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If you're an avid sports fan living in Australia, England, South Africa, or much of the sub continent then you probably spend a good deal of your summer months enjoying either playing or watching cricket. It's the gentlemans sport, and one which has been played for well over a century now. Unfortunately, digital versions of the sport have been few and far between but Electronic Arts have been kind enough to develop Cricket 2002 for the PS2. The game has actually been developed by HB Studios in Canada, with EA's Studio Oz on the Gold Coast overseeing testing of the game. With constant delays from the inital September/October release date concerns were starting to build about whether the game could live up to lofty expectations. EA Sports Cricket 2002 is fairly well packed with features. The game includes the 10 official international teams, 2 minnow teams (Bangladesh and Scotland who are on the verge of inclusion into the Cricket world), and 5 all time squads from the cricketing nations which have to be unlocked. As you would expect the game includes all the players from around the world thanks to licenses from the ACB, ECB, NZ Cricket and the South African Cricket Board among others. The game modes and tournaments are varied and include the World Cup, World Series, Sharjah Trophy, Practice Nets, Test Matches, Exhibition matches and Knockout Tournaments. The graphics really aren't too bad. Electronic Arts promised simple and intuitive controls through the Dual Shock 2 controller, and for the most part they have succeeded. While batting the four buttons corrospond with an attacking stroke (circle), defensive stroke (triangle), standard stroke (X) or to leave the ball (square). By pressing the L1 button you perform a more powerful shot with more hope of scoring a four or six however it also often skies the ball making your dismissal a lot more likely. While bowling you aim the ball using the analogue or digital sticks and then also use the direction control once again to control the spin or amount of seam on the ball. EA Sports Cricket 2002 gives you full control over your teams lineup, the posistion of your fielders and order of your bowlers. You also have the selection of manual or automatic fielding with either one being suitably implemented. No Brett Lee type celebrations here. While the game is a lot of fun there are some pretty big disappointments that should have been eliminated prior to release. The first problem is the bowling system used in the game. Moving the target around the pitch is extremely sensitive. Just touch the analogue stick and your aim will move all the way from leg side to off side. Worse still is that if you aim the target anywhere over the crease the computer sort of deflects it to somewhere else on the pitch, often just as the bowling target is about to be locked in. One minute you will be looking at the perfect yorker (where the ball bounces right at the batsmen's foot) and then the computer will suddenly move the target all the way over leg side, lock it in and with no option to cancel the bowlers run-up you cost the team 3 or 4
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Ea Sports Cricket 2002 Game! File Size:395MB
System Requirements!
Cpu: 500MHz Ram: 128 MB Video Memory: 32 MB Windows Xp,7,Vista