I'm not going to lie, I was extremely shocked to see this game available for download in the United States. Soccer, or even rugby, is one thing. I know of plenty of American soccer fans. I know a handful of rugby fans. I'm not sure I've ever met someone here in here in the States that has even a passing interest in Cricket.
Wait, did you think this was going to be a 3D platformer about a cartoon cricket? No, this is actually a game about the sport of cricket, the one where you throw a ball at wickets while the opposition tries to hit it with an enormous, flat bat. I know I don't play modern games very much, but I had to give this a shot. Because honestly, I don't think I know a single thing about cricket other than the fact that it exists. I guess it's similar to baseball and I think both are based on a game called rounders, but I really don't feel like, looking it up. I talked a little bit about my lack of knowledge of auto racing or motocross in past reviews, but this goes even further than that. I've spent a decent amount of time in Europe, but I don't think I've ever actually watched a cricket match. I do remember catching part of one at a pub in London when I was 18 (England was playing Pakistan if I remember correctly), but I couldn't find anyone sober enough to coherently explain the rules, so I quickly lost interest.
Fortunately, Cricket 2022 starts with a hand tutorial mode that explains the basics of gameplay. It will take you through the basics of batting, bowling (I guess we would call it pitching on this side of the pond) and fielding. I have to give them a lot of credit for how well they simplify the controls, because they are most definitely not simple. Batting is easy enough, you aim where you want the ball to go on contact and use one of the face buttons for either a normal, aggressive, precise or defensive swing (I played on the XBox One, just for the record). From there, it's just a timing-based button press to try and hit the ball off the bounce. Bowling is a bit more complex, as you have aim your shot, choose one of eight potential throws and hit a skill check for both your jump and your throw. There is a lot here, trying to hit wickets, trying to hit the batter, trying to avoid throwing wide, dealing with the two different types of bowlers (pace and spin, for the record), choosing to throw faster or slower, there is a lot to unpack. The controls here are really tight and very responsive and at no point did I ever feel anything was unfair. The ball physics were surprisingly strong, bounce and spin are (apparently) a very important part of cricket and everything behaves exactly as you would expect it to. The timing with hitting is a little weird, but I think it was more an issue of my timing than anything wrong with the game. I just had to keep reminding myself that this wasn't baseball and you were supposed to hit off a bounce.
It's fielding where the game falls apart. The training will explain to you how to perform the quicktime events that occur when a ball is hit in the air, so that is no big deal. I do wish they just had a fly ball indicator, but I kind of understand why they did this. What I don't understand is why they didn't bother to have a player indicator so you could determine which of your fielders you were actually controlling. The ball is deep red, so it's not all that hard to see, but I found myself running in the complete opposite direction more often than not because I had no idea who I had control of. This is further compounded by the shifts to the field view being extremely jarring. It was very, very confusing and made actually getting to the ball in a timely manner almost impossible. Worse still, you get a different angle depending on how your opponent hits the ball. When you are playing against the computer, that means the switch is essentially random. I don't think I need to explain why that is problematic. It's even an issue as the batter, because you have to stop and wait to make absolutely sure the ball isn't going to be caught as you can't actually see where it is going. That brief second or two of uncertainty is a big problem.
So yeah, fielding was my biggest issue from an actual gameplay standpoint. But I think my biggest issue was that the game did very little to explain the actual ins and outs of a cricket game. The tutorial did an awesome job on gameplay and the individual phases of the game. But almost too much so. They spent a ton of time talking about spin and break while bowling, to the point that it felt excessive. That's something that any fan of any ball-and-club sport is already going to understand, baseball, golf or even tennis (I guess that's ball-and-racket. Whatever) fans are going to know what all of that stuff is even if they've never seen cricket in their lives. But some of the finer, or even more basic, points of the game are never explained. What's the score? Why are there so many positions on the field? What's a boundary? Why did I have to take my batter out of the game? I don't think I ever, at any point, knew what the score of my match was, if I was doing well or poorly, or just generally what was going on. The tutorial does let you know that you want to avoid the batter making an out. I heard that in the tutorial and was like "thanks Captain Obvious." But what the tutorial didn't tell me was that when a batter flies out in cricket, they aren't just done for that at-bat...they are done for THE ENTIRE MATCH. That would have been good information to know. By the time I realized what was happening, I had already lost half my lineup. I guess it's my fault for doing all power swings all the time. The whole thing with zones and referee appeals is very confusing as well and there just wasn't a really good explanation of it. Also, laying out just how long a Cricket match is would have helped as well, that really threw me off.
I guess a lot of the issues here are more my own personal/American sports fan bias. I am sure a diehard cricket fan would find all of that a waste of time. But remember, they put this up on XBox Live here in the States and I can guarantee you the general knowledge of the sport on this side of the pond is probably in line with what I know. I was actually surprised to see that 1) There is a team USA for Cricket -and- 2) they were selectable in this game. Cricket 2022 offers a pretty solid selection of international teams and its actually kind of cool to see some of these regions of the world represented in a game other than FIFA. The American and Western European teams (except for England) kind of take a back seat to the likes of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other South Asian and Middle Eastern nations. I guess Cricket just isn't super popular in South America or Eastern Europe, I don't think I saw a single team from either region. There was also a very, very impressive selection of club teams from throughout the world, it didn't mean much to me but It's just generally awesome they were represented and I am sure a cricket fan would really appreciate it. I would like to comment on the Cricket 2022 using real players and stats, but I can't in good conscious do that because I have no idea whether or not its true. There are tons of modes here, from online to single matches to career modes, as well as bevy of creation options. I love when sports games are so content heavy and I think some of the Western sports titles need to look at this game to see how it's done.
At the end of the day, Cricket 2022 definitely feels like it was way more geared towards fans of the sport than for first timers or those new to cricket. Honestly, that's the way it should be. If you are a fan of a sport, you expect certain things from a game featuring said sport and, at least to an outsider, it feels like Cricket 2022 provides that to fans. I have to say that was definitely a positive here. It's also another great example of the positives of modern gaming, there would have been an absolute zero chance of a Cricket game being released in the United States in the 90's or 00's. That being said, I really think it's because of that factor that you almost need different versions of games like this. You have to consider when you put a game like this up for download internationally that most people are going to not understand what is going on. I know if I were in charge of launching Madden internationally, I would definitely have a separate version with additional tutorials for a global audience. Cricket 2022 at least tried, but it needed to do a little more to teach unfamiliar audiences about the sport. Even with the fielding issues, the gameplay was solid and it was definitely worth playing, even if you don't a think about Cricket.
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