Cricket 2002

"The little things bring down this game"

Welcome to EA Sports Cricket 2002. This game has certainly improved in many aspects from its predecessor, Cricket 2000. However, it has also gotten worse in other aspects. Onward to find out exactly what...

Graphics - 6/10
While not bad, the graphics aren't really very good either. Some player faces are done quite well, whereas others look like they took a bouncer to the head. The pitch does show wear as a test match goes on...which I think looks very good. The stadia are all distinguishable, and they actually look similar to the real thing, although the last time I went to the Queen's Park Oval in Trinidad, it did not have palm trees all around it. But enough with the good, there's bad. Very bad at that. The crowd looks like it was made of cardboard. Not only that, but the individual people are just a blob of colour with a brown oval on top.

Sound - 8/10
The sound in this game is good. The menu music is nothing really spectacular. The game noises are fairly accurate. An edge sounds like an edge, a slog sounds like a slog.
Commentary isn't bad. There are comments for almost everything you do. But as with most other sports games, commentary gets repetitive. Especially when Richie Benaud says who's bowling to who EVERY SINGLE BALL. But all in all, the sound is well done.

Gameplay - 6/10
There are only two modes to choose from, but they still offer a good variety. You can choose to play an exhibition match, where you can choose the length of the match, the teams, the venue, and even the pitch condition. Or you can decide to play in a variety of tournaments, with bonus teams being the reward for winning certain tournaments.
However, it's extremely easy to rack up huge scores by just hitting boundaries all the time. Also, consistent yorkers will remove batsmen for very low totals (example: 30 all out on medium difficulty, about 10 runs were extras, I got a hat-trick for the last 3 wickets).

Controls - 10/10
Well, either a game has good controls or it doesn't. This one does.
To bowl, you choose the type of ball you want by pressing one of 6 buttons. You have a limited amount of time to place a green circle wherever you desire on the pitch. Meanwhile, you have started your run-up and your pace meter is rising. You stop it by pressing the same button as the one you started with. If it rises past a certain mark, you bowl a no-ball. Sound confusing? It really isn't.
To bat, you either choose to play off the front foot or the back foot. Pressing either one of these buttons together with a direction will let you play the various strokes, and there are a lot of strokes in this game. To run, you press a button. To return to your crease, you press another button. Told you it wasn't confusing.

Accuracy - 6.5/10
This is where many little things bring this game down. It provides a fairly accurate representation of the real sport, but there are just so many little things that prevent it from being a really great game. If you are still with this review, then you should at least know something about how cricket looks in real life, so I'm not gonna go in-depth about all the good things that this game does.
The players all move realistically and will dive for the ball when fielding, etc. However, I have seen on more than one occasion where the fielder takes a diving catch where his dive does not cover any ground. He just dives and stays in the same spot while the ball goes into his hand.
In Cricket 2000, I used to complain about how the bowler was extremely agile for someone trying his best to get off the pitch after he delivered the ball. Well, good news, that's gone in this game. Don't celebrate, there's bad news. The bowler has been reduced to a hopelessly incompetent player, who will watch the ball at his foot when he is at a complete standstill and not pick it up. He only fields off his own bowling if he is a spinner or if the ball goes very high in the air and he catches it.
Ah...the one part of this game which is bad, but it adds to the realism. What can I be talking about? Why, the umpires, of course! Some of the lbw decisions are a bit off. By a bit off I mean that the ball clearly pitched outside leg stump, yet you gave me out but when I bowl a ball pitching in line and going on to hit if the batsman wasn't there, you gave him not out.
Another little thing is that you KNOW that they switched ends for the next over (because the texture layering isn't perfect) but the shadows all point in the same direction, no matter what end you are at.

Overall - 7/10
I think if you combined all the good in this game with all the good in Cricket 2000, you would have a knockout. But you don't. Don't get me wrong. The game isn't bad, but again, the little things make it go down the drain. If you are a cricket fan, this game will provide you with hours of fun, but you might find that you play it less as the days pass by, until you get tired of it and only play it occasionally. If you aren't a cricket fan, don't bother buying, because you might not enjoy it.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 08/07/04