Speaking of Footy, I recently picked up AFL Live - the 'sequel' coming out finally pushed prices down to a point where my interest in how Big Ant's games are overcame my general disinterest in football - though my general proximity to football makes me have a good idea of the game - something I don't have through occasionally watching league.
Anyway, I've had it for a few days and it certainly helps me get a feel for a lot of what Ross has said about Cricket - for me at least it wasn't pick up and play. I got absolutely smashed by the AI on 'Rookie' difficulty (
scorecard) - but after a few days, reading those screens on how to play the game and a bit of time in the training mode, I was able to
thrash Collingwood, which is a sign of a good game.
I'm currently going through a season mode on Amateur - not every game is a thrashing like that - I've even lost a few times, and others I've had to try hard for a comeback. Basically, if I lose focus or stuff up a few plays, then the AI can get itself back in the game very easily.
As I'm going along, more aspects of the game are improving for me - initially I could only really get set shots over the field - doing okay at bounces and hoping for a clear shot away - or from the AI kicking a behind and then playing it up the field. It took me a while to get used to the set shots on goal - and I'm still only just getting better at kicking goals on the run - but when you get it right it's great. I can't think of a moment in a cricket game where I've really got the sense that everything came together at the right time and it paid off - I've had a bunch of those moments in a few days with AFL Live.
I can't just grab the ball, press a button and get a goal - even on the lowest difficulty. Perhaps with time I'd be able to do that consistently - but then I've still got 4 more difficulty levels to go. I've read a lot of people saying they can thrash the AI by hundreds of points on Legend - but I'd certainly get my money's worth on the game long before I got to that point.
It's not without faults - the AI errors are comical at some points - I hope that the way DBC14 dumbs itself down for lower difficulty levels isn't the unbelievably bad errors that seem to be part of it for AFL Live - once I kicked out of bounds on the full from a shot on goal - the AI got the ball and kicked it across the goals to be out on the full on the other side!
The game also managed to totally crash my Xbox on a loading screen - I didn't lose anything, but it totally locked up.
The commentary is just awful - while some of the lines are really funny, it was already repetitive during my first match, and is often just plain wrong, or the reverse, speculating on something that's already happened. I'd be interested in what the hours of commentary figure is for AFL Live vs DB14 - I know it feels worse in AFL because the commentary is constant, but it's a real negative.
The biggest complaint I have is the cut scenes - they can't be skipped - something I need to keep telling myself when the AI's just kicked a point and I'm kicking out after the umpire's signal - I constantly just am mashing the A button and end up kicking it straight forward to the other team.
I'm sure that a football fanatic would have a gameplay related complaint - I'm coming at this as someone who isn't a huge fan of the sport and played ignoring all of the strategy options, but for me, it is challenging, rewarding and fun, with awfully limited menu music, inconsistent AI and bad commentary.
If Don Bradman Cricket is partially the result of following up feedback from what was their first AFL game and can keep up with a lot of the promise that AFL Live showed me - it will be a great game. The matches I've played have had all the ups and downs that you'd want from a game - swearing at the TV and fist pumping in the space of a few minutes - I can't wait to have that kind of experience with cricket.
Chris Gayle.
