Review: Cricket T20 Fever HD
Score:
68%
Ah yes, Cricket. The gentle thud of willow on leather, the chink of the teacups and smell of freshly made buns. All of which is nothing whatsoever like Cricket T20 Fever HD, out (on sale) in the Nokia Ovi Store and reviewed here. It's fair to say that the title is a labour of love by the developers and also the best cricket game I've ever played on a handheld device. But that doesn't necessarily make it particularly good as a flagship title for Symbian phones, as you'll gather...
The problem with computerising cricket is this. In its full form it takes five days to play, in one day form it still take.... you know.... a day to play, and even in its most recent, shortened form, it still takes 20 overs (of six balls) per side, to play, which still takes three or four hours. And that's just for one game between two sides.
So you won't be surprised to learn that Cricket T20 here shortens things further, with the default contraction being three overs per side, making for a mobile game that takes around fifteen minutes, which is about right. Not that this reflects the real game at all accurately, but hey, at least it shows that the developers have tried. And you can 'up' the overs per side to the full (for example) 20 per side if you really want to and if you have the time and battery power (and patience).
There's an optional set up of teams and venue, if you like, or you can go straight into a quick match, to see how the game mechanics work. You see, the fluidity of twelve players all on the 'field' at the same time, the speed of action from bowling to contact to where the ball ends up and what the fielders do - that all takes a phenomenal amount of work to get right in a computer game.
In fairness, Cricket T20 Fever HD gets this largely right, with a full 3D-rendered approach on the new graphics-accelerated Symbian hardware. This means that rather than just have tiny sprites, each player can be its own little 3D model to some extent and that after a shot has been played, the computer-controlled 'camera' is free to view the 3D action from any angle and generally generate a TV-style experience. Have a look at this in-game graphic, for example, it's not a cut-scene, this is snapped as part of one of the TV 'replays':
The core game revolves around bowling and batting, as you'd expect (there's no fielding duty - that's all taken care of). For bowling, you control where your bowler would like to pitch the ball, how much speed to put behind it and any swing or spin that should be imparted. The first by dragging a little red circle around, the latter by tapping on the action controls on the screen left:
The system works well and you'll be experimenting by bowling yorkers and inswingers within no time. It has to be said that the AI-controlled batsmen's success doesn't seem to tally one way or the other with how good or bad you are at bowling, but at least there's the semblance that you've applied some cricketing skill and know-how to this part of the game.
As people are got out (or score big runs), there are appropriate replays, along with cheerleaders (believe it or not - maybe this is part of the game on the sub-continent?):
There's even a computer (Hawkeye) analysis of where your balls were delivered - very cutting edge and a nice TV-style touch again:
So far so good then. In fact, so far so excellent. The problem comes when trying to bat. Being an octopus might help here, as you have to decide to 'loft' (or not) each shot by tapping an on-screen icon, then use the on-screen arrow keys to move your batsman left and right on the crease, then swipe hopefully in an appropriate direction at exactly the right point (i.e. when the ball's near you) and finally decide to tap on 'Run' (or not) if there's a run or two to be had.
So far in the Cricket T20 Fever interface, everything's been a labour of love for the main developer, I suspect - I remember spending hours recreating imaginary cricket matches in paper scorebooks when I was a young teenager. And the batting interface, whilst undoubtedly clever and flexible, is obviously something which the developer created for himself and mastered through many hours of practice (and by knowing the algorithms, when to try each shot). As for me, I struggled. I'd swipe hopefully and miss the ball half the time (usually while thinking 'Darn it, I forgot to tap on 'loft'), then even when the ball would trickle slowly off away from a fielder, I'd take a second or two before remembering to tap on 'Run'. This last has to be done manually. Good, because you get complete control. Bad, because it's yet one more thing to remember.
I'm sure that practice would indeed make perfect here and a few more hours spent swiping and stroking would see a better hit rate when my team was batting. But I, and most new users, would have to overcome a pretty steep batting learning curve. And, to add insult to injury, this was all on the game's 'Easy' setting, it seems!
Looking through the reviews of this title, it seems I'm not alone in finding batting much harder than bowling - and this makes for an unbalanced game.
Both batting and bowling modes have their own tutorial built-in, so you do at least get everything explained to you in simple terms - kudos to the developers here:
For the casual gamer, I'd steer clear of Cricket T20 Fever HD - there's some fun graphical prowess on offer and you'll enjoy it for the first 20 minutes but will then get frustrated. For the smartphone-owning cricket lover, I'd suggest purchase and then the application of patience - much like the real thing, a lot of practice is needed in order to get competitive, but once mastered, there's a detailed simulation here that promises an awful lot of ball by ball gameplay.
In short, out of ten, I'm giving Cricket T20 Fever HD a...
Steve Litchfield, AAS and Ovi Gaming, 18 November 2010
PS. There are previous versions of this game for other platforms, including Java, and some are even in the Ovi Store - make SURE you grab the HD version for the Nokia N8, C7, etc. You have been warned!
Reviewed by Steve Litchfield at