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CRICKET WORLD CUP 99
INFORMATION
Published by EASports
Sport: Cricket
Reviewed by: Salman
Siddiqui
INTRODUCTION
The Cricket World Cup has ended. Easports have released a cricket game
based on the world cup. This has been a great year for cricket games. The first
game to be released was Brian Lara Cricket from Codemasters, which has a lot
of positives, particularly in the gameplay department. Soon International Cricket
Captain 2 will see how good that turns out. Cricket World Cup 99 had generated
a lot of hype even before its release. The options that were promised made a lot
of fans excited. Welcome to the modern day PC game market. Cricket World
Cup 99 is a rushed product and it clearly shows in all facets of the game. In
short, Cricket World Cup 99 is a big disappointment to say the least. Throughout
this review, I am going to tell you what was promised and what you get out of the
box. Yes, there will be many patches for Cricket World Cup 99, sadly you don't
get you paid for out of box.
GRAPHICS
This is probably the only area where Cricket World Cup 99 (CWC99) deserves
high marks. A 3d card is highly recommended to see the glitz and glamour of
the detailed graphics. The world cup kits from all the teams are included
CWC99 and they look downright beautiful. The players and animations look
extremely realistic. In addition, there are twenty-one stadiums in CWC99 that
look like the actual stadiums themselves. CWC 99 looks even better with higher
screen resolutions. On my Riva TNT 2, I had the resolution set to 1900 X 1200
and the graphics and quality were very crisp. There are some flaws about the
graphics. First of all, if you set the resolution screen setting to any thing less than
640 X 480 the menus become blurry and difficult to read. Another noticeable
flaw, is after a ball has been bowled the ball the ball sticks to the wicketkeepers
hands. This looks ridiculous! The umpire lifts his arm up not his finger to give an
out; it looks funny as if the umpire is raising his hand in victory. Other than these
minor graphical flaws, CWC 99 has offers great visuals with the aid of a 3d
card. Lastly, the replay mode is excellent; you can view the replay in unlimited
perspectives.
Score- 92
INTERFACE AND CONTROL.
The major menus are easy to navigate through in CWC99. After that the ingame
menus and other configuration menus and options are difficult to navigate
through. For example, you always have to change your default player's
everytime. You cannot just make a permenant substitution for another player. As
far as the controls are concerned, the control system for bowling is brilliant and
quite remarkable. On the other hand, the controls for batting are horrendous.
Fielding mean while is all performed automatically by the computer. Bowling in
CWC99 is the most enjoyable aspect of CWC99 as you can control the seam,
spin and pace of the ball. The mouse is my personal choice for bowling a few
simple clicks will add or reduce the seam, spin and pace of the ball. You can
bowl every ball with pinpoint accuracy. Batting as mentioned before is difficult to
control no matter what you use. Basically there is a small cone placed in front of
the batsmen's feet and you can move that cone in different directions to play the
ball. Moving the cone in a particular direction should make the batsmen drive or
hit the ball in the designated spot where you place the cone. This never
happens. Basically you can hit the ball straight for an on drive all day long. Even
though there was a lot of motion capturing involved in the making of CWC 99,
every normal shot that you hit are basically defensive type shots. For example, if
you turn the cone to play a onside drive its always a leg glance. This problem
takes away from the realism of cricket. Batting quickly becomes boring, as you
can't play any of the shots you would like except for a straight drive and if you get
lucky a nice on drive. In my opinion, EA Cricket 97's batting method should have
been kept for CWC 99, as you would play the ball using your directional pad to
guide to the ball.
Score- 70
GAMEPLAY
CWC 99 is seriously lacking in the gameplay department to Brian Lara Cricket.
You have four modes of play that are presented to you. One day International,
World Cup Competition, World Cup Super Six and Training mode are the
four-gameplay options that you have. The test match option is not really a test
match option because basically you are playing a seventy-five over match when
it should be ninety overs with white kits. In the One-day international you pick one
of the twelve teams in the CWC99 and play a limited over match. World Cup
Competition is you choose a side and play the entire world cup in the twenty-one
different real life stadiums in the game. World Cup Super Six allows you to pick
six teams and direct them to the world cup, so basically you are forgoing the first
round of the world cup. Training mode requires no explanation; you simply
practice batting and bowling. On the box it says that you have a choice between
action and simulation mode. Simulation mode is okay at best; they could have
improved it a lot more. I found it really confusing using the simulation mode,
probably because of the interface. In both action and simulation mode, its hard
to place the fielders properly. In fact, why not try to have a "true" simulation mode
like International Cricket Captain. The next two problems that I have with CWC
99 are related to false advertising. First of all, the "realistic" weather, pitch and
ball wear effects are simply non existent. The pitch and ball wear effects are
exactly the same every time you play. The second claim, which never happened,
was the ability to download live team and player statistics during the world cup.
The world cup is already over; EASports simply failed to deliver such sort of
service. Also, CWC 99 does not support LAN, modem or internet games, all of
which were initially promised on the EASports Australian website. Finally, to
prove that CWC 99 is not deserving of high marks in the gameplay department,
there are no left handed batsmen nor bowlers! Who were they trying to fool!
Score- 60
AUDIO
Audio is boring. I think David Gower was shot and hospitalized while recording
the commentary for CWC 99. He does not have much to say. Richie Benaud on
the other hand does an adequate job to say the least. EASports said that over
fourteen hours of commentary were recorded for CWC 99. I don't believe that,
even if they did, the commentary is repetitive and inaccurate. For example,
before the world cup match starts David Gower always says "yes Richie, I think
these are two of the best teams in this world cup" I was playing against
Scotland, this also happened against Bangladesh. No offense intended to
Scottish and Bangladeshi fans. Okay so the commentary is inaccurate and
boring, what about the crowd. Ha Ha Ha, stagnant crowds through out the game
and sometimes they get excited with fours and sixes. That's it! Its that bad. Well,
what about the on field sounds. The player sounds such as " yes common" to run
a single run sounds cool along with the LBW (Leg Before Wicket) appeals. The
sound of the bat hitting the bowl is a good chuckle. When you hit the ball with the
bat either a power shot or a normal shot, its sounds like baseball bat hitting a
ball not like a cricket bat hitting a ball. On the positive side of the audio, the
interface and menu audio is very good. I like the techno beat and I don't get tired
of it. So, the audio fails, maybe the difficulty can make a difference. Not!
Score- 70
DIFFICULTY
The level of difficulty does not exist in CWC 99. All the difficulty modes are the
same. Even on the hardest difficulty. I can bowl out the best opposition team for
ten runs. Yes, that's right, ten runs. If you want you can easily achieve a double
hatrick every over on the hardest level. When I got to bat, I cannot really control
the placement of the ball as mentioned before So, I simply hit straight drive fours
and sixes all day long. You can easily have a run rate of at least sixteen to thirty
runs and over even with the best player bowling. In short, the CWC 99 artificial
intelligence does not present a challenge at all. Your best bet is to play against a
friend and try to have fun.
Score- 45
OVERALL
What can I say? Well, okay so CWC 99 is solely based on the world cup. Not
too bad I suppose but the gameplay, audio, and difficulty are bad, very bad.
Many of us were excited when we heard that the successor to Cricket 97 would
be the most complete cricket game to date. It's far from that. CWC 99 is like a
Christmas present that you have waited for two years, but when you open the
box, put in the CD and you start playing one begins to realize the wait, the hype,
the excitement, the joy was not worth it. All this time many others and I intently
waited for Cricket World Cup 99, after all so much had been promised and said.
I gave CWC 99 every chance to be appreciated by me and it never delivered.
Yes, there will be a few patches to fix some bugs but out of the box CWC 99 is a
rip off. I am sure CWC 99 has and will sell a lot of copies because of the hype
generated by the cricket world cup but most of you will be disappointed. I ask
myself, why did CWC 99 come up so short in so many aspects.I learned that
CWC 99 was made in just six months after some were not satisfied with the
initial product. Is that a valid excuse for a sub par game? No. It boils down to this
and I am sure most will agree. The producers and the team that developed
CWC 99 knew that CWC 99 was short of what had been promised but like us
they have deadlines. People in high positions have to make more money and I
am sure such was the case with CWC 99. Releasing an unfinished product. I will
commend the marketing representatives from EASports, they did their job in
successfully promoting and hyping such incomplete product. If you are a
developer or someone from EASports who can make a difference in making the
next cricket game for EASports, I say this. Keep the graphics engine and go
back to the drawing board for everything else.
Score - 67%
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System Requirements:
Required:
Win.95/98
Intel 166mhz
32MB RAM
Recommended:
Intel 200mhz
32MB RAM
3D Accelerator
Cons:
-Incomplete
- Horrible AI
- Bad audio
- Limited gameplay
Pros:
- Great graphics
Coolinfo Bottom Line:
- Out of the box CWC 99 is
not worth the money. The
patches might help, a little.
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