Stick Cricket [Android, iOS, Flash]

Stick Cricket exists in many incarnations on the phone and as a browser based flash game. It has been around for sometime but has recently been updated to fit the iPhone 5 screen. A relatively simple game, you just bat and that is all but it's simplicity is part of the fun.

On the phone, the free game gets you the Academy to practice, All Star Slog limited to 5 overs, some but not all of the World Domination matches and two player mode (but only if it is hosted by a Pro Pack owner). Pretty decent for free, though it does come with the added "cost" of ads. The Premier League pack will get you an extra tournament for AU $0.99 and the Pro Pack will unlock all of World Domination games, extra All Star Slog games, the ability to host your own two player games and remove ads. for AU $2.99. I think it's a bit tight that the dollar doesn't get rid of the ads., though having said that, three dollars isn't exactly a lot of money.

If you play it in your browser however, you get all kinds of games for free, obviously with ads. and you also get 3 button controls. Whereas the phones only have a simple two button interface, the browser version adds block/drive, which mixes it up a little. The browser version is very slow to load and at least for me, mostly played blank ads. which was a little boring.

So what are you doing in this game? Basically trying to crack as many sixes as you can. It boils down to a very simple timing game, yet somehow it comes across as being a bit of a simulation of cricket. It lacks a lot of the complexity of other cricket games, with no bowling or fielding but who cares? This is just about quickly blasting runs. There isn't a huge amount of depth to this game, there are about 6 different bowlers that you will face and they follow patterns due to their style, however I find it a great way to spend the time whilst you are waiting for a rained out match to come back on and subsequently be cancelled.

Stick Cricket has some problems, such as a bug that won't let you access the menu, though this is intermittent and hardly game breaking and it's general lack of depth but it makes up for it with it's greatest strength which is that it is quite challenging in an addictive way. If you don't like cricket you won't love this, oh no, but for those who do it's worth a bash 7.7/10.