Big Ant Studios, an Australian based sports video game developer, has announced Ashes Cricket. Developed in close collaboration with Cricket Australia, it is the most realistic and authentic recreation of the sport ever created.

Ashes Cricket will feature real cricketers, battling it out on real grounds, right from the comfort of your lounge room and will be releasing in November 2017.

Ashes Cricket, the first cricket game from Big Ant to be fully licensed, utilises their celebrated photogrammetry technology, which enables photo-real likenesses of the complete men’s and women’s Australian and English cricket teams to be rendered in-game. Added to the fully licensed stadiums, recreated in stunning detail, players will feel like they’re right there on the field as they play.

“There is no competition in cricket that has the heritage and prestige of the Ashes competition” Big Ant CEO, Ross Symons, said. “We’ve worked hard to build on our existing experience with cricket to deliver a truly realistic game of cricket to our fans.”

For players that are looking for a break from the heat of the Commonwealth Bank Women’s Ashes and Magellan Men’s Ashes competitions, all the much-loved features from Big Ant’s sports games will also make a return to Ashes Cricket. Players will be able to create their own players, teams, stadiums and logos. They’ll also be able to create their own competitions and types of matches, from a short, furious five over match, right through to extended, multi-nation Test match tours.

Additionally, players will be able to enjoy a comprehensive career mode that allows them to take their own customised junior cricketer all the way to the ultimate dream; captaining their country to Ashes victory.

“Time and time again players tell us the feature they love most about our cricket games is the deep customisation options” Symons said. “We have produced a true Ashes Cricket game, through and through, but we’ve also made sure that our heritage in sports games remains true”.

“Cricket Australia’s new strategy recognises the growing role that gaming can play in reaching younger fans, and by working with the likes of Big Ant to develop products that meet this need we are positioning ourselves as leaders in the cricket gaming space globally,” said Cricket Australia CEO, James Sutherland. “The anticipation for the summer of cricket is building and this game will give our fans another way to be a part of the cricket excitement.”

ECB Commercial Director Sanjay Patel said: “We want cricket to be relevant and accessible to the e-sports generation, helping us develop an even bigger nationwide following for the game at every level.

“Ashes Cricket has been designed to be as life-like and authentic as possible. It’s the ideal way for fans to recreate all the excitement and tension of a real-life Ashes contest in their own living rooms.”

Ashes Cricket will be available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC with pre-orders now open.

The post Ashes Cricket Video Game Announced! appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Fortunately for rugby league lovers around the world, there is an Australian studio that makes league, as well as cricket games. This allows a niche sport outside our bubbles to have a major game be made, all thanks to a seemingly passionate group at Big Ant Studios, Rugby League Live 4 has been released, and it’s kind of wonderful.

Rugby League Live 4 doesn’t have a story, though in its own way the rookie career mode is its story. Here you can create a player, stick him a junior club, and play your way through the grades, which is oddly satisfying, even if you turned the difficulty down so you could run over the opposition. How much you get from this does depend on your imagination, whether you feel you are a player rising through the ranks, achieving his goal of playing for his state or country, or if it is a sports simulator for you, which is fine too.

Ultimately through, Rugby League Live 4 revolves around the sport itself and the content involved, which fortunately is brimming with it. From the English to the Australian comps, unless you have a very niche love for a grass roots US competition, you’d struggle to not find your team in the game. The character’s models themselves look surprisingly good too, especially for the top players. They are far from photorealistic, but they are clear enough to be who they are meant to be.

This is where Rugby League Live 4 stands up. It’s a fantastic and comprehensive league simulator that somehow gets the feel right. This is most apparent in tackles, making them and trying to break them, using the analogue stick to move your player in the tackle, trying to gain or push back those few metres is a satisfying struggle. From simple plays of the ball to more complex tap backs to score, the game feels hard to play when you want to do something legendary, with the balance of risk and reward heightening the more advanced plays. For instance, the later you leave a pass or offload, the greater chance you accidentally drop the ball, or fire it into the hands of an opposing player.

The gameplay is key but its modes give a surprising amount of variety. The quick match gives the options such as team v team, or an origin decider, which is a quick and easy way to slip into the game. Online games regularly took little waiting, usually 30 seconds’ tops, and worked well which was fantastic to see. Then there is the career mode, where you will likely spend most of your time playing Rugby League Live 4. Career mode allows you to grab a currently existing player, and play from their perspective. It allows you to be a coach, play and pick your squads, or create a rookie from scratch, start in the younger leagues making your way up.

This variety in career mode is great and allowed for a lot of play time, but creating a rookie was by far the most satisfying. Seeing those contracts roll in is a great feeling, and dealing with injuries is frustrating, in the best possible way. One of the best parts of this is being able to choose to simulate a match, meaning the game decides how the game went, being able to play as your character for the match, or being able to play as the whole team. Playing as one player changes your perspective as your camera sits behind your character looking always towards the ball, whereas playing as the whole team looks from a higher perspective down on the field. This while being more complicated to play, allows you to pad your rookie’s stats a bit more as you can use another players endurance to break the defensive line, and pass to your player to score.

The only flaws with the game I saw in the many hours of play was the occasional graphical hiccup where players congratulating each other may fuse at the shoulder, and the occasional gameplay bug. The game does a great job of showing who is offside with a simple yellow arrow under each offside player, and when a tackle is complete the two tacklers allowed to stay on the player get auto adjusted to an onside position. Occasionally it doesn’t get you to an onside position, and the ball runner would connect with your offside player, forcing a penalty completely out of your control.

Other wacky instances such as a player stepping out, or the bunker making a weird call would happen but they were surprisingly rare. My biggest criticism, as a new fan of the series, would be the tutorials. They almost rely on you having played the game already and only shows how to do some more advanced techniques. Knowing how to fend is helpful, but a 15-minute tutorial showing how to run pass and kick would have made the difference as a newbie. Fortunately, a quick pause and read of the controls, coupled with a couple of quick matches against easy bots doesn’t take too much to pick up the basics.

All in all, if you are a league fan, or a sports game fan looking for something different, Rugby League Live 4 is a brilliantly crafted game. Fun to play for all the right reasons, and certainly not hard to look at, it’s well worth your time, whether as a huge time killer, or a cathartic way to spend 15 minutes after watching your team lose in real life.

The post Rugby League Live 4 (PlayStation 4) Review appeared first on Shane the Gamer.