Ian Botham’s Cricket

[Pix]

#8894

I started a bit early since we’ve got so many games to look at. I figured I’d go in release date order (more or less) so it’s Ian Botham’s Cricket first up. I’ve had a look for reviews and it got the briefest of mentions in the games that got away section of the first PC gaming magazine I ever bought. That’s attached for what it’s worth. Hopefully, I should be able to find some proper reviews for the later games.

As for the game, I actually quite enjoyed it. It’s less complex than I might have expected. No field placement or picking teams, all of which I’m fine with. The exact game mechanics took a little getting used to and I’d be lying if I said I’d got the hang of batting yet. The computer doesn’t seem to like placing fielders on the leg side, so boundaries are quite easy if you can hit that way. Sometimes this works, half the time I just miss entirely. I have no idea whether the 4 types of shot need to be picked based on ball height or player position yet. Getting the batsmen running is counterintuitive. Left and Right set them off, then it’s up and down as quick as possible Track And Field style to speed them up. You can dive at the end as well but I’ve had this result in my players being out despite being miles over the line so the implementation is dodgy.

Batting and fielding works much better on the whole. Not sure if there is any real tactics to it but I was getting the opposition out for nice low totals within a few overs at any rate. Not that I’ve won any games thanks to the state of my batting.

I wouldn’t mind spending a bit more time mastering this one but will never get through all the games then. It’s a promising start to the month anyway. Can’t say it feels entirely like cricket but it’s entertaining enough for a quick blast.

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[king_kong_groover]

#8956

Not too bad this. Had a bit of a play on it. Managed to do okay on the easiest difficulty.

The forward defensive shot (down on the joystick) is incredibly useful. Anything towards the stumps is forward defensive and batting seems intuitive – anything offstump (the stump furthest away from the batters leg) is played easily enough, as are sweep shots. Issues I have are the bowling – having no balls is quite a thing to be aware of in a game like this, and running is not intuitive. Also I struggle with the graphics of the ball – having finger position rather than say “off spin/leg spin” is confusing (I’m a seam bowler IRL so I don’t know which is which!), but I’m scoring runs regularly.

Better than I thought it would be.