sports game save files (METAL VIJAY RISING: REVENGEANCE)

[stylo]

PART 0: VIJAY ORIGINS

since I’ve been obsessed with cricket recently, I was looking to see if there were any good cricket video games. there aren’t a ton - the latest is Big Ant’s title Cricket 22 (following up on their previous Cricket 19 and Ashes Cricket 17).

I really play sports games for the season-over-season narrative possibilities. I’ve created an all-rounder player — he’s a fast-medium swing bowler and traditional strokeplayer going by the extremely old-school Tamil name of

VEERAPANDIAN VIJAY

i’ve given him big biceps and a very formidable mustache. he bats wearing gold aviators and a sharp baseball cap instead of a helmet. he specializes in inswingers, outswingers, drives, and hooks, and bowls around 140kph at his peak.

my plan is to take him from the mean streets of Tirichirapalli to the Tamil Nadu team and eventually the Indian national team, where he will hopefully captain them to many Test match victories.

part 0

some info about the game first (edited from original post)

@stylo

As the Ashes heritage suggests, they’re an Australian company and mostly have licenses for the Anglophone countries in the sport - England, New Zealand, Australia, West Indies etc. No India, Pakistan, etc licenses, although there is for example an “India” team with AI-generated players and logos.

a lot of reviews said it was a bit disappointing for the price tag (a hefty $45). what interests me is the career mode - you can create a cricketer and take him (or her, there’s also women’s cricket in the game) from the small club level, to the state level, to the international team. And you can get offers from T20 clubs as well. I wish they had put a little more effort into developing the Career mode narrative side - there’s a few cutscenes with your coach and stuff, but I wish there was like, newspaper clipping from the Sports pages or something like that. Especially to chart your player’s rise from the small club level.

I’m playing on “Classic Pro” settings, which means you have a lot more control over how you take on the ball as a batter, but also way more room for error. when batting, you have to judge the line and length of the ball (there’s a little marker indicating where it will bounce), then move your feet (left stick) and swing towards the field (right stick flick). you can move your guy around and hold a button to select a batting approach (aggressive/precise/defensive/unorthodox). A precise shot will usually be a fast grounded shot, but the aggressive approach is more lofted, swing-for-the-fences type thing.

I didn’t expect the level to which you have to adapt your approach to each bowler you face. Fast bowler with a lot of bouncers = defend fuller balls, and get on the backfoot to smash the bouncers to the leg side. Spin bowler with good length deliveries outside the off stump = wait for it, then dance down the pitch and hit it straight down the ground. (Press R3 to dance down the pitch!) Etc.

Like with batting, the game gives you a lot of control with bowling and expects you to get it right. Choose your run up, select your type of pitch (standard/outswing/cutter/etc), select your length, time the Jump meter to determine your speed, time the Release meter to determine your accuracy, optionally you can choose the ball’s seam direction, apply aftertouch with RS, add extra “effort” by holding a trigger… etc etc.

Overall I’m actually quite enjoying it.

Vijay’s dreams of captaining India started off… slowly. In 2021, as a 19-year-old playing for Trichy district, he averaged a score of 15 in the lowest level of competition in the game. and his bowling wasn’t much better, with just 16 wickets in 16 matches.

He hovered around the same level in 2022, but his bowling improved considerably.

probably because I began simulating some of his bowling spells to get it over with. tfw the AI is better than you with your own player…

batting in this game is very hard, especially when your framerate dips below 30 (as mine did constantly). I found myself regularly unable to time the ball, so I eventually turned down the batting difficulty from Medium to Easy. (not my proudest gaming achievement…)

2021 high score: 51
2022 high score: 79*

2021 wickets: 16 in 16 matches
2022 wickets: 28 in 17 matches

2021 BBI: 2/22
2022 BBI: 5/13

eventually, after batting became EZ MODE, Vijay’s numbers improved greatly, and at age 21 he was finally on the cusp of playing for Tamil Nadu.
2023 numbers for Trichy:
Avg 31.81
High score 145* (my first century!)
31 wickets in 14 matches
BBI 5/15
BBM 7/62

being an all-rounder, Vijay’s selection to higher levels depends both on batting and bowling. At age 22, he ascended out of club cricket and was selected to the Tamil Nadu state team in Hazare Trophy and Ranji Trophy matches. (Indian state cricket)

Sachin Tendulkar debuted for Bombay at 14 and India at 16. Just, yknow, for comparison.

in a lot of ways, Vijay’s first couple of years were spent languishing in club cricket. but finally in 2024, it’s time to crack on at the state level… or is it?

there’s positives and negatives… on the positive, he became a regular contributor for Tamil Nadu in both batting and bowling.
Avg: 48 (across 14 First Class innings and 8 List A matches)
HS: 147
List A strike rate of 175.77
29 wickets in 10 FC matches
BBI 4/21

unfortunately, Vijay ran into some problems…

namely, between poor framerate and increasing the batting difficulty to Medium, I posted a string of poor scores. in 2024, they were restricted mainly to club matches: check that 9.89 average in the “Other” row.

that long dry spell between matches 26 and 54… That got Vijay dropped from the Ranji Trophy side — no more First Class matches for him.

In 2025, the problem spread to Tamil Nadu performances as well.

Averaging 8.80 (!) in T20 matches for Tamil Nadu

A shocking 2.67 (!!) for Karachi Kings in the Pakistan Super League

And finally, due to his failure to perform at the lowest level of competition, Vijay is dropped from the Tamil Nadu side altogether, and is struggling to see gametime even for Trichy.

sidenote: a little unrealistic for Pakistan Super League to be offering contracts to Indian players, not sure that’s allowed IRL due to politics… Indian players are banned from PSL and all other foreign T20 competitions, nor have Pakistani players ever played in the Indian Premier League…

actually maybe this is why I got dropped from Tamil Nadu…!! cricket 22 models corrupt and biased team selectors, 10/10 game

Luckily, when he was in a spell of good form, Vijay was offered a contract with the historic Middlesex County Cricket Club, playing in Division 1 of English county cricket. They surely think they’ve made a huge mistake by now. But Vijay packs his bags and heads to London, determined to play his way back into India from the outside…