Ricky Ponting Cricket 2005

Game: Ricky Ponting Cricket 2005
Developer: Swordfish Studios
Platform: PC (and others)
Release Year: 2005
Stephen's Rating: 6/10

Basic Plot

There is no plot. There are different game modes where you play games of cricket.

Gameplay

Ricky Ponting Cricket 2005 (also known as Brian Lara Cricket 2005 outside of Australia and New Zealand) is an action based cricket simulator. The player plays cricket matches and is directly controls players in batting and bowling, and is able to make decisions such as the position of fielders during the game.

Players could use pre-existing teams and players but could also create their own custom players who gained experience and could improve aspects of their bowling, batting, or fielding (eventually becoming uber players).

There were a number of game modes including individual limited overs or test matches, or playing entire tournaments or test series.

You could play two player on the same computer using either one keyboard or a keyboard and game controller (which we used). This added a whole new dimension to the game.

Positives

Unlike other cricket games I've played it was intuitive and easy to pick up. Batting and bowling were both very satisfying. Custom players was a nice touch. I created one for myself, my dad, and my best friend.

Negatives

I hated the way only Ricky Ponting was actually named in the game. When you played actual teams in the game (like India or England) they renamed all the players to be similar but different to the actual players and they looked different too. It was pretty frustrating and annoying because the names they chose were kind of... bad. They did it for licensing reasons.

My biggest qualm was the lack of variety. You could only hit the ball in one of 8 directions and bowling wasn't as varied and interesting as it could have been. Once I figured it out I found the game quite boring and repetitive.

Memorable Moments

I remember having some 10 over one on one competitions with some friends. The game is completely different than against the AI, we ended up mostly bowling full tosses which were well wide or ground grubbers which bounced many times before reaching the batsman. Hilarious.

I created custom players for myself (leg spin bowler), my dad (medium pace bowler) and my best friend (opening batter).