Review: Ashes Cricket 2009

Just when it was looking as though England had finally turned their fortunes around and might actually be on the verge of winning the Ashes, along comes the fourth test to promptly remind us how truly awful we can sometimes be. As I write this there's still a game left to salvage the series, but with the squad incurring injury after injury, they're resembling Arsenal more than they are a potential Ashes winning team.

It's rather fitting then that Ashes 2009 suffers a similar fate. At first glance it actually appears to play a rather good game of cricket. Actually scratch that. On first glance it looks ugly. Incredibly ugly. Ugly in a 'have they sent me the PS2 version instead?' ugly. From the camera jerkily panning its way around the ground, to players that have unfeasibly large heads and who look nothing like their real-life counterparts (Ponting aside), to the cardboard cut-out fans in the stadium and finally on to the missing frames of animation that will suddenly see a player standing one way only to miraculous face the other way in a blink of an eye, Ashes 2009 is one of, if not the, worst looking games I've played on the PS3. But underneath that ugliness is a cricket game that is challenging and is as close to the real-life sport as we've ever got in videogame form.

It’s just not cricket

A few hours later though and it's apparent that the ugliness has crept into other aspects of the game. We're talking bugs. Game breaking (or at least enjoyment crushing) bugs. On numerous occasions my batsman was adjudged to have been 'run-out' even though I'd just blocked the ball and hadn't left my crease. He's stood there, fairly chuffed at blocking a 100mph ball from Brett Lee, only for the fielder to lob it back to the wicket keeper and the umpire to rule me 'run-out'. Seriously not fun. But then neither is having my bowler mid-way through his run-up, with Australia at 172-6, needing 27 more runs to win, only for the camera to suddenly go to the non-striking Australian batsman (Ponting) just so the commentator could come out with some inane drivel. My annoyance at that bug was only compounded further when I heard the 'no ball' sound effect and realised that not only had my bowler continued his run up, mucking up the delivery, but also had it hit for six. Seven runs off of a delivery I could do nothing about.

Then we have the AI batsmen that have a fetish for running themselves out. 'Ere, Ricky, that was an easy two runs off of that strike'. 'I tell you what, I reckon we can get another run here'. 'You sure Ricky, I mean we have been standing still here for the past three-four seconds and the pommie fielder has already picked the ball up and thrown it back to the bowler, who's just about to catch it'. 'Yeah I'm sure, let's go for it...quick, run...oh for Castlemaine XXXX's sake, I'm out!'.

The bugs were so relentless that I took to saving after every Over just to be on the safe side. I didn't want to lose a batsman due to a bug, but equally I didn't want to win, or have my game ruined, by the AI needlessly running itself out. Alongside the bugs are a number of quirks that should have been ironed out before release. For example it's virtually impossible to gently knock a ball for a quick single due to the fielders having an unnerving ability to run as fast as Usain Bolt, even though they do run like Benny Hill. It's either two or a boundary. Likewise if there's a fielder in the vicinity of where the ball is being played, they will stop it. I've not yet witnessed a fielder missing the ball (dropping a catch, sure, but never missing it), even when it's been played directly at him at full pace.

The bowler manages to be even more amazing with his stopping prowess. Despite being merely a few feet away from the striking batsman, he will stop any shot that you try to put past him, no matter how hard you hit it. Joining these on the list of 'things that annoyed Joe' were fielders that took an age to celebrate a catch, the complete lack of pace in the majority of perfectly timed shots, the terrible camera angles (boundaries often confuse the camera into flitting between numerous angles), the lack of real player names (apart from Australia and England), although you can edit them and the overall presentation and that the AI doesn't adapt it's batting style in accordance with the match type (they are just as aggressive in Test matches as they are in One day matches).

Let's look at the positives, Beefy

The plus list is much shorter and contains items that really should be present in any cricket game, therefore highlighting the lengths of barrel scraping that I went to. Whereas Harry (in his X360 review) didn't like the new bowling method of the meter now determining accuracy rather than pace (although to an extent it also controls the pace as well), I rather liked it. It can also be used to your advantage, as in multiplayer the batsman can still see where you're bowling to, but a clever and deliberate mistimed delivery can cause the ball to move a few inches, which is sometimes just enough to catch the batsman out.

Similarly the overhaul to the batting system is welcome, albeit still far from perfect, and there are enough match types to keep even the most ardent cricket fan happy. Multiplayer is another area that caused few hiccups, and is obviously where Ashes 2009 excels. But as stated before, these aren't so much plus points as features that the game really should deliver.

While it's undoubtedly for me the best cricket game of all time, it's not the best cricket game of its time. Graham Gooch World Class Cricket takes that accolade, and arguably we haven't moved on much further from that. Cricket games just haven't seen the same amount of progress in over 15 years that other sports have benefited from. All this leaves Ashes 2009 in the usual camp of if you're desperate for a cricket game to play against friends, there is no better option. If however you're looking for a deep and rewarding single-player experience, where a Test and One day matches are clearly different to play, well again it's the best you can buy, but that doesn't make it an essential purchase.