Cricket, it’s an iconic and historic sport, and one that manages to consistently fuel hatred for the Poms every time The Ashes roll round (5-0 clean sweep FTW!). It’s about the baggy green, the pride of representing your country in the ultimate ‘gentleman’s sport’. And, come March, it’s going to be all about the ICC World Cup.

Ricky Ponting International Cricket 2007 (RPIC 07) has been taken under the wing of developers Codemasters, who have brought the game completely in-house (RPIC 05 was out-sourced to Swordfish). This has allowed them to do some truly awesome things. How do I know all this? Well, I was lucky enough to be invited to their studio in England, where I spent a lot of time getting to know this new beast. Straight of the bat (tee hee), Codies are completely aware of the faults of RPIC 05. The entire game engine has been stripped back and remade – the lighting system is completely new and allows for real-time effects such as haze and glare and seeing each stadium during different daylight conditions is very cool. You can almost imagine being there.

The game itself is being presented to complement the televised coverage of the World Cup, so the front end of the game, all the menus, logos and branding will be presented just like you’ll see it on TV, including the voice of Tony Greig as commentator. There’s also one huge improvement this time round: fully licensed names, uniforms and teams. No more delving into sub-menus to try and actually get a real life cricketer (although some of the made up names in RPIC 05 were quite funny).

Another major update has been made to the AI of teams. Much of the frustration of RPIC 05 happened when trying to tease out the opposition – all they ever did was play it safe, even if they were 50 runs or more behind in the closing moments of the match. For RPIC 07, there are many improvements to elements such as training, field settings, deliveries and ball detection. But perhaps more importantly, the opposing team will now actually start to take risks if they’re down in runs (just like in real life). The quote we were given for the new AI: “In this new game, the AI will really take you on!” And we can’t wait to test that out.

Diving straight into the game itself, the amount of options threaten to overwhelm you. There is of course the option to play a quick match but there’s also the fact that full tournament play will be available for up to 16 players. Yep, you’ll be able to have all the teams from the World Cup playing and vying for a virtual victory. Then there’s Coaching Mode, which focuses strongly on tactics and getting you to start at the basics of cricket and work your way up. Codies were very vocal in their admittance that this was a feature sorely lacking in the previous title, and that many new players felt a little confused by this whole ‘cricket thing’. But not only that, coaching should also be beneficial for cricket experts, as it will give you a strong idea of what the game is capable of and how to pull off a lot of the new moves.

Every single game mode will be available over Xbox Live and the leaderboards will use the same ranking system as the ICC – so you can see that there’s a real partnership going on here. Additionally, you will now be able to save multiplayer matches between overs – so you can keep those rivalries going as you break for lunch or even days at a time.

Whilst perusing the massive studios, I managed to catch sight of some pretty cool stuff. First up was the facial animation and head model area, where Ricky Ponting and Brian Lara were subjected to some hilarious facial poses. Codies have scanned over 500 heads and faces in the need to cover as many heads as possible in readiness for whichever teams are included in the World Cup. These realistic heads have in turn been linked to a much more realistic animation system that is actually very contextual.

For the animation of individual players, many small pieces of animation are able to be connected together so that each situation can yield a different result. I saw a fielder quickly scoop the ball and return it. On another run, he paused slightly as the player decided which end to throw the ball to. Yes, you read that right – you can now throw the ball to both ends and this is controlled by the player, which promises to give you even more options and minute control over how games progress. But back to the animations – they just look incredibly smooth and realistic, and this carries over into the unique ‘back patting’ congratulatory cut scenes for particular moments in the game (bowled out, won the match etc.).

Another cool addition is the fact that the stats for your team (and individual members) will actually fluctuate throughout each match. If you’re consistently awesome, your confidence will increase and so will your stats for things like speed, accuracy and the like. Concordantly, suffer from a bad slump and you’ll find your confidence and stats take a nose dive. This happens to the opposing team as well (even if CPU controlled) which gives us hope that matches will be real nail-biters and much more like in real life.

There’s a heap more that RPIC has to offer, and the above features only scratch the surface of what I managed to discover about the game.

Continue onto part two of this preview, where we go hands on with the game and talk about achievements, the new fielding system and much, much more...

There are three main components to cricket: batting, bowling and fielding. Well, four if you count boozing. But for RPIC 07, Codemasters have gone with the philosophy that each of these three elements should be equally engaging and fun for the player. To this end, they have totally rebuilt the game’s fielding system, which was quite limited in the ’05 iteration.

Apart from the aforementioned ability to throw the ball to both ends, and the inclusion of silky smooth contextual animations, there are a heap of new options and abilities that allow you to field with total confidence. Batting is now analogue and this is shown by a light cone on the field icon. Therefore, with shots going all over the place, it’s just as well that you can place your fielders with the touch of a button for pre-set placements. Don’t like that? Simply get all particular in the field menu to really breathe down the opposition’s neck.

And when a ball does get slogged, the new Reflex catch system comes into play. Taking inspiration from the Matrix, this bullet-time system gives you a timing window on the bottom left of the screen; the game slows down and gives you an opportunity to press a button and catch the ball. But before you start thinking that this will make the game easier, reflect that you’ll be up against more aggressive AI, a completely 360 degree shot placement system and the fact that confidence stats will ebb and flow – so that slow-timed catch may just be the most satisfying moment ever.

Don’t like fielding? Fine, just opt to skip innings. Codies are aware that some people hate particular aspects of the game, or simply want to bat all the time, and so have given you the ability to skip over the boring bits and only engage with the gameplay element that you like best. This shows, in my opinion, a deep understanding of both the game itself and the intended audience. Codemasters want to reach as many people as possible with this game, from those who don’t know the first thing about cricket, right through to those who can spout off encyclopedic knowledge of particular games and players.

Whilst bowling, I noticed quite a few cool graphical effects, such as clumps off the pitch and dirt lifting up, as well as some great particle effects. Obviously, this has an effect on subsequent balls that get delivered, as both the pitch and the ball wear away over time. This, coupled with the fact that delivery speeds are realistically tied to the type of bowler that is on show, means that matches should be dynamic and different every time.

But the achievement whore in you is wondering what you’ll need to do to hear that wholly satisfying pop, right? Well, I actually got to see the achievement list and, after furiously scribbling down a few of them, I can reveal that they look like a lot of fun to get. There are achievements for things such as getting a hat trick or half century and century. Then there are some cool ones like getting six boundaries in a row or six sixes in a row – that’ll be interesting to get. Even more surprising is the fact that there didn’t seem to be any achievements for multiplayer – we’re guessing that Codemasters feel the player should be more rewarded for their single player efforts.

So... hands-on impressions? Well, this is still basically the same type of game as RPIC 05 (a cricket one, der), but the differences are certainly there. I had a go at bowling first up and the different bowling options are still mapped to the face buttons. The circular aiming marker is also visible, but to me it certainly felt quite intuitive and when the ball bounces realistically and is met with great animation from the batsman it really does serve to immerse you in the game. Batting is probably where most of the fun is to be had, and using the thumbstick to aim around the stadium for a shot certainly feels great. To step forward and really give the ball a slogging, you actually have to press a specific button combination much earlier than a normal shot – and this does leave you open if you miss the ball or only chip it. Tactically, the game feels both subtle and deep and from my very short hands-on time I can definitely feel the improvements over RPIC 05.

Delving back into the game options, it’s actually possible to choose between balanced or realistic settings. Balanced evens all the stats up a bit whereas realistic is linked to the real life stats of each player – so that’s pretty cool. In fact, the whole game seemed pretty cool and I think the most impressive part of the whole visit was the way in which the guys at Codies were the first ones to identify the major faults with RPIC 05. By really focusing on the game itself, and recognizing that gamers want to have the option for every little thing – and then giving them those options – I can only predict that the game will fulfill almost any cricket fan’s dreams.

Come March, it’ll be on, and rabid cricket fans the world over will be living out their own individual World Cup fantasies with this game. So grab your bat and ball, stock up on tinnies and slap on some extra thick sunscreen – the balls are about to go flying thick and fast... in a good way of course.

Article by Dylan Burns