Cricket 97

[Martli]

#8931

I mentioned Cricket 97 in another thread, and that I played this game back in the day with my brother, resulting in hours of fun. I thought I’d start a dedicated thread for it as I’m starting with this one for our cricket month (and I thought pix needed a batting partner).

I have a copy of this game on CD albeit for Windows 95 rather than DOS. It’s the ‘ashes tour edition’ which I’ve read means it has the Australian and England Ashes teams from 1997 (The Ashes is the most famous cricket rivalry/contest held between Australia and England for those not in the know). I plan to get the DOS version to compare the two, but will be sticking with my windows version for playing because “nostalgia”.

My intuition is that this is the most sophisticated/feature rich cricket game on DOS given was released right at the end of the DOS era, but I haven’t played many others yet to verify. There’s 8 teams to choose from, all the main contenders, and I have a separate CD that patches the game to add New Zealand to the mix (not sure if it’s an addition or if it just has player names/profiles/stats). Some (possibly all?) of the teams have actual player names.

There’s a lot of customisability in this game. You can create your own team, change an existing team’s lineup (batting order) to optimise your winning chances, and choose the pitch and weather conditions (hard pitch = more bounce and bigger shots). You can play a single game or a three-way ‘world championship’ tournament. From there, you have the option of a ‘one day international’, which can be 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 ‘overs’ long, or a ‘test match’.

In real life, a test match takes 5 days to play, while a ‘one dayer’ is 50 ‘overs’ and takes most of a day to play. A test match is more of a war of attrition whereas a one dayer is a bit more action packed as you’ve got less time to score runs/points. In recent times they’ve introduced a more action-packed variation called twenty20 that is a shorter 20 over version of a one dayer. That wasn’t around when this game was released, but you can basically play that format anyway, so I guess it was future proofed. Anyway, I digress.

Gameplay itself is simple. You only need four or five buttons to bowl, bat and field, making it ideal for keyboard sharing. Despite the simple controls there’s a lot you can do, different shots when batting depending on your key combination, and different ways to bowl the ball, including where you aim it. Fielding is mostly automated which is helpful.

Looking back on it I think it’s quite a good system. Simple to learn but (maybe?) hard to master which is usually a winning formula in video games. I definitely took it for granted when I look back on how clunky some control schemes were on these older games.

Within the match itself there’s also another layer of customisation. You can select which bowlers you use when, mixing spin and pace to fool your opponents, and you can set your fielding layout to suit your strategy and the conditions. To be honest I don’t really know enough about cricket in real life to do this well so I tend to leave it at default.

I haven’t tested it enough to see if the scores are realistic. I’ve played a few 10 over games and tended to get a score of around 60 runs. That gives a run rate of 6, so a run a ball, and that is maybe a little low for a low over game. A one-dayer (50 overs) might push between 200-300 runs depending on the pitch/conditions so it’s in line with that. I’m sure with more practice I could do better.

And I guess that’s my main (small) gripe with the game – it all feels a bit random and it takes a lot of time to really learn the mechanics (which I haven’t). I tend to fumble through my bowling selection and batting shots and I suspect you need to really know your cricket to get the most out of it. In fact, I think your own skill level probably corresponds to your relative knowledge of the game. So, if you know your stuff you’ll know the optimal fielding arrangements and bowl/shot selection. If, like me, you know the rules but not necessarily the right strategy, you can enjoy the game on a basic level but you’ll probably not be any good at it. That’s fine with me to be honest.

The highlight for me is the commentary and the videos interspersed with the action itself. In my version, the commentator is none other than cricketing legend Richie Benaud. For those of us in the southern hemisphere his voice is THE voice of cricket and so to have him on board really rounds out the cricketing experience. I think other versions (ie, in England) had Ian Botham – perhaps someone else can confirm.

I’ve no idea what newer cricket games are like, but I’m definitely enjoying my foray into cricket 97 and reliving some of my childhood memories. It feels like a genuine attempt to put you into an international cricket game. A really decent effort for the time in my view. It may not rank among my favourite games of all time but it’s a solid offering for fans of 90s cricket. It seems to have had fairly average reviews on moby games (including one in Dutch) but I review it more favourably. https://www.mobygames.com/game/382/cricket-97/

Oh, and I also found this cool website about the game here: https://ourdigitalheritage.org/hostedArchives/melbourneHouse/cricket97/

Looks like it hasn’t been updated since the 90s including the italicised comic sans font…

[Pix]

#8944

Still not tried this one out yet. Hopefully I’ve saved the best for last. I’ll fire it up next. I’ve found a few reviews first. This from PC Zone:-

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[Pix]

#8946

PC Format Review

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[Pix]

#8948

PC Home Review

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[Martli]

#8954

Thanks for the reviews, as always! Good too see I’m largely on board with what the magazines thought at the time, though it does seem a bit mixed.

Also clears up a few things, looks like some of the team lists were updated with real names in the ashes edition, and my nz team disc and the commentary isn’t region specific but does have the odd Ian Botham interjection (which I haven’t heard yet).

I’m currently in a three way tournament as New Zealand against England (and Wales) and South Africa. I managed to win the first match with an over to spare against England but I’m definitely a bit trigger happy with the running which is my downfall – lots of silly run outs! Will report back as the series progresses

[Pix]

#8957

I’ve had a bit of a go on this now. The gameplay is very similar to Cricket 96 – the main differences are in the presentation.

Having a 3D stadium has made quite a difference. The commentary is so much better as well. Botham is quite wooden on the rare occasions he shows up. I wonder if that was footage left over from 96? Richie Benaut does a decent job.

Difficulty wise, I found easy to be very easy for batting but I still struggled with the bowling. Not sure what the game is looking for there. I tried medium difficulty and was struggling with the batting then as well.

I’ve always found with these sports games there is a whole lot of trial and error finding out what you need to do, then doing that every time tends to work and the game becomes dull. Not sure if this is one of those or if you are rewarded for occasional variations in bowling.

It’s a decent game of cricket anyway and a good approximation of the real thing. Probably the pick of the bunch having had a go on all of them now.

[OfManNotMachine]

#8977

Is the Podcast still around? I noticed there’s nothing past April of 2024

[Martli]

#8978

Yes! It just lags a little, good things take time 🙂

[OfManNotMachine]

#8979

Awesome. I was worried since I didn’t see anything past April 2024 it might be done.

I’ve been listening to them in order and absolutely loving it