by 
RISHABH PANT CAREER MODE
Gamers rarely get to hear the thwack of virtual leather on willow these days. But in the midst of a huge summer for cricket in the UK, with the World Cup followed by an Ashes series, Australian developer Big Ant Studios has stepped into the breach.
Cricket 19 has a great career mode that lets you work your way up from club cricket, or take control of an established pro. In each game, you can either control your player alone or their entire team. There are playable scenarios from famous real-life games, and a welter of editing tools that let you design your own custom competitions, bats and cricket grounds.
It looks basic in comparison with better-resourced sports games such as Fifa, but at least its licensed players recognizably resemble their real-life counterparts. An official license for the Ashes covers all the England and Australia men’s and women’s players, but players from all other countries have fictional names and random faces.
If you can get past the visuals, Cricket 19 impresses on the pitch. Its control system is exemplary, offering fine control and all the funky deliveries and shots that any bowler or batsman could desire. You can choose between button-based batting, and waggling analogue sticks in a manner that’s vaguely suggestive of real cricketing. In a first for a cricket game, the AI is decent, too. Computer-controlled batsmen play to match conditions, exercising caution at the start of a 50-over inning, for example, before teeing off, later on, bringing increased opportunities for your bowlers to strike.
The game launched with at least one egregious bug, but happily, it’s been fixed. Sadly, the commentary remains laughably awful, but, despite that, this is comfortably the best cricket game yet made. Like the sport itself, it is modest, yet dignified.
The career mode’s new perks system also gives you a little bit more scope to sculpt your created player. A new perk slot is added for every 10 levels you progress, allowing you to layer on more specialized skills on top of the points you spend on standard attributes such as footwork and bowling speed. The perk system adds a welcome wrinkle to player customization, from boosts to yorker accuracy to buffs that slow your stamina loss in hotter playing conditions, although the direct benefits for each perk aren’t always clear. For example, the Attacker batting perk boosts your ability to play attacking shots with the bat at the cost of your defensive rating, which makes sense. On the other hand, the Strong Focus supposedly gives a ‘moderate increase to your Judgement ability’, which is baffling since nowhere on the skill screen is it explained what exactly Judgement means or how it affects your player.
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EPISODE 1
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