Cricket 2000

"A nice game but could've been improved."

Gameplay 7/10
The gameplay is mixed with a bit of ''WOW'' and a bit of ''NOT SO WOW'' To start with, the bowling is a bit of both. Depending on what kind of bowler you choose, you have different options to fool the batsmen. For example: You choose a medium fast bowler so he can attempt to swing the ball so when the ball bounces, it changes direction. Say you use a spin bowler, he'll bowl slower but he can make the ball change direction alot more. I think that the slow, medium, medium fast, and pace bowling is done very well by EA but the off spinners and the leg spinners aren't done quite as well because if you use a leg spinner, for some reason, he can also spin the ball to the off stump which is a bit stupid. Now for the fielding. Unfortunately, the computer controls all the fielding so i can't say much about it. Now last of all the batting. Although this the fun part of the game, EA haven't put in much effort with it. It's hard for your batsmen to execute the shoot you want which can be extremely frustrating and sometimes your player will attempt a pull shoot when the pull is rolling on the ground. I must say though that the defensive shoots are done nicely. Oh yeah and the other thing was it seems very simple to hit 4's and 6's.

Graphics 8/10
The stadiums look great and the opening movie is cool but the players look a bit blocky. I guess they look ok though but there isn't much detail in each person. The umpire actions are pretty good but instead of putting his finger up when the person goes out, he puts his hand up with all fingers which is pretty strange. The uniforms are done quite well for each team.

Options 6/10
The main reason this is quite low is because you can't play test matches. You can only play one day internationals and the world cup but as a bonus, you can train at the nets which i thought was quite cool. You can't change much gameplay options like wides and no balls but you can change things like weather, day or night match, etc. The difficulty options are quite annoying cause if you put it on very easy, you can bowl the other team out for 0 quite easily and on very hard, they seem to smack every ball unless you give the ball PLENTY of turn so i really suggest you play on very hard. I was a little disappointed cause you could not edit/add teams or players.

Audio 8/10
The menu music is quite good and the sounds like the cheering and ball meeting bat sounds are quite good but although the actual commentary is good, the AI of the commentary is poor. What i mean by this is the commentator will sometimes say you bowled a very short bowl when the ball actually didn't even bounce.

Replay Value 7/10
I think this game is quite fun and should last you for a fair amount of time.

Conclusion
I think this game had potential to really be a great game but it seems EA just wanted to meet the release dead line and not bother adding a few things like more options and test matches. I must say though, this game is strangely addictive and although this sounds strange, i think you will enjoy the game more if you weren't a big fan of cricket. 7.5/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/01/04