Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5960 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Released on: 2004-03-12
• Platform: PlayStation2
• Number of items: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Cricket. Love it or hate it, there's no denying its appeal: sunshine, relaxation, tea breaks. It's all here in EA Sports' comprehensive new simulation, Cricket 2004 (pretty much, anyway). Typically, EA's sporting simulations are detailed facsimiles of the real-life players and events they portray. Cricket 2004 is no exception to this admirable rule. Some 61 cricket grounds from across the globe are accurately depicted here, along with 56 teams. Everything is bang up to date, of course, but the game's impressive Player Editor feature ensures that users can--if they wish to maintain realism--change information as time goes on.

Cricket has the uncanny ability of making time pass slowly. Here, for those who wish to re-invest that warped time wisely, EA bowls several cricket events: the World Cup appears alongside two domestic Australian cup competitions, numerous international tours, one-day tests, and the English County Championships. There's something for fans of every leaning. The action is delivered with aplomb. Sharp visuals, combined with TV-style camera angles and live commentary from Messrs Benaud and Maxwell (the modern-day voices of televised cricket), complete what is the definitive video game for cricket fans. --Jonti Davies

Manufacturer's Description
As well as all of the international teams and bonus squads, EA Sports' Cricket 2004 includes domestic teams and competitions from England, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Test matches as well as One-day Internationals are also included, and in addition to the tournaments that you have come to know and love from EA Sports' Cricket, the Master League will also be a highlight of this game.

With new motion capture and a new development platform, not to mention the inclusion of form and injury, gameplay is more true to life than ever before. And for the cricketing buff there's no end to the detail. A large variety of statistical graphs will be available including run rate and wagon wheel graphs, as well as a huge amount of statistical data on every player that tracks over the course of a tournament. The game revolves around a full TV style presentation including a full action replay mode, third umpire, animated ducks, TV style overlays, field position editor and much more. The field position editor allows for auto or manual fielding.

Over 75 stadia are modeled from all over the world, including Lords in England, Calcutta, Melbourne, Auckland, Cape Town, Barbados and Lahore; the detail in the stadia is amazing. Lighting and shadows of the highest grade together with real time weather all add to the authenticity of the playing experience.

Customer Reviews

Room for improvement
Cricket 2004 is everything you would expect from an EA Sports production. All the teams and stats from the English county league and the Australian domestic leagues are present and correct, and their are a wealth of international options from foreign tours to the world cup. The graphics are generally good, and the commentary and all round presentation of the game is top notch.

However, the flaws in the game play are quite noticable after extended play and they are persistent enough to frustrate. In a one day county game, i bowled 50 overs at the opposition and bowled them out. Of the 10 wickets, 6 were run outs. They weren't amasing feats of fielding, but awful computer AI as when the batsman attacks a ball with a straight bat and it goes past the bowler, if the closest fieleder doesn't pick the ball up quickly, they run, even if the fielder is only a pace away from the ball. This leads to some really awful run outs and becomes incredibly frustrating. This is not an isolated incident. Also, if you simulate an innings the statistics can be incredibly unrealistic. I have had 50 overs bowled by England with VaughEn and Tresco bowling 10 overs a Piece. I've also had Batty bowling 15! The field editor is also not user friendly, with the fielding changes you make rarely moving to where you put them. The close fielder animation is also incredibly shoddy.

Overall, it is a good game and certainly the best cricket game currently. Hopefully Cricket 2005 will fix the glitches and provide an all rounder of a game. However, they may have a bit of competition as the impressive Brian Lara series from Codemasters makes its ps2 bow this month.

Pretty good
I got this game a few weeks ago and I thought it was really good. The training is really helpful, once you learn how to time your shots you can hit nearly every ball to the boundary. The bowlng is quite good although it can become tedious at times when the batsmen isn't playing any shots. If this happens to me I autoplay the rest of the innings. There is a good selection of game modes. You can have an international cup, a full county season, an Australian county season and a few more. The commentry and graphics aren't exactly top notch, but I find it doesn't really spoil the game. The commentry in particular can become very repetitive but I don't think it's a crucial point. All in all a very good game - I'm looking forward to cricket 2005.

dissapointing
Yet again, a game comes out which could have been brilliant but it just let down by lots of little niggles.

Firstly and most obviously, the graphics are poor - ranging from the terrible frontend / menu system( both in looks and in navigation ) to the poor animations of fielders and dodgy looking crowds. It's hard to understand how the animations of the fielders could be so bad as they're seen so often ( i.e. after every ball bowled ! ). Sometimes when a fielder takes a catch, the ball is nowhere near his hands !

Gameplay - So frustrating as the main part of the game as a batter is playing shots. Why then, is there so little choice of what shots to play ? There are infinitely more shots in cricket than on-drive, off-drive, defence, leg glance, square drive, cut and hook. The only variety on these shots is to play them with L1 button down to get more force( which annoyingly means you'll automatically hit it in the air ). Also, the batsmen animations for some shots is just pathetic - far too quick and unrealistic and it's very hard to actually hit the ball which shots like square drive and cut. Two more things that were very annoying are lack of edges / catches to slips - i've been playing for a long time and I've not had an edge to a slip yet, and the amount of yorkers the bowlers bowl. Developers of cricket games please note - realy bowlers DO NOT bowl 2 or 3 yorkers every single over, especially in test matches - This is REALLY annoying and unrealistic.

I can't find a lot positive to say about this game other than that it's strangely addictive despite all it's flaws. Some shots are executed beautifully and it's a good feeling connecting sweetly with a leg glance and seeing the ball glide over the boundary rope.

It's just so frustrating that the game could and should've been a whole lot better