Big Cup Cricket review: it’s just not cricket

It's just not cricket

There are not many great cricket games available on the iPhone, but this one is at least good, if not exactly great. Thankfully, multiplayer mode saves the day.

Love
You can choose from all the main cricketing nations and then enjoy an arcade-style thrash of between 5-20 overs. It takes time to master, but with a little practice in the training drills you can soon be hitting fours and sixes against your opponents and restricting their scoring with some miserly bowling.

Your opponents possess varying levels of skill to keep the interest going and there is something of a career mode with three levels of knockout tournaments and achievements to earn. The animation is fun and deliberately basic and the game is enjoyable enough to keep you coming back for more.

Multiplayer mode is a real bonus and helps offset the limitations of the computer-generated opponents.

Don’t love
It’s good, but it could be so much better. The cricketing purists will be annoyed that the game doesn’t have the naming rights to the players and that the batsmen don’t even change ends when scoring a single.

And the bowling, catching and batting controls are erratic at best. With time and effort you can hit the ball well and bowl in the right place more often than not, but too often the same actions have varying results. Perhaps most frustrating is the skill level of the top opponents, such as England and India, who can despatch nearly every ball for four or six, making it nearly impossible to beat them or have a meaningful game.

However, you can cheer yourself up by playing as Australia and watch England dishing out an entirely realistic drubbing!

Overall
More of a village cricket slog than a trip Down Under for The Ashes, it’s still fun once you take into accounts its limitations. Multiplayer helps transform it from ‘meh’ to four stars. There’s a free lite version to try out before you consider getting the tier 2 £1.19 full game.

Want more?

Fanboy store review: “I didn’t know how good it was going to be and it turned out to be amazing. The only thing is that on the challenge cup it’s too easy! It isn’t that bad because you win but if you want a challenge it needs to be changed.”

Meh store review: “…It’s impossible to bowl at Australia and England without them hitting at least 2 sixes per over, and that’s a good over… and impossible for you to hit one against them, which to be fair makes it pointless.”

From the publisher: “Prove you’re a real all rounder as you bat, bowl and field your way through multiple challenge and tournament modes with the deftest flick and swipe of your finger…”

Get it: here.