Ashes Cricket 2009

Hi All,

I hate moving - well, actually, I hate packing and unpacking. My wife and I have recently moved into our first home and while it's exciting it's a big pain in the butt to try and find 'Item X' from the 3487 boxes you have scattered around the house.

Anyway, while over at my friend's house last week we checked out the demo of Codemasters' Ashes Cricket 2009. The last cricket game I played was Graham Gooch Cricket on the Atari ST (I didn't have a PC good enough to try out the Brian Lara games) so it was quite a thrill to check out Codies' new title.....and color me impressed. Not only do I enjoy the TV-style presentation, the gameplay and in particular the batting seems really deep and enjoyable. There are a nice variety of strokes both off the front and back foot. Bowling is also fun and I even like the QTE catching sequences when you're fielding.

As of yet there's no confirmed US/North America release but I have to think they must have some plans because they did release the demo on the US Xbox Live marketplace. If all else fails I guess I could import the PS3 version which would be region free.

If you're a cricket fan check out.

I need to go unpack some more.

Lavan

PS If you're a fan of 1UP.com's podcast (Listen UP), last week included some discussion about FIFA 10 and Garnett Lee seemed pretty damn impressed with the full/free 360 degree dribbling in the game.

FIFA 2010 - October 2nd 2009

Finally, some more soccer gaming news;

Firstly, EA Sports announced that FIFA 2010 will be released on October 2nd, 2009. No announcement on the demo, hopefully we get that a month or so prior to give us a good taste of the gameplay.

Secondly, Konami have released some new screens of PES 2010 - you can check them out here. The game looks purrty (as a Liverpool fan I'm happy with the choice of team in the screenshots) but more interesting are some of the tactical screens which show some modified and new player movement options. I've been so burned by PES/WE in the past two years that I'm so hesitant to get excited about the game but at the same time my interest has been piqued.

I've been playing Fitba on Xbox-Live (via Community Games) which is a fun distraction and worth a look at 400 MS Points if you're a fan of oldschool football games like Kick Off and S.W.O.S.

You can check out the demo on Live.

Lavan