Gameplay Impressions
What do we like?First and foremost, Ashes Cricket 2009 offers a technically sound game of cricket, where your batting and bowling decisions, skill and timing make all the difference in whether you succeed or not. The core mechanics are spot-on and though the gameplay is challenging, particularly in Normal and Hard modes, you cant get away with just slogging the ball around the pitch. A blend of defensive and attacking play is the only way that you're able to win. This is due to some tough A.I. who change the way they bowl to counteract your style of play and who will read your own bowling techniques fairly easily if you don't switch your styles. Ultimately, this means that you have to change the way you play depending on how the opposition plays against you: Ashes Cricket 2009 offers a tactical game of cricket that imitates this aspect of the sport very well.
Just like playing cricket for real, batting is the most fun. The batting mechanic works very well, with players able to switch between front and back foot and choose between attacking, defending or lofting the ball. It isn't a case of just tapping a button whenever the ball is delivered either. It's all about adjusting your timing to take into account the position of the delivery and the speed of it, and then judging in that very instance at choosing the direction and pace that you want to hit the ball, as well as swinging your bat at exactly the right time. It's a simple batting control scheme, yet it's extremely intuitive, impressively relying on your skills and timing rather than just allowing you to smash the ball around the pitch. If you do manage to score over 50 runs with one batsman, it will have taken a lot of skill to do so.
Bowling offers a wide range of techniques, yet the controls are also kept very simple. With a simple nudge of the right thumbstick you can cycle through bowling types before you pick the required face button to bowl. We were soon bowling sliders and leg cutters, and thanks to the excellent tutorial, it's fairly simple to execute some of the higher skilled bowling techniques, such as reverse out swingers.
Overall, the presentation in Ashes Cricket 2009 is excellent. Character models are nicely rendered and animations on the pitch, including action replays, are smoothly impressive, whereas the HUD and clean menu interface is impeccably clear and easy to navigate despite being packed with stats, including in-depth scorecards and even graphs that plot your success and failure.
There are some nice touches that add a little extra to the standard cricketing experience, including the confidence building system. You can really see the difference if you do manage to build up the confidence metre. This feature is relevant to both batting and bowling, giving bowlers the likes of increased accuracy, or batters an extra yard of pace when making runs. Other features include the option to declare an innings closed, simulate an over, or take a new ball in a test match to decrease the confidence of a batting side.
Overall, it's clear that the developer has gone a little further than most to deliver an authentic, fairly deep, yet simple to play cricket game that's accessible, but still manages to deliver enough depth to make it a challenge.
What don't we like?
As far as sport's games go, Ashes Cricket 2009 isn't particularly action-packed and unless you opt for a short match you'll spend as much time defending as you will do attacking. The challenge from the opposition is extremely tough, and on normal level the A.I. is a little too adept at scoring runs and catching you out. Play on difficult mode and the opposition are ridiculously good. If you're hoping to slog every ball, you really won't stand a chance. The difference between the three difficultly settings are miles apart and the game would have benefited from some A.I. balancing in order to make winning a little bit easier on the two harder settings.
While batting and bowling have both been handled extremely well, fielding is a bit of a letdown. The mechanic for catching takes the form of a QTE-based action where you have to press a button at exactly the right time. Failure to do so means that you'll drop the ball. The margin for error is extremely small, frustratingly so at times. Though this could be down to our lack of skills - we've played a few games where we've missed half-a-dozen simple catches in a match - it's still a fairly dull and unimpressive feature that adds little to the enjoyment of the game.
Though we've praised the presentation in Ashes Cricket 2009, there is one glaring exception that stands out like a nun in a pub. The cartoon-styled, Sim-like, cardboard cut-out crowds look truly awful in comparison to the detail of the character models and the stadiums - and you get to see them every time you score a boundary.
Finally, although player cutomisation is certainly a bonus, it's a little half-hearted. You simply have to choose from 60 model heads rather than having the option to chisel jaws and sculpt noses. Customisation is part and parcel of most sports games these days, so we expected something a little heavier here that falls into modern day standards.
Final Thoughts
Overall, Ashes Cricket 2009 offers a technically adept and considerably challenging game of cricket. Thrill-seekers may be put off by its slow pace and stiff challenge, but hardened fans of the sport should delight in the fact that it delivers a tactically impressive imitation of the popular summer sport, in which defense is just as important as attack.
Final Score: 8/10
