Cricket
When India defeated Pakistan in the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup, over 66 million people tuned in to watch around the world. The repeat of this match in the currently ongoing World Cup attracted a billion viewers. Insane viewership, incredibly popular around the world, and yet cricket has not had a truly great video game.
Looking at the past releases of cricket related video games, not a single one stands out as properly defining the sport. From Ashes Cricket, International Cricket Captain and even Brian Lara International Cricket, the fundamentals of a game are there but just a major lack of depth. There is a lack of direction, but the good news is that this is steadily improving.
The release of Don Bradman Cricket 14 in 2014, on Playstation, Xbox and Microsoft Windows, features numerous game modes including Career Mode, that players can experiment with. The game allows customization of a young 16 year old cricketer as you move up the ranks into international stardom. This is a major step for the cricket video game scene and provides a lot of positivity going into the future. Despite the success of the game modes, Don Bradman Cricket 14 was released with several bugs, unrealistic AI and very slow menus and animations.
Still lacking depth in the overall ‘career mode’ aspect, Don Bradman Cricket 14 is a positive step forward with many opportunities to push these features further.
Matching the amount of young players moving up the ranks fast within the sport, Don Bradman Cricket 14 does everything right in giving players an opportunity to emulate cricket professionals in the game. But, a lot of work still needs to be done before cricket receives the great sports game it truly deserves.
