Don Bradman Cricket 14

kamy100

kamy100

Premiership
9 June 2003
Blackburn, UK
Early next year Big Ant Studios will be releasing Don Bradman Cricket 14. They have already released their beta version of their Editor which will be compatiable with the game, the editor lets you create and edit players, the latest version also lets you test the batting mechanics of the game as they have included pratice nets. It can be downloaded from:

http://www.planetcricket.net/gaming/don-bradman-cricket-14/cricket-academy/

The developer also wants feedback on the batting mechanics, this can be given on their forums:

http://forum.bigant.com/forum-17.html

I have been quite impressed with the batting. Traditionally cricket games in essence were a series of QTE's as you had to press a button at the right time. Big Ant have dispensed with this approach, you have to use the analouge sticks and triggers to bat. I really like it, takes some getting used to but once you do then it works really well.

One of the dev team provided this explaination on the batting mechanics:

Bradman Batting Controls
Sometimes we do forget that the tutorial isn't in this aspect of the game.

So for those that need it, here's some help.

Anything north of the equator of the Left Stick (that is anything on top half) is your Front Foot placement. From the perspective of a right hander, that means that up and right (in a diagonal angle) would be moving your player to the front and right. Up and left (on a diagonal angle), will be front and left.

Same thing goes for back foot, anything south of the equator (bottom half of stick) is your back foot movement. Back and left will move you back and left. I think you'll start to see what I'm getting at now. Basically, the angle and direction of the left stick will move your player in that angle and direction. For pull shots you will need to get on the back foot, otherwise you'll play around the ball, etc.

As for what is being perceived as 'not the shot I played'. On lower difficulties the foot placement is assisted for you. If you want full control, bump it up to Legend (Veteran and Pro have less assistance too), let it be know that you will need to get it very spot on though at that difficulty.

It's recommended to start on Amateur or Rookie and just get used to what the movement and positioning is like.

Also on those difficulties, if you take a look at the ball marker (the circle around the ball) you will see it flash white for a split second. This indicates perfect timing. That will not be there on the higher difficulties though, meaning you need to know your timing to get it in the ideal range.
 
I was going to post about this but thought there probably weren't many cricket fans around on here.

This game is shaping up to be pretty good, I'm enjoying the Nets demo, the animations/physics and the feeling of the controls are great, could be a genuinely good game which would be a first for a cricket game since Brian Lara 99 on PS1.
 
Yeah, left stick for footwork and right stick for shot selection is a really nice method and it relates closely to how your mind processes a delivery when you're batting in real life so once you get used to the controls it feels very natural. Much better than the usual system cricket games offer.

All of the editing/community download options are great to fix the fake names, haven't played another sports game that does it so well, the player creator option is really detailed.

The AI and online are very important - a lot of polish seems to have gone into the rest of the game so I'm fairly confident they will have worked hard on it.

Hoping to build a PC in Jan/Feb so will probably get it on that :).
 
The developers have released an update to Cricket Academy:

Download the Don Bradman Cricket Academy Beta Version 0.99.94b here:

http://download.cricketacademygame.com/

If you already have the Cricket Academy V0.99.94 or V0.99.94a you can download an update to Version 0.99.94b here:

http://update.cricketacademygame.com/


=================================================
Welcome to the Don Bradman Cricket Academy Beta for Windows
=================================================
UPDATE 99.94b - Change Notes

* Additional Cameras from behind the Bowling Machine

* Added option for Transparent Batsman

* Legend Difficulty increased

* Batsman/Bowler Difficulty displayed

* Santa Multiplier Balancing – Max 2x plus a “life”

=================================================

Point of Note:
Lowering Character Textures in Graphics Options will affect the look of the character


This is a standalone PC version of the Cricket Academy that will be available with
Don Bradman Cricket 14 to be released in 2014.

You will be able to create and share players with the rest of the community and be able to
download those players on whichever platform you purchase the full release of the game on.
 
It is out tomorrow and am looking forward to playing it, the user reviews from those in Australia who got it last week have been largely very positive.
 
Yep, user reviews on planetcricket.com have been very positive. Some issues and bugs reported but a patch is in the works. My copy shipped today:))
 
PC version is next month - keeping my eye on it.

From the videos I've seen so far, the fielding looks a bit dodgy, but it seems to do a lot of stuff right, compared to other cricket games at least so I'm quite tempted to buy it. I'd probably pay around £20, £25 at most - hopefully the modding community at PlanetCricket gets stuck into it, they made Cricket 2004/2005 far better than they were out of the box with their AI/gameplay patches.
 
Main complaint I've heard is it seems as though fielders on the boundary are hard to see in the game when batting, according to some people on planetcricket. There is no radar in the game so Big Ant Studios are going to provide some sort of solution in a patch, apparently.
 
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Yeah I saw that complaint - there is a button to look through the batsman's eyes and look around with the analog stick, which in theory I think is a better way of doing it than a radar because it mimics how you do it in real life when batting. I imagine that seeing fielders on the boundary could be difficult though, especially if on a small TV and with the low resolution of the 360/PS3 versions.

I think the solution they mentioned was to display the fielder positions in text above their head, so at a glance you can see which spots are manned.
 
I'll watch a bit of that now.

The Nets beta was very good - the way the physics engine worked with the batting was superb and there was a lot of variety.

A few issues here and there probably need a patch, but bugs are to be expected from a first iteration of a relatively low-budget game. FIFA/PES have gone through far more iterations and there are still plenty of bugs/annoyances in both.

I should probably grab it Day 1 on Steam having had to wait so long for a decent cricket game, but I have countless games in my Steam library I'm yet to even play :P.
 
Impressions from someone at planetcricket who played a patched version (first patch) of the game at Big Ant Studios today:

So my initial conclusion would be that the solution Big Ant have implemented seems to work and delivers realistic results.

Massive difference on the released version as to the amount of times the stumps are thrown down. The batsman also seem to slide the bat in much better, so it will have to be much closer even when they do hit the stumps.

They haven't gone too far the other way, there were still a few direct hits, but like 1 in 10 half chances hitting, not 1 in 10 missing. Didn't get any wickets that way while I was bowling and was able to complete some comfortable singles while batting. Much improved.

For the field view, it's really nice where you see the label for someone in the outfield coming up over anything that might block your view. The timeout could still be a bit longer, but the position labels help make it easier to see players that might be obscured or blend with the crowd.

Finally, while I was beating Mikey at his own game - I reviewed an LBW that ended up being Umpires Call, and it did indeed stay with the umpire's call, they'd mentioned that they found the issue with that so it should be fixed.

I was told the timeframe was hopefully next week for the patch to be released, though Easter might be a hurdle in terms of making sure all the relevant approvals can be achieved in time.
Click to expand...
 
9:04 - Ball teleports into keepers hands? Looked/sounded like the batsman middled it as well in real time.
 
The CEO of Big Ant (developers) has been a very active member of the community over on PlanetCricket for quite a long time, and he and his team seem to genuinely want to keep improving the game, so in time these issues should be addressed. Still looks to be the best cricket game there's been by quite some margin.

I think I remember him saying over on PlanetCricket that after the 360/PS3/PC releases, a PS4/XB1 version is planned but there's no ETA on it yet.
 
Nice. Seems like the game is being made by people who love cricket.:))Will definitely upgrade if it's as good as many are making it out to be. I have a feeling that this could be the PS2 Pro Evo of cricket. Rough around the edges but sublime to play.
 
I think that he said that the next iteration of the game will be on PS4/Xbox One, not this one.

Been playing it for most of the day and have got to grips with the bowling (playing at Pro level), the bowling mechanics work very well and are very different to any other cricket game. It certainly makes you concentrate on every single ball.

The batting though I am struggling with, with no pitch marker it is very hard to judge the ball/line, often I am pre-mediating shots. Looks like I will be spending a lot of time in the practice area to get to grips with the batting.
 
You may be right - I can't remember an exact quote and the search function on their forums isn't helping much ('PS4' is too short and 'next gen' is too 'common'). If I stumble across the quote I will report back.

I like the way they've moved away from the bowling marker - I've not experienced the bowling yet but in the nets beta when batting, it made you have to be really concentrating on judging the pitch of the ball as well as having smart shot selection. In pretty much every other cricket game it's been so simple to just choose a shot based on where the big donut marker is on the pitch.

It's good to see a cricket game out there - there will probably never be the competition or budget there for a cricket game in the same vein as EA have with FIFA, but I hope these guys make enough profit to keep this going as a series. It's a shame that the tragic Ashes 2013 game soured the market/reputation for cricket games, or else we would've had this game sooner and they would've made more sales.
 
I have been playing on Pro level and the biggest concern at the moment is the AI batting, they way to aggressive and do not have any match awareness. Once you get to grips with bowling it is easy to restrict them to below 200 as they play some totally ridiculous shots and do not take the match situation into account, for example I was playing New Zealand, they were chasing 160 to win and reached 90-1 in 15 overs. Rather than just knocking the ball around the batsman played some ridiculous shots and they were all out of 130, almost all of these wickets were catches.

Hopefully they can in a future patch tone down the overly aggressive AI. If they can then this game is easily the best cricket game that I have played.
 
Think I read this on the planetcricket forums. You must be the same kamy100:))My guess is that can be tweaked in a patch. Hopefully my copy will arrive tomorrow. Sick of watching videos of people playing it now.
 
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Ha ha yeah that is me.

It does so much right and the basic mechanics are very sound, had some cracking moments over the last few days, especially playing against friends.

I am not overly worried about the AI as it has been reported by a number of people on Planetcricket so I am sure that they will patch it, all they need to do is tone down the aggression a couple of notches which will stop the AI playing very stupid shots and not taking the match situation into account.
 
From watching many videos over the last few days I get the impression fielders are generally a bit too efficient, especially with their throws to the stumps. Hopefully that gets toned down a bit too.
 
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Thinking of picking this up. I'm not a huge cricket fan but used to enjoy the Brian Lara games back in the day. I'm a bit of a casual in that I only really watch T20.

You would think the IPL licence is ripe for a cricket game.
 
It's scheduled to be released for the PC at the beginning of June and will include patch 2, which is supposed to provide some significant improvements to the game.
 
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