Because the game has been timed to come out alongside the ICC Cricket World Cup, it allows you to play through the entire World Cup campaign. You can also play through the 2006 ICC Champions Trophy, though if you'd rather play a quick friendly match then you can choose to play custom test matches, twenty-twenty slogfests or one day internationals.
Once you decide exactly what match you want to play, there's a wide variey of options which can be customised before you even begin the game. You're able to select the difficulty of your opponent, which ranges from "Slog" through to "Test" and you can also set the number of overs (though you must select either 6, 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 overs, and can't set your own amount). Much like rubberband AI in racing games, you can also choose to play either a realistic or a balanced game. A balanced game will result in a closer match, a realistic match will mean that you're not going to get any favours from the computer.
We think he's trying to hit a ball here.
In a spot of good news, authentic player names and likenesses have been secured for the ICC Champion's Trophy 2006 and the World Cup. This means you'll no longer need to edit players as Clarke, Symonds, Hussey and the unlucky-with-the-bat Kevin Pietersen. There are still some teams and competitions that haven't been licensed, but it's a vast improvement upon RPIC 2005, which only sported a handful of real player names.
Thankfully, the overall accessibility of RPIC 2005 has made the transition to RPIC 2007 as well. Even if you're unfamiliar with the series, the controls are basic, but you're able to pull off a wide variety of moves. Bowling is much the same as in RPIC 2005. Of cours, before you even begin bowling you'll need to select your bowler, and helpfully the skill rating for all your players is listed before you make your choice, so you're able to compare the stats for each player before choosing who's going to deliver the ball.
After you've selected your bowler and pressed A your bowler will begin his run towards the wicket. As you get towards to the pitch, a red circle appears, and you'll only have a second or two to position your circle. The circle indicates where the ball will bounce, so you can bowl a yorker right at the batsman's feet or bowl a bouncer. When you get closer to the stumps, a power meter appears. The objective is to try and press a button at the right time to deliver a fast delivery. There are four different deliveries you can bowl, all determined by what button you press when the power meter appears. A is a straight, down-the-line delivery, swinging the ball to the left is assigned to X and swinging the ball to the right is assigned to B. A slower ball is bowled with the Y button.
Looks pretty realistic, doesn't it?
For better or worse, gone are the days of sitting back and watching your players field the ball automatically for you - now, you'll actually need to concentrate when you're fielding. When the fielder goes to pick up the ball, another meter will appear. You'll need to press the A button at the correct time to ensure you throw the ball back quickly, and don't overfield. You'll also need to do this when you're trying to catch the ball (which heightens the challenge of fielding), and you're able to determine whether to throw the ball back to the wicketkeeper or the bowler - the left trigger throws to the 'keeper whereas the right trigger will throw to the bowler. Sometimes, the meter appears a little later than we would have liked, and this is frustrating because if you make a mistake you may fumble the ball or even drop a catch.
Whilst the bowling is okay, the highlight of cricket games is almost always the batting, and this trend is maintained in RPIC 2007. As the bowler begins his run-up, you're able to move your batsman to the left or the right of the stumps with the bumpers. The left analogue stick is used to direct where you want to hit the ball. You'll need to time your shot correctly to actually hit the ball. A hits the ball along the ground, X will block the ball and B is a high shot. You're also able to use the bumpers to sweep the bat, which feels nicely intuitive. Once you hit the ball, the camera will zoom out and you'll need to start running. The Y button will send your players on a sprint, and footage of your players running between the stumps appears in the top left-hand corner of the screen.
One of the biggest additions to RPIC 2007 is the ability to play cricket online through Xbox Live. Rather than just tack this on as a feature, it appears that Codemasters has gone all out to ensure that the online play doesn't feel like an afterthought. Whilst we can't find anybody online just yet, we did have a look through all of the options to see what you can look forward to. The obligatory Quick Match play mode makes the cut, but there's also a Custom Match option. There are seven different options in the Custom Match screen, including the event type (ODI, test or twenty overs), the match length, event type and the difficulty. We're not entirely sure whether the game will keep track of your skill so you can play opponents of a similar skill or not, but this would be a handy addition. PlayStation 2 owners haven't been completely forgotten, either - the game supports four-player offline multiplayer.
What a shot.
Codemasters has also reworked the commentary, which should result in a little less repetition in game. Jonathan Agnew, David Gower, Ian Bishop, Bill Lawry and Tony Greig will all provide commentary, but the full commentary wasn't implemented in our build, so when Grieg was asked, "who do you think is likely to come out on top of this one, Tony?" there was no response. We assume that in the final build there'll be an answer in there, unless Tony was simply a little bit speechless.
We did stumble across a few contentious issues, which could be due to the fact that the game isn't finished yet. Example: when a wicket is taken, the crowd jump up and down gleefully but they don't appear to make all that much noise. When a wicket is taken, we want to hear deafening screams from the crowd that really make you feel like you're at a cricket match. Whilst we're not ruling out the idea of the crowd effects improving for the final version, we're not all that confident. At times, the AI in the game also made some questionable decisions - when the fielders missed the wicket when trying to run out our batsman, they overthrew the ball so hard that the ball carried through to the boundary. Oh, and the umpire has a strange tendency to call for the third umpire in decisions that are as clear as day. Admittedly though, these are only minor niggles and are likely to be ironed out for the final game.
RPIC 2007 really feels like it's shaping up well. Whilst not all that much has actually changed in the game from eighteen months ago, there are now more licensed players and online play, and of course the game is also making its Xbox 360 debut. Timed to be released just in time for the World Cup, we're sure this is a game that cricket fans will thoroughly enjoy. Also, if for some bizarre reason Australia doesn't win the World Cup, then at least we'll have a way to make it seem like we did.
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