooking it for six. Also new is a timing gauge which means you need to play your shot on ideal timing or you will edge it or not hit it far. A good batsman such as Sachin Tendulkar has a large ideal timing bar and a bad one such as Glen McGrath has a small one so you can usually edge it behind. There is a difficulty setting from 1 to 5 stars. 1 star means you can get ideal timing and smash it for six every ball and the opponents get loads of edges. 5 star means you can rarely get ideal timing and you have to leave wide ones and block straight ones.

Bowling on a high difficulty setting is quite boring, especially in Test matches. Choosing a delivery is the only good bit and is hasn't changed since 05. Fielding is automated unless you make it manual but dodgy camreas mean it is quite hard.

The game focuses' mainly on The Ashes with the whole 2006/07 series and 2005. What a shame bowling in test matches is so boring. Another thing is 2005 Ashes Scenarios where you do things like score 50 with Pietersen in the First Test or win the Second test with Australia with two wickets left.

The game also has fully licensed domestic leagues from England and Australia and this year's World Cup. However many of the International teams are not licensed so you playing as Tendehar instead of Tendulkar.

The commentary is done by Richie Beaunad and Mark Nicholas and despite being repetetive it is quite funny. Sometimes the commentator says that's 3 sixes in this over and you haven't even started it yet.
The music is really your opinion and you either love it or hate it. However I haven't heard of any of the songs.

Graphics 7.5
Sound 7.0
Gameplay 7.5
Lasting Appeal 8.5
Overall
Cricket fans should definitely get this but others shouldn't.

7.8/10

Needs Improvements
the game is not that good in my standerds. The commentators keep on saying the same thing over and over again. they could of had the woodworm
BAT also the bats are not very good at all.
JWD

good improvement on the last one
good points:
batting is better and feels more real
ashes scenarios and all the usual tournaments and tours
5 difficulty settings makes it easy to find the one best for you
editor allows you do change unlicensed player names
big improvement on the last one
bad points:
only england, south africa, australia and south africa are licenced as are county and australian state sides but this means that teams like india all have wrong names
there are no dropped catches (well i aint seen one anyway)
lbw decisions are shambolic
not enough edges or near misses to liven the game up and keep it exciting
spinners never appeal and there are few close lbws in real cricket spinners appeal every other delivery
field placings arent clever and fielders arent placed well enough to stop many runs in your good scoring areas
a delivery that goes for 4 wides sometimes adds 5 runs

...after all that i say buy it, i didnt regret spending my moneys and niether should you