Ashes Cricket 2009 (Wii) Review

What's immediately obvious about this game is that it is somewhat rushed. Graphically it looks like most the players have been fed through a blender and the crowd is barely even two-dimensional, let alone the full three. The whole thing just looks awful. Grainy, blocky, ugly and with poor animation to boot. The presentation is sloppy too, with big ugly buttons and turgid, washed out colour schemes.

But I could forgive it looking rough as a dog if it played well. Alas, it doesn't. Whilst the developers have clearly had the first thought of Wii controls = waggling, they never move beyond it. Just about everything in this game can be achieved by furiously shaking the Wii-mote at sort of the right moment. This doesn't require skill, this doesn't require any ability and this doesn't create any sense of fun...at all. The whole gameplay mechanic is flawed in that shots are directed using the d-pad, the only shots you can play are a lofted shot, a 'normal' shot and a defensive shot. No cutting, pulling or sweeping...just really badly ani-mated slogs over mid-wicket for six or four.

A quick run-down of the how game fits together then. In batting, A is a defensive shot, B is a lofted shot and simply waggling is an ordinary shot. You direct the ball on the D-pad and shuffle about your crease with plus and minus. Bowling, you shine the ball by waggling furiously and tediously (before every sodding delivery), you place the ball by pointing at the pitch and pressing A, then bowl either a quick ball (B) or a slower ball (A), you add swing or spin to the delivery by twisting the Wii remote sideways when you waggle it about to deliver the ball. It owes about as much to cricket as a prostitute drenched in lukewarm custard.

The whole game just lacks any sense of depth. There is no variation in the shots you can pull off, no variation in bowling (apart from fast, slow and 'swing' ) and the less said about the fielding controls the better. Simply put, there aren't any, it's all computer controlled and it is all rubbish. The computer is also very stupid, it drops catches, jogs instead of runs, ignores the ball when it rolls past them and the bowlers, for the most part, refuse to field off their own deliveries. This all makes for a hugely frustrating and limiting experience.

A good example of how 'simple' this game is comes in the form of the 'perfect delivery'. This is achieved by bowling three 'really good' deliveries to give the bowler enough confidence to bowl the 'perfect' ball. This ball, if placed correctly, will nearly always take a wicket. That's another problem as well; no matter how much I played and how well I bowled, I could keep the score down but very rarely could I take a wicket.

Whilst the focus of the game is clearly on Ashes Test cricket, you can also play 50 over, Twenty20 and 'Double Wicket' cricket. There are also various other cricket nations avail-able for selection, even if they aren't licensed and don't have any of the right names or, in most cases, even vague likenesses. You can play in various different stadiums and in overcast or sunny conditions and not much else. I'm really struggling to think of positive things to say about this game. Yes, it might be sort of fun to have a slog against some mates if you have enough Wii-motes, but there is so little skill and so much goes for six it is just frustrating and tedious. A real shame.