Time To Put Out The Ashes

I hadn't even noticed a new cricket game sneak up on me this year until I saw the big Ashes Cricket 2009 advertisement on the Xbox 360 dashboard yesterday. A huge fan of Shane Warne Cricket '99 when I was but a lad on the Play Station, and cricket in general, cricket games since then had seemed overly complicated or reasonably dull. I'd all but given up on cricketing games until I downloaded this latest demo for the Ashes Cricket 2009 game. From the demo, I was unsure whether it'd just be a game based on the Ashes series (boring!), or if it'd have world tournaments as well - thankfully I've discovered it will include a multitude of teams as well as some pretty cool gameplay.

Game play seems enjoyable and user-friendly. I was able to bowl people out and hit sixes with equal measure in the demo's limited 3 over play, and there was plenty to do. Graphics were pretty horrible, but that is about the only complaint I can have for what was an enjoyable gaming experience. After reading a few previews online, it's good to learn that the game will include lots of unlockables, teams and commentary - not sure whether it will include statistics however. Cricket is a hard game to convert into a video game, and one never quite knows when a game such as this will fall under the cricket curse. Nevertheless, this seems one time when CodeMasters have got it right.