The Ubuntu of Cricket games, by the fans.

One of most compelling and challenging sector of software industry is the gaming industry. Development of each game requires years of hardwork and millions of dollars of funding. But, still most of these games, developed with such effort find a fan following and manage to earn something for their effort. The gaming market being so large, you have many genres associated to it. You have, strategy, action, racing, sports etc.
I being a great cricket fan has always looked upon big banners to produce a genuine cricket game, with vivid gameplay and graphics. Electronic Arts, one of the legends of console gaming, never lived up to their expectations in this regard. EA cricket, right from cricket 2000 to cricket 2007 were not even the shadows of EA FIFA soccer brand. Be it the gameplay, or graphics. They could have easily adopted the FIFA graphics into cricket. Wonder why they never did it. Then you had Brian Lara Cricket, this was too not too better, apart from relatively better gameplay, both were limited in the aspect of enjoyability, for any cricket fanatic.
The Art Of Cricket
This saw the birth of TAOC, which is actually a cricket game, being developed by game modders, game patchers and designers. It started from the set of cricket enthusiast who patched cricket games in the market, through a forum called Planetcricket.net We already have seen those thousands face packs, ground mods, AI mods for EA cricket and other cricket games. Now, they have taken up the challenge of developing a cricket game of their own. And when I went through their website and checked the features, it looked awesome, least to say. There are also a few videos of the game which is still in the making. It looks better than any cricket game available currently. With over 38 shots to choose from, different bowling actions to bowler and over 30 stadiums, vivid player rendering to advanced options like Duckworth Lewis, Dew factors, Day and night matches which has fading light as match progresses, even the twenty20 format playable.
As I browsed the whole site, the most interesting part was that, the forum was filled with discussions between the developers and fans, and people suggesting what they would want from the game.
This "underground" ultimate cricket game might be out by this year. This could called more like an Open Source Cricket game. They might charge a very nominal fee for all the effort they have put for this, which by no means is a problem for fans. I can't wait to lay my hands on this new public owned cricket game, till then these are the links for you to check and drool over.
TOAL Features.
TOAL teaser Videos.
TOAL Website