MattW
Administrator
??The first thing to do before you pick up the controller is to forget all that you know about cricket games past?
The game?s manual describes things perfectly, there is no part of this game that provides familiarity and safety. If you can?t let go, you?re going to have a bad time. Those days are gone ? I have no doubt that any future competition on consoles will adopt all or most of the changes made to the control scheme of cricket games here ? to not do so is to doom them to irrelevance.
Batting may be slightly familiar to some, EA?s Cricket 07 introduced the century stick, in theory at least ? the majority of people reading this probably played the game on PC using a keyboard ? but for those of you who played it on PlayStation 2 or a compatible controller, it was the first attempt to combine placement of the shot with playing the shot on the analogue sticks ? and worked fairly well, but still had you watching the ground.
Don Bradman Cricket 14 expands on this legacy by moving the control of power to the triggers and designs the game around watching the ball rather than the pitch. While you can choose to have the assistance off, a colour coded ring around the ball helps you judge where the ball is pitching and what direction it is travelling.
The loss of the fielding radar is what will be most unsettling to newcomers, you can?t just look at an image of exactly where all the fielders are and know all the gaps ? you need to survey the field and then remember it. I think this is far more reflective of real cricket compared to pointing a wedge at the exact direction of where you want the ball to go.
This does take getting used to, it takes a lot of catches in the deep when you thought you were safe, a lot of playing and missing, a lot of edges and a lot of ducks. But when you get it right, you get a lot of satisfaction, no cricket game gets close when it comes to reflecting the thrill that comes with scoring runs, middling it to run down for four, or smacking it over the bowler?s head for six. Those were routine in other games, here they are achievements. Literally in the latter case.
Bowling however is where Don Bradman Cricket 14 shines for me, it is the first genuine attempt ever to change things for bowling in a cricket game ? everything else, from International Cricket on the NES to International Cricket 2010 ? relied on the same old concept of telling the game exactly where you wanted to bowl the ball and then asked with varying degrees of sophistication, how fast?
Pace and spin are given different control schemes, with both making sense, even if the spin controls perhaps take the concept too literally. Both are a massive step forward from all other cricket games, and especially with pace bowling you really feel in control of the delivery ? you know you?re about to bowl a bad ball the second you feel where your thumb has gone ? and you know that you?ve bowled a bad ball because you?ve messed up with the controls, not because the game has decided you bowled in the wrong spot.
Without much difficulty I was able to bowl good enough balls to not get smashed around the park by the AI, but perfecting the deliveries to maximise spin or speed is another matter. While everything in gaming inevitably comes to timing, being able to perfect a specific motion is much more natural of a progression than hitting a button within a shrinking timing window.
The one downside to the different controls is the ability to be better at certain aspects of the game than others. In casual matches against the AI, on lower difficulties where I could bat well enough to win, I would get the AI out very cheaply, while if I put the difficulty up high enough to create a challenge for me with the ball, the batting would be past my abilities.
As such, I found it impossible to get realistic scores. I would win test matches on lower difficulties in a day because I bowled them out cheaply, or lose on harder difficulties because I got bowled out cheaply. While it would be ideal if the game gave you options to have different difficulty levels for each type of control scheme, there is a solution ? the career mode.
Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 had a mode where you could create a player and include them in one of the national teams, to then go through all the modes and keep track of your personal performances. Key to Don Bradman Cricket 14?s career mode is that instead of just being dropped in a team and continuing to play the game as normal, you instead take control of just the one player ? which could be you!
By focusing on just the one player, the career mode solves the absolute basic problem of cricket as a video game ? time. I?d imagine that I speak for most when I say that when playing the career modes (or even normal matches) on football games, I never play on 45 minute halves, indeed usually playing for less than a quarter of that time. Up until now, cricket never had a way of emulating that, you need the full match to get a realistic result, you don?t want to be playing a career of Five-5 matches.
With the need to control the whole team removed, I can turn the game on and finish a career mode match in half an hour or less and still get all the enjoyment of first class cricket. EA?s cricket games were the last to include domestic tournaments ? but I will freely admit I never had the patience to sit down and play through the entire matches of the long summers of cricket ? in this game I can put a short spell of game time into the context of a wider match.
This context isn?t conveyed particularly well ? suddenly walking out to bat after the simulation screen abruptly ends leaves you surprised with the match position, with an indication from the minimal overlay of the current score and position the only assistance here. But once you know that you have 20 runs to get from 35 balls ? or that you need to defend that with your bowling, the matches suddenly become amazing.
I know how tight a match situation is by how close I start to get to the television, or how fast my heart starts racing. It feels real, it feels like nothing ever seen in a cricket game before.
While my batting isn?t particularly good as a career bowler, the situations you find yourself in frequently of defending a small total or trying to rotate the strike to the last recognised batsman get you to really start having the controls click for you, the need to survey the field, to not try to smash every ball, to push for singles.
When it all comes together everything else that might bug you about the game disappears totally.
On that subject, there?s certainly some bugs in the initial release. However some of them are in the process of being patched as I write this, so I won?t dwell on them too much. There is certainly nothing that impacts my enjoyment of the game more than the sum of what is right with the game. A key point is that they impact both the player and the AI equally ? which means you never end up really losing out.
Problems with running between wickets and the huge amount of direct hits on the stumps are annoying ? but not game breaking. I?ve played Ashes Cricket 2013, this is no Ashes Cricket 2013. ?Not by a long shot, not in the same league.
Big Ant Studios? support on the PlanetCricket forums, and my understanding of their support for previous titles they have made makes me absolutely confident that they stand behind their product and will deliver on improvements. To not recognise their dedication to fixing the issues in recognising the issues would be unfair.
The community is a major part of the game itself, one button press in the menus had the game light up with teams as good as any licensed game could deliver ? out of the box on console the game is already more editable than many previous games were able to be patched for months later on PC. I certainly don?t miss not having the bats being the real brands, and it has given the designers at Big Ant a lot of creative freedom, the designs are really nice compared to the normal generic bats in games.
Unlicensed stadiums are an area where Big Ant excel. While they are low in number, the quality of them all is amazing. While other games have had plenty of licensed stadiums, they always managed to feel generic. The smaller number allows a unique character to every place you play at and certainly makes up for the lack of licensed venues. The one downside is indeed with a licensed venue ? the Sydney Cricket Ground in the game doesn?t reflect the recent redevelopment.
Commentary is a weak point of the game, while I?m not worried that Big Ant didn?t get known cricket commentators to do the job, the commentary is frequently wrong or repetitive, with two similar balls in a row often resulting in the same commentary. Hill and Basheer do a good job, but the lack of cricket experience makes the ?I couldn?t have played that any better myself? seem like parody and there?s none of the enjoyable broader cricket discussions that other games could pull out.
The sound more broadly however is a strong point, with you able to hear the faintest edge and the oohs of the crowd as they watch it, and the ground announcer being more than just muffled loudspeaker noise is a great touch. However, there?s never really the sense of things like the subcontinent T20 atmosphere, but some might think of that as a positive.
So, should you buy it? You?re reading this on PlanetCricket so chances are you?ve played other cricket games and generally follow them. You are the target market for this game, so I have no hesitation in endorsing it absolutely.
I would also have no hesitation in calling it the best cricket game yet. By throwing out the legacy of ?how cricket games are done? they?ve done cricket right. With Don Bradman Cricket 14 as your starting point, the future is finally bright for cricket games.
Thanks to Twistie3 for the screencaps.
The game?s manual describes things perfectly, there is no part of this game that provides familiarity and safety. If you can?t let go, you?re going to have a bad time. Those days are gone ? I have no doubt that any future competition on consoles will adopt all or most of the changes made to the control scheme of cricket games here ? to not do so is to doom them to irrelevance.
Batting may be slightly familiar to some, EA?s Cricket 07 introduced the century stick, in theory at least ? the majority of people reading this probably played the game on PC using a keyboard ? but for those of you who played it on PlayStation 2 or a compatible controller, it was the first attempt to combine placement of the shot with playing the shot on the analogue sticks ? and worked fairly well, but still had you watching the ground.
Don Bradman Cricket 14 expands on this legacy by moving the control of power to the triggers and designs the game around watching the ball rather than the pitch. While you can choose to have the assistance off, a colour coded ring around the ball helps you judge where the ball is pitching and what direction it is travelling.
The loss of the fielding radar is what will be most unsettling to newcomers, you can?t just look at an image of exactly where all the fielders are and know all the gaps ? you need to survey the field and then remember it. I think this is far more reflective of real cricket compared to pointing a wedge at the exact direction of where you want the ball to go.
This does take getting used to, it takes a lot of catches in the deep when you thought you were safe, a lot of playing and missing, a lot of edges and a lot of ducks. But when you get it right, you get a lot of satisfaction, no cricket game gets close when it comes to reflecting the thrill that comes with scoring runs, middling it to run down for four, or smacking it over the bowler?s head for six. Those were routine in other games, here they are achievements. Literally in the latter case.
Bowling however is where Don Bradman Cricket 14 shines for me, it is the first genuine attempt ever to change things for bowling in a cricket game ? everything else, from International Cricket on the NES to International Cricket 2010 ? relied on the same old concept of telling the game exactly where you wanted to bowl the ball and then asked with varying degrees of sophistication, how fast?
Pace and spin are given different control schemes, with both making sense, even if the spin controls perhaps take the concept too literally. Both are a massive step forward from all other cricket games, and especially with pace bowling you really feel in control of the delivery ? you know you?re about to bowl a bad ball the second you feel where your thumb has gone ? and you know that you?ve bowled a bad ball because you?ve messed up with the controls, not because the game has decided you bowled in the wrong spot.
Without much difficulty I was able to bowl good enough balls to not get smashed around the park by the AI, but perfecting the deliveries to maximise spin or speed is another matter. While everything in gaming inevitably comes to timing, being able to perfect a specific motion is much more natural of a progression than hitting a button within a shrinking timing window.
The one downside to the different controls is the ability to be better at certain aspects of the game than others. In casual matches against the AI, on lower difficulties where I could bat well enough to win, I would get the AI out very cheaply, while if I put the difficulty up high enough to create a challenge for me with the ball, the batting would be past my abilities.
As such, I found it impossible to get realistic scores. I would win test matches on lower difficulties in a day because I bowled them out cheaply, or lose on harder difficulties because I got bowled out cheaply. While it would be ideal if the game gave you options to have different difficulty levels for each type of control scheme, there is a solution ? the career mode.
Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 had a mode where you could create a player and include them in one of the national teams, to then go through all the modes and keep track of your personal performances. Key to Don Bradman Cricket 14?s career mode is that instead of just being dropped in a team and continuing to play the game as normal, you instead take control of just the one player ? which could be you!
By focusing on just the one player, the career mode solves the absolute basic problem of cricket as a video game ? time. I?d imagine that I speak for most when I say that when playing the career modes (or even normal matches) on football games, I never play on 45 minute halves, indeed usually playing for less than a quarter of that time. Up until now, cricket never had a way of emulating that, you need the full match to get a realistic result, you don?t want to be playing a career of Five-5 matches.
With the need to control the whole team removed, I can turn the game on and finish a career mode match in half an hour or less and still get all the enjoyment of first class cricket. EA?s cricket games were the last to include domestic tournaments ? but I will freely admit I never had the patience to sit down and play through the entire matches of the long summers of cricket ? in this game I can put a short spell of game time into the context of a wider match.
This context isn?t conveyed particularly well ? suddenly walking out to bat after the simulation screen abruptly ends leaves you surprised with the match position, with an indication from the minimal overlay of the current score and position the only assistance here. But once you know that you have 20 runs to get from 35 balls ? or that you need to defend that with your bowling, the matches suddenly become amazing.
I know how tight a match situation is by how close I start to get to the television, or how fast my heart starts racing. It feels real, it feels like nothing ever seen in a cricket game before.
While my batting isn?t particularly good as a career bowler, the situations you find yourself in frequently of defending a small total or trying to rotate the strike to the last recognised batsman get you to really start having the controls click for you, the need to survey the field, to not try to smash every ball, to push for singles.
When it all comes together everything else that might bug you about the game disappears totally.
On that subject, there?s certainly some bugs in the initial release. However some of them are in the process of being patched as I write this, so I won?t dwell on them too much. There is certainly nothing that impacts my enjoyment of the game more than the sum of what is right with the game. A key point is that they impact both the player and the AI equally ? which means you never end up really losing out.
Problems with running between wickets and the huge amount of direct hits on the stumps are annoying ? but not game breaking. I?ve played Ashes Cricket 2013, this is no Ashes Cricket 2013. ?Not by a long shot, not in the same league.
Big Ant Studios? support on the PlanetCricket forums, and my understanding of their support for previous titles they have made makes me absolutely confident that they stand behind their product and will deliver on improvements. To not recognise their dedication to fixing the issues in recognising the issues would be unfair.
The community is a major part of the game itself, one button press in the menus had the game light up with teams as good as any licensed game could deliver ? out of the box on console the game is already more editable than many previous games were able to be patched for months later on PC. I certainly don?t miss not having the bats being the real brands, and it has given the designers at Big Ant a lot of creative freedom, the designs are really nice compared to the normal generic bats in games.
Unlicensed stadiums are an area where Big Ant excel. While they are low in number, the quality of them all is amazing. While other games have had plenty of licensed stadiums, they always managed to feel generic. The smaller number allows a unique character to every place you play at and certainly makes up for the lack of licensed venues. The one downside is indeed with a licensed venue ? the Sydney Cricket Ground in the game doesn?t reflect the recent redevelopment.
Commentary is a weak point of the game, while I?m not worried that Big Ant didn?t get known cricket commentators to do the job, the commentary is frequently wrong or repetitive, with two similar balls in a row often resulting in the same commentary. Hill and Basheer do a good job, but the lack of cricket experience makes the ?I couldn?t have played that any better myself? seem like parody and there?s none of the enjoyable broader cricket discussions that other games could pull out.
The sound more broadly however is a strong point, with you able to hear the faintest edge and the oohs of the crowd as they watch it, and the ground announcer being more than just muffled loudspeaker noise is a great touch. However, there?s never really the sense of things like the subcontinent T20 atmosphere, but some might think of that as a positive.
So, should you buy it? You?re reading this on PlanetCricket so chances are you?ve played other cricket games and generally follow them. You are the target market for this game, so I have no hesitation in endorsing it absolutely.
I would also have no hesitation in calling it the best cricket game yet. By throwing out the legacy of ?how cricket games are done? they?ve done cricket right. With Don Bradman Cricket 14 as your starting point, the future is finally bright for cricket games.
Thanks to Twistie3 for the screencaps.
its too much a wait for PC version 
