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.

NOW CLOSED – Thanks to our mates at Big Ant Studios and GDE New Zealand, Shane the Gamer (StG) has one copy (Digital Code) for Don Bradman Cricket 17 up for grabs.

Don Bradman Cricket 17 features a new lighting system that creates the most true-to-life characters yet, photo realistic skin tones, and 30 per cent more controls than in the predecessor for gamers to further refine their players. For the first time, gamers will be able to give their players tattoos enabling them to recreate their cricketing heroes and local club into the game with complete precision for the first time and within the immersive Career Mode. (Check out our Don Bradman Cricket 17 Review Here)

To Enter our Don Bradman Cricket 17 Giveaway you will need to Answer this Question correctly.

Don Bradman, an Australian Professional Cricket player has a Test Batting record, what is it?

A: Test batting average of 99.94

B: Test batting average of 72.99

C: Test batting average of 89.27

You can give us your Answer by placing a Comment below, hitting us up on Facebook, Tweet to us, or Email Us

* Winner(s) will be randomly selected from those that Comment below / Facebook Comment / Email in accordance to the above Question. Winner(s) will receive a Digital Code for Don Bradman Cricket 17 for PlayStation 4. Competition is only valid for New Zealand entries and ends on the 22nd of January, 2017. Don Bradman Cricket 17 game for PlayStation 4 has a G Age Rating in New Zealand.

The post Enter to Win a PlayStation 4 Game Code for Don Bradman Cricket 17! appeared first on Shane the Gamer.

Having not played a cricket game for a decade and a half, I had been planning to give one a crack for a while.  Don Bradman Cricket 14 was going to be that game before it turned out to be insanely buggy, most of which were hilarious from the outside.  Kicking into Don Bradman Cricket 17 was always going to be interesting because I forgot everything about playing a cricket video game, so had to learn from scratch, and it was surprising.

When I say surprising I mean it was a much easier game to pick up and play than I expected.  Cricket is a complex game and both batting and bowling has so many little details, from how the ball is spun, where you position yourself, to what angle you swing the bat to when you release the ball so it should not be easy.  After a lengthy tutorial it was clear that it would take ages to master this game, but what the game does well is make the game simple to play the basics and take ages to master its intricacies.

Take batting for example; you use the left joystick to choose the back foot or the front foot and the right joystick to aim the bat and hit the timing right.  The intricacies come using the shoulder buttons to do different strokes but that is sufficient to bat.  Then there is bowling, if you are a pace bowler you choose how you will bowl, then hit X and as the bowler gets closer pull back the right joystick to jump and rock it forward to bowl, easy.  Then spin bowling, instead of jumping you just use the left joystick to apply the amount of spin and the right to bowl it.  The basics are so simple it makes it super easy to get engaged in the game quickly, even if you get whooped for a while.

As you would expect the game allows for quick games of any length, tournaments and online play, though I had major issues getting an online game going, hopefully with more people the matchmaking picks up.  But where I got lost in is the career mode.  Knowing about these modes existing in most sports games these days it was not something I expected to tickle me, but developing your player year after year as you boost your stats going through leagues is really engaging and fun.

Playing career mode also allows you an important option, the ability to play just as yourself or as a whole team.  If you set your character to be a bowler, batter or all-rounder determines the roles they play in a game and your character can just play those out.  This makes the games considerably shorter if you like as the AI plays the rest of the game out, which you can skip as required.  Fortunately, you choose to play as yourself or the whole team for each match so you can change your mind as you go.

But not everything is cheery as the game has some flaws.  The first one, which makes me sound like a snob, is the NZ stadiums.  It has two and one of them is the Sydney Cricket Ground, from Australia.  The second is called Wellington Park, which is not the name of a cricket ground I know, but it looks kind of like it supposed to be the Basin Reserve, but because of some design quirks I am not 100% it is.  A minor side note is the annoying commentators too which at first seemed great but they get repetitive and annoying, sometimes make the wrong calls as if their comments are loosely tied to the action.

The other major issue which is less snobby is the game crashes.  It crashes, a lot.  Normally this would be a deal breaker for me, I would pack a tantrum and walk away, but DBC 17 does not punish you as badly as one would expect.  When the game has crashed I have been able to return to the game I was playing, to the ball being played before it crashed, every time.  So even though the crashing is a real pain in the ass and to be honest not forgivable, the game remembering exactly where you are makes the pain considerably less painful and punishing.

Don Bradman Cricket 17 is a great cricketing game to enjoy this summer if the sun is just a touch too hot.  It is super easy to get into, even for newbies, but challenging to master each discipline and with a lot of teams including female ones, there is so much variety in the game.  The game crashing is concerning but a little bit forgivable thanks to it returning you to the same point in your match, albeit still a pain in the hole.  But if you can move past that there is a fantastic game here to play.

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