Cricket 19: The Official Game of the Ashes review — does it tick all the boxes?

A Melbourne games studio has released the complete cricket simulation with its video game Cricket 19: The Official Game of the Ashes.

Cricket and summer go together like barbecues and quirky aprons, or computer gaming and being indoors a lot.

Summer time is cricket time and thus a happy time for fans of the only sport in history to have tea breaks built into it.

The problem, as you may have noticed, is it’s currently winter in Australia and therefore not cricket weather — despite what the English might tell you with their “But it’s summer in the northern hemisphere where we are” palaver.

Melbourne games studio Big Ant has come to the rescue, however, with its latest release, Cricket 19: The Official Game of The Ashes for PlayStation 4 and Xbox and Nintendo Switch.

As the title suggests, this is a video game about that most civilised of sports focusing on the annual Ashes series where Australia and the UK battle it out to decide who gets to look after a trophy full of charcoal for the next year.

Both the men’s and women’s series are represented and the game features Big Ant’s signature photometry graphics, whereby all the players are photographed and digitally inserted into the game.

It's not just daytime matches — you can play under lights as well. Picture: Supplied

All the cricket stadiums of the Ashes series are digitally recreated, although admittedly one cricket pitch looks a lot like another to me so any particular details the developers put in there would go sailing over my head like a particularly well-played ball.

The controls are quite simple — pick the batting direction and the style of stroke you want to play, wait until the bowler makes their delivery, press a button to hit the ball, and see what happens.

If everything goes to plan, you’ll score a marvellous six as the ball sails over the fielders and potentially gives some hapless spectator a concussion. However, if you’ve mucked about they’ll catch you out — howzat!

Bowling features a familiar system whereby a distance and power metre needs to be filled to the right level, whereupon the bowler makes their delivery, the batter attempts to hit the ball, and from there it’s up to the fielders to do their thing.

Timing a delivery — or a shot — perfectly is key. Picture: Supplied

If you’re not a fan of The Ashes, there’s a complete World Championships in the game where you can play as Australia, New Zealand, England, India, Pakistan, the West Indies, South Africa and Afghanistan. You’ve also got T20 and One Day International formats as well.

While it’s not NBA 2K19 in its complexity, there’s a lot in here, with the ability to create teams, create players, guide them through a career, and even customise bats and stadiums.

Unlike Big Ant’s previous game Big Bash Boom, Cricket 19 is a serious approach to the game, striking a great balance between the spirit of the sport while still being accessible and fun.

In fact, I found this virtual form of cricket to actually be more interesting than the real thing in many respects.

Real cricket involves a lot of standing around outside not doing a great deal, and Cricket 19 cuts all this tedium out to focus on the action while still including the spirit of the game’s famously relaxed speed of play.

Cricket 19 does a great job of capturing the spirit of cricket while still maintaining a good pace. Picture: Supplied

It also does an excellent job of capturing the style of a TV broadcast of a match, with commentators providing input on on-field events (although their delivery comes across a bit flat and repetitive at times, unfortunately). Instant replays and end-of-over ball delivery graphics complement the effect, with the added bonus there’s no ads interrupting the play.

I had some trouble differentiating between a ball that was rolling on the ground or which was flying low sometimes — there were a few catches that looked pretty clearly like an out to me, but it turned out the ball was on the ground (or had bounced) before the fielder got it.

It’s also worth noting that this isn’t a short game to play. A 50-over match can have more than 300 deliveries in it for the bowling side, and if you lose the coin toss it’s going to be a while before you get your turn at the crease (depending what mode you’ve chosen).

Having said that, there’s a real sense of accomplishment in taking a wicket or catching a batsman out, and the game is quite fun to watch for spectators as well — my kids enjoyed watching me play and even did quite well themselves in batting when they had a go.

Cricket is an under-represented sport in computer gaming so it’s great to see an Australian studio working to change that with an enjoyable game clearly designed by people who appreciate the sport and want players to enjoy it too.

Basically, if you don’t like cricket because oh no, you love it, then you really need to don your batting kit and get a copy of Cricket 19 — it’s a must for fans.

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Originally published as Cricket 19: The Official Game of the Ashes review — does it tick all the boxes?