Whether that’s due to the AI’s poor shot selection or a limitation of the animation system, it isn’t pretty. It’s quite common to see a batsman square cut a delivery that’s well pitched up. The visuals look dated and the animations are jerky and awkward. Speaking of budget titles, you would be forgiven for thinking that International Cricket 2010 was one. In this day and age, even budget games like Pure Football manage to squeeze in a career mode, but International Cricket 2010 is still without it. Non-licensed players don’t look anything like their real-life counterparts either, and the editing options are too scarce to change that a whole lot. There are no licenses besides England and Australia, so you’ll have to go into edit mode and painstakingly rename the players of other teams to their real names. The annoying part of it is that if you’ve played Ashes, you can’t skip the basics and get to the advanced tutorials you’ll have to play through them all. Like Ashes, there is also a Tutorial mode, for those new to the game and cricket games in general. It’s very barebones, and unless you have a friend to play with, you’ll get bored quite fast. In terms of game modes, all you get is the option to play through the various formats of the game (T20, ODI, Test), and a customizable tournament option.
But as a full priced game, you expect at least a subtle evolution, which just isn’t there. You still have all the elements that made Ashes one of the best cricket games, such as accurate shot selection and the ability to vary the severity of swing, cut, and spin so it’s still a good game at its core. There is a slight improvement in the AI it bowls better and bats a little more aggressively, but it isn’t a significant change. There’s no noticeable difference to any area of the game over Ashes when played from the broadcast view it looks, plays and feels the same. But sadly, beyond the Action Cam, International Cricket 2010 is a very lazy effort. On the whole, Action Cam is a welcome step forward for cricket games, even if its implementation is a little rough around the edges.
This is probably done so that the batsman’s body doesn’t block your view of the bowler, but it does through you off your game a little bit, and you will need to make some adjustments to your stroke selection as a result. But the angle gets even wider when a left-handed batsman is on strike. This makes the line and angle of the oncoming delivery more difficult to judge although you will learn to compensate for that over time. While batting, the camera isn’t right behind the batsman, but at a slight angle. The Action Cam isn’t without its flaws though. It adds a brilliant sense of urgency to what is a mundane task in the broadcast view. When you set off for a run, you stay in the third-person perspective, and you can either keep your focus on the ball, or change it to your non-striker or the crease you’re heading towards. One of my favorite implementations of the Action Cam is in running between the wickets. Since the camera is much lower than the broadcast view, judging the delivery length becomes much more difficult. I’m personally not a big fan of the new Power Stick feature for strokeplay, but it certainly adds some variety and gives you an alternate way to bat. It makes placing shots between gaps in the field feel more natural, and watching the bowlers’ arm speed and the ball coming at you helps time your shots better as well. Playing using the Action Cam is definitely a fun and refreshing experience. There’s almost no change in gameplay between International Cricket 2010 and Ashes Cricket 2009, but with this new perspective, you’re given a new way to play the same game, and it does significantly alter your approach. But this year, developers Trickstar have introduced the Action Cam, which puts you in a third-person perspective just over the batsman’s shoulder as he takes strike (like a wicket-keeper’s point of view when standing up to the stumps, but a little higher), or right behind the bowler as he runs in. Cricket games have always stuck with the broadcast camera angles, and gamers have always been comfortable with them. International Cricket 2010 is, for most part, identical to Ashes Cricket 2009, with one fairly big, game-changing addition – the Action Cam.