We’ve Been Playing ‘Ashes Cricket’ And Reckon It’s Niiice, Gary

Cricket is somewhat of an acquired taste in the sporting world. You either love it or you just don’t get it, there’s rarely an in-between here. If you fall into the former and also enjoy video games, then you’ll probably love Ashes Cricket.

Created by Melbourne studio Big Ant, the game is officially licensed, which has allowed them to pump as much of the real game into a virtual world as possible. In fact, they did a fantastic job of recreating the Aussie and English teams, right down to Nathan Lyon‘s massive bonce.

And because Big Ant used motion capture technology with the actual players, each one moves just like they would in real life. It’s these small details that really make the game feel special.

While I haven’t played any of the Don Bradman Cricket titles – also made by Big Ant – a popular gripe was always the tricky controls involved with batting and bowling. The same options are available in Ashes Cricket, but I opted for the new standard setup which uses simple button presses. When batting, you simply point the left control stick in the direction you want to hit the ball, and press one of four buttons that correspond with the type of shot.

This sounds pretty easy – and it can be if you want it to – but there’s plenty of variations there that can make it a little more tricky. For example, holding down the right trigger whilst batting will make your batter play the ball from his back foot. You only get a few seconds to decide on how you wanna hit the ball based on how it’ll bounce on the pitch, so timing is everything.

To bowl, you select the type of ball you want to play and press buttons in time with a slider to bowl it. You’ll also need to control the fielder’s actions, which makes it challenging, but in a good way. Pulling off a reflex catch or pelting the ball accurately at the stumps feels rightfully earned.

The game isn’t perfect, though, there were definitely a few times where things didn’t work as they should have. For example, when i was doing the tutorial for reflex catching, i was never actually given an opportunity to do a reflex catch. The ball was either hit defensively or along the ground and never towards one of my fielders.

Speaking of fielders, they can have a tendency to act rather strangely, or at times, straight up teleport, but these issues were rare or so minor that it was easy enough to ignore them.

The commentary is also pretty bare, confined to simply describing what’s going on with minimal detail. Left a shot? You’ll get a “no shot on offer for that one”, or similar. Again, not a massive issue, it can just get a bit predictable.

Overall, Ashes Cricket 2017 is a bloody pleasure to play and has got me appropriately amped for the actual Ashes to start. If you love cricket, you’ll dig this game, but if you don’t, you’ll probably have no idea what the fuck is going on.

You can check out a slick vid of the game and how it was made below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owkg-5qQBmk

Honestly, it’s worth it purely for the “nice Gary” soundbite you get when bowling as Lyon.


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