Hey guys, I got the game on Tuesday. Was unable to post the review as i could not play the game much. But i could play for sometime last night, and here is my review of
ASHES Cricket 2009:
NOTE: This is my first review i have been posting in any forums, do pardon me if there are any mistakes or any such in this review.
Controls:
As
magneticme200 said, they were little confusing in the beginning. But i got used to them as i had been playing the demo version before this.
Graphics:
* The graphics is good too.
* I am playing with 1440x900 resolution with details as Medium.
Game Play:
* The game play is good compared to other Cricket games.
* Only Australia and England team are licensed. (i.e. why it is Ashes Cricket 2009)
* Only Player Names of these 2 teams are real, but the the player name on their shirt, instead only their team name. Their shirt no.s are ok for most of the teams.
* Few of the players are completely licensed like Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke, Michell Johnson, Brett Lee, Andrew Strays, James Anderson, Paul Collingwood, Stuart Broad and ofcourse Kevin Pietersen (he was the one on the box pack of my copy).
* But i could identify the bowling action of Irfan Pathan and Lasith Malinga. Though their names are wierd but their bowling action is as in real world.
* You can play different shots as you want to and depends on the pitch of the ball. You can chose the shot to be played front foot, or back foot.
* I did play a Exhibition ODI match of 5 overs in Difficulty mode as Easy. I could score the runs at will, and there is not much difference between an opener's and tail ender's batting skill as mentioned by magneticme200.
* But change the difficulty to Normal or Hard then you can find the difference in the batting skill.
* There is Legendary Challenge, which you can play challenges and it is really difficult. I just played the 1st one, in which your challenge is to make the No. 11 batsmen to play out the entire over with the score 289/9 and bring the main batsmen to strike in the Next over. It was like as if the No. 11 batsmen is really a No. 11 batsmen.
* Also the legendary coaching is as if a strict coach wants you to play the way he tells to. Well i did only play 3 lessons of batting in that
* But i could also notice that there was No FREE HIT being given when a bowler does a Front Foot No Ball when playing in the ODI game. But i remember a FREE HIT being displayed in a 20-20 Game.
* Some minor issues i found were like when a left hand batsmen gets hit on his hand, they show as a right hand batsmen being hit on his hand.
* Till now i have not found any bowler or batsmen having words, or staring at each other.
* There is a option where you can create a Custom Player. I did not go into this section though. Happy to play with the available players list.
Commentary:
* Commentary is good, and i did not find any repetition in it.
Others:
* There are some rewards which can be opened in the Rewards section by doing some records. For example it opened Melbourne Stadium for winning a ODI match. It also opened a trophy for scoring fastest 50 in ODI.
* Also there are real records of which i found were not up to date. Like It still shows that Mark Waugh is the leader in most no. of catches in Test Matches, while it is Rahul Dravid who is the leader in it.
* The records were present for Ashes series, Test Matches, ODI and T20 matches.
My Verdict:
Being a Cricket fan, and playing cricket on the field and in PC, i am happy with the game.
My rating would be
Gameplay : 8/10
Graphics : 8/10
Commentary : 7/10
MRP of the game is Rs499.00 but i brought for Rs503.50 including shipping from eBay. which i feel is ok, when compared to EA where they price the game (i am telling of Cricket games which EA make, not the other games which are worth paying Rs1000.00) heavily @ Rs999.00 or so.
HAPPY CRICKETING GUYS
