A not-so sticky wicket
Version Reviewed: European
- review by Sammy Barker
Ah, cricket. It’s a sport so steeped in tradition that when Australia and England come to blows, they compete not over silverware but a small urn. Cricket 22 has released just in time for the Ashes, and if Big Ant Studios was banking on an exciting series to drive sales for six, well, it’ll be scratching its head watching the Poms’ performance thus far. Instead, the studio will have to rely on its fellow Aussies feeling empowered enough to pour yet more pain on Joe Root and crew.
Clearly the MLB The Show games are a huge inspiration here, with batting built around three shot types: precision, power, and defence. You’ll need to pick the right kind of shot based on the length and line of the bowl you’re facing, and find the gap between fielders in order to score runs. Bowling relies on a triple-click meter similar to what you’d find in a game like Everybody’s Golf, but you can select the type of spin you want on the ball and even apply aftertouch. There are also analogue options for those who want a greater challenge.
Given the glacial pace of traditional cricket tests, it’s an acquired taste, but the ability to lock gameplay to a specific player speeds up matches and feels fitting here. This, naturally, expands to the career mode as well, which has been heavily inspired by Road to the Show. Here you work your way up from rookie county cricketer all the way through to international superstar, raising your statistics and adding perks that suit your playstyle as you go.
There’s an absolute treasure trove of licensed content, spanning both men’s and women’s teams, with only the lucrative Indian Premier League the notable omission. However, a robust creation suite means fans will be able to create any missing players or clubs and share them online, which should plug any small gaps that do exist.
The biggest downside, then, is just the underlying lack of budget: cricket is popular enough, but it’s not baseball, and it’s clear that Big Ant Studios just didn’t have the resources to nail key gameplay mechanics, like fielding, which feels flat and unrealistic due to the limited selection of animation cycles in its library.
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About Sammy Barker
As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He’s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.
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Comments 22
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- riceNpea
This is a honest appraisal and in no way a rant or a bash on PS. These mini-reviews are utterly pointless. How can you do a sport game review justice in 1 paragraph? Or any game for that matter. I don't understand why this exists or who it's helping. How long do you spend playing a game in order to write a review this anaemic? It can't being enough to actually have a proper informed, balanced view.
I'm sorry Sammy, I'm not here to tread on your toes. I think at the very least if these are going to form part of the site's output and be taken seriously there shouldn't be a score attributed to the review. If the game isn't going to get a thoughtful, considered critique and is little more than a glorified Tweet I don't think it deserves a score affecting its Metacritic like this.
Edit: sorry for being judgemental Sammy. I feel bad now.
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- nessisonett
I was intrigued by this because that Don Bradman game on PS Now is insanely silly and great fun. But then I saw this wasn’t like £20.
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- ShogunRok
@Integrity We appreciate the feedback, but I do think some of what you're saying is unfair.
Mini reviews might be a lot smaller than our normal reviews, but they're still our honest assessment of a game. And this is hardly "1 paragraph" — it's five (admittedly quite short) paragraphs across several hundred words.
I totally understand where you're coming from, but from our point of view, mini reviews let us review games that we otherwise simply wouldn't have time to cover. We're a relatively small team and full reviews take a lot of time to write, proof, and publish. We like to think that mini reviews provide a clear stance on the game while also being a lot easier for us to produce.
And it's a bit of a cliche, but it's often a lot harder to provide concise, meaningful criticism than it is to write a 2000-word epic. Long reviews very often devolve into rambling and repeated points. Not saying this means that mini reviews are better, but there's definitely still a nuance and skill to writing them — in getting your points across as efficiently as possible.
Hopefully that helps explain our view of mini reviews.
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- riceNpea
@ShogunRok thank you for the reply.
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- nessisonett
@lolwhatno I played Days Gone to the end and it was a 6/10 at best. Opinions are opinions, regardless of how long the review is.
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- ShogunRok
@lolwhatno Believe me, these are all conversations the editorial team has had so many times over the years. With scores, without scores, which games get full reviews, which games get mini reviews...
We've really just had to accept that 1) we simply don't have the time or resources to review everything and 2) like it or not, most people (in our own experience) want review scores, regardless of how long/detailed the review is.
We're always looking for feedback on this kind of thing, though. We've been having internal conversations about reviews for this site's entire life!
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- riceNpea
@nessisonett @lolwhatno @ShogunRok you're right opinions are just that. However there's a greater responsibility to be placed in the opinion of a reviewer of a publication that can have a direct affect on the fortunes of developers and their work.
I feel that if a developer has spent years making a game to review it with anything less than a full review runs a greater risk of not doing it justice.
Having a two-tier system of reviews leaves a publication open to making unnecessary mistakes in judgment and also in putting your point across.
For example is think it is especially unfair for a 3-man development team who made Praey for the Gods who have spent the last 5 years making the game (i backed it on KS for PS4) to get a mini-review that barely scratches the surface of what it offers whilst damning it for lack of originality (so harsh) and technical problems, which I did not experience playing it. The game scored a 5. This is incredibly harsh on those devs. Imagine spending 5 years of your life on a game for a website to relegate to a mini-review that barely explains its rationale beyond the most egregious points it can make becasue of restrictions of time and space.
I accept Shogun's reasoning for why PS has this stance, I accept that it's their way and I appreciate that he has taken the time to explain it. I also am glad to see that PS go to great lengths discussing the pros and cons of how they do things. In the case of mini-reviews i am fundementally not in favour of them becasue they are only used to review lesser known games or indie titles, the kind of games that are most at risk from a watered-down review method.
Imagine If FIFA22 were mini-reviewed. Never going to happen, but it would be interesting. Which is why I think scoring a mini-review isn't the right thing to do. How can you run 2 different types of review methods concurrently and expect consistency in scores? The mini-review is always going to suffer from a lack of scrutiny no matter how well-intentioned you're trying to be. Sure review writing is a skill but the fact that PS has full reviews and mini-reviews means that it is inescapable that the mini-review is the lesser production by definition, therefore runs a greater risk of falling foul of compromise in order to be viable. That's only natural.
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- Nancyboy
I, for one, like the mini-reviews. I end up making my own judgment on a game anyway, so a quick steer can be quite helpful. Plus, one does tend to develop an understanding of a game site and the individual reviewers' tastes and proclivities, so an epic isn't really necessary. Appreciate the discussion as well.
That said, as a Yank, it's kind of fun reading this one, because cricket is basically a foreign language to me.
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- riceNpea
@Nancyboy that's a good point. I guess familiarity with the writer does help. I'll take that on board, thank you. As for the sport of cricket, I was raised on it and its as tedious as baseball but with much less spitting 😁
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- Dobbos
I sometimes skip to the summary of the reviews 😀😀
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- Nancyboy
@Integrity One out of two, I guess (tedium and spit, I mean). Take 'er easy, chief.
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- FullMetalWesker
@Integrity - "Imagine spending 5 years of your life on a game..."
To be fair, there is such a thing as spending time poorly, so it's not like that, by itself, necessarily deserves a reward. You can spend 50 years making a game, but if end result is bad, then it's still bad. Similarly, if the end result is a shallow game without much to talk about, then regardless of how much time was spent on it, there's no reason to provide a full review for it.
Also, in regards to your larger paragraph on Praey for the Gods, I get the impression your main point there is just "I thought the game was better than the reviewer did" more than anything; if that's the case, that's just a difference of opinion, not necessarily a good argument for the reviewer going more in-depth into their rationale (also, saying you didn't experience many bugs/glitches isn't much of an argument, as those things always vary wildly; even in a game like Cyberpunk, I've heard people say they didn't experience many bugs on their playthrough, whereas others, well....).
As for my thoughts on the actual review, that seems about right. As much as I'd like to have a proper cricket game, the fact of the matter is, most game devs are still based in USA or Japan, where cricket isn't exactly popular, so it falls to small devs like Big Ant Studios to do what they can with what little budget they can scrounge up.
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- suikoden
Removed - unconstructive feedback
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- themightyant
@ShogunRok "but from our point of view, mini reviews let us review games that we otherwise simply wouldn't have time to cover."
THIS 100%
I could see @Integrity point of view until I read this. ABSOLUTELY better to get some sort of review out for games like this that may otherwise have nothing.
Now if only the Ashes itself could have such a satisfying conclusion and Formula 1 could have some @Integrity
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- riceNpea
@themightyant 😆 in regards to the Ashes, if you lived in the part of the world where Christmas is during the summer everything is very satisfactory right now 😊
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- themightyant
@Integrity Enjoy Australia were magnificent, England woeful. At least they showed a little resistance today but it's hardly a contest, which is i'm sure a little disappointing for all. Winning doesn't feel AS good if the opposition are weak, and England have been. Baggy caps off to AUS on deserved 2:0
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- riceNpea
@themightyant the game needs spicing up. Maybe they could release some tigers onto the pitch or something.
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- PegasusActual93
Publisher: How British do you want this game to be?
Developer: Yes
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- get2sammyb
@Integrity Just to clear up another question, I actually put in over 10 hours on this and waited for the developer to release patches which I then tested before publishing.
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- riceNpea
@get2sammyb fair enough Sammy, none of this is about you not being professional or not having integrity. I totally respect what you say and accept your reasons 😊
though I've got to say 10 hours is nothing in terms of playing a game, at least not for me. My average session in a day is at least 5 hours and I'm not in the business 😁 hey, how about a section on the site for games reviewed by readers?
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- rjc-32
"Various bugs and glitches"
Just like the current top and middle order England batsmen then
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- Emperor_Rusty
With regards to the mini reviews, sorry but this is just not cricket
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