Game Review – Stick Cricket Super League (Mobile – Free to Play)

The Stick Sports brand has become one synonymous with high quality and high quantity on the mobile market. Since the original, and brilliant, Stick Cricket release a whole host of games have been released touching on different sports. Multiple cricket games, tennis, football, racing, baseball and even Aussie Rules have all had the “stick” treatment. The latest in the franchise is the subject of this review, Stick Cricket Super League.

This review is written about version 1.2.1

Stick Cricket Super League keeps the same simple, but infectious, gameplay that makes all the other games so exciting but expands on it a bit by adding a basic team management style. Choose a player, name them and play around with their look before choosing a team to place them in. Quickly your player will be made the captain of the team as you start your journey in the lower divisions.

Gameplay is simple, smash the ball around and score as many runs as you can to beat your opponent. Win enough games and you move up a league. Rinse and repeat. As you move up divisions, the teams you play will be more difficult to beat.

In Stick Cricket Super League, you control the batting side of your team. Bowling is automatic though, you can actually watch the whole bowling innings played by NCPs at normal or super speed. As captain, try to win the coin toss and select whether to bat or bowl. If you bowl, you can speed through to the end or watch the innings and see what score you have to beat. If you bat first, try to set a high score and hope the opponent doesn’t out score you when you bowl. Simple.

Batting is performed by pressing either the left or right arrow that appears on screen. The skill comes in watching the bowler, picking the right line and pressing the button that is going to connect with that ball and whack it out of the ground. The other skill come sin the timing of the press. A fast bowler gives you very little time to decide whereas a slower bowl gives you more time but may add spin, sending a ball you thought was coming down the right hurtling towards your left stump. Watch the ball, time it perfectly, hit the right button and watch your ball fly out of the ground for 6.

You get some standard sports style sound effects while playing and the whole game is packed with fun animations. It is all very cartoony, bright, colourful and good to look at. Stick Cricket Super League is very much an arcade style game with loads of exciting touches like the fireworks for hitting a boundary or the duck that crosses the screen when you are out for nothing. No detail has been missed in the making of this game.

The new bits of this game come in the management section of the game. You will get multiple awards for winning games in the form of cash and coins. Coins can be used to upgrade your player, level by level. You can also use them to upgrade team coaches which raises the level of the rest of your team. Cash is used to sign players to your team. The players have the names of famous celebrities for an extra bit of fun. For example, I currently have Usain Bolt as a fast bowler and Piers Morgan as a batsman. Signed players only last for one season though so you will need to earn a lot of cash to keep resigning these players and to add more. Cash comes through winning games, bonuses for playing the game daily and also for completing challenges within the game.

If you want to fill a team with celebrities, you will probably need to buy more cash in game. You could buy 110 coins for £9.99. You could use that to buy 3,000,000 in cash but that would only give you maybe 3 new players (for one season). To fill a team, you would need to spend a  lot but you don’t need to. Seriously, this game is just as much fun with or without the names and the gameplay is not affected in any way. You can have amazing fun with this game without spending a penny. You will get an occasional 15 second as but it is very occasional – maybe every 3 or 4 games so has little negative impact. To be fair, they deserve a bot of ad revenue for making such a good game.

Stick Cricket Super League is another fine addition to the Stick Sports catalogue. It is exciting and addictive. It looks great and lays perfectly. There is a ton of content and it is all packaged in a wonderfully bright package. In a market where free games are pushed out with little to no effort or content, Stick Cricket Super League is a breath of fresh air. As a brand, they deserve a load of respect. There are plenty of developers out there who should look to this company and learn how it should be done.

You can download it, via Apple, for yourself below and find out more about Stick Sports at their website, on Tumblr, on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Stick Cricket Super League – Stick Sports Ltd