PS3 Xbox 360

Don Bradman Cricket 14

SimulatorSportIndie

Space needed: About 1.9 GB

Overview

Don Bradman Cricket 14 (re-release retitled Don Bradman Cricket) is a cricket video game for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It was developed by Big Ant Studios and published by Tru Blu Entertainment. The game was originally released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles in various countries that compete in cricket in April 2014; it was released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on 11 February 2015. Its sequel Don Bradman Cricket 17 was released on 16 December 2016.

The game features a number of different game modes, including a career mode, custom matches and online games. The career mode involves a user creating a player who starts off at 16 years old and plays for a career of up to 20 years. There is also a Cricket Academy program in which a user can create and edit teams, players and competitions. This was released as a stand-alone game before the console release date.

As reported by Ross Symons, CEO of Big Ant Studios, development of the game was hindered by the parallel development of Ashes Cricket 2013, an officially licensed rival cricket game. Symons claims that the developers of Ashes Cricket 2013 applied pressure via the Australian Cricket Board to warn various partners off his game, while the eventual poor reception to Ashes Cricket 2013 forced him to delay Don Bradman Cricket 14 as not to be caught up in the controversy.

Don Bradman Cricket 14 has received positive reviews from critics. Tristan Ogilvie of IGN rated the console version 6.8/10, praising the "comprehensive control setup" and "License-dodging player creation", but also criticised the high amount of bugs, lack of field radars and unrealistic super-fielders. However, the PC version was rated 8/10 by IGN, who later believed that the fixes made it in the interim turned it into "easily the finest and fully-featured cricket game ever made". Dene Benham of NZGamer gave the game 7.9/10, praising the batting and bowling aspects, but criticised the clunky menus and twitchy animations. Critical Hit awarded it 8.7 citing it as "the best cricket game of last generation".