Update
Ashes Cricket 2013 has now been removed from Steam, with plenty of unsurprisingly negative feedback on the title no doubt contributing to that outcome. To date publisher 505 Games, developer Trickstar Games and licensees (such as the ECB) are yet to officially comment. Once they do so we'll provide a full update article.
Original article
Who remembers Ashes Cricket 2013? Come on now, raise your hands! Oh...
Well this writer remembers, because it was supposed to arrive in time for the UK Summer Ashes series — between England and Australia, if you don't know the whole history thing — and give cricket fans their fix on Wii U. Except there was a troubling lack of footage — well, none at all, actually. The release date approached and the only trailer was a teaser with no gameplay footage, giving the whiff of a hungover batsman as he staggered out to face an on-form Mitchell Johnson or Stuart Broad, depending on your loyalties.
So it was delayed, with publisher 505 Games saying the following:
It is hugely disappointing that 505 Games has had to make this announcement today. We all had high hopes of bringing out a stellar cricket game during the first leg of this unprecedented Ashes year. But the fact of the matter is, we took a long hard look at the game as it stands and decided it simply wasn’t good enough in its current state. It was simply not worthy of the Ashes name.
Unforeseen issues which developer Trickstar faced in latter stages of development have meant that they have been unable to do the requisite amount of polishing and fine-tuning which any game needs. We owe it to ourselves, to our licensors, the ECB and Cricket Australia, but most of all to the dedicated cricket fans and gamers to put our best foot forward.
It is small compensation that we have the benefit of a second Ashes series in this unique cricketing year which affords us further time to work on the game and get it right for the return leg. We are confident that the time between now and the second Ashes series will be enough to add the final polish we believe the game needs. We are committed, as we always have been, to releasing a great game and we are doing everything in our power to ensure this is the case.
The second Ashes series of the year is now well underway, and the game has indeed been released — on PC at a budget price. More importantly, it looks atrocious, with 505 games having the audacity to upload that same footage-free teaser trailer on the Steam game page. The official game's website and related social networks haven't even acknowledged the release, which says it all — the Twitter page was last updated in September and the Facebook page no longer exists.
We would mourn this one's loss but, looking at the footage below, maybe it's for the best that this is unlikely to ever come to the Wii U. People have paid actual money for this game, which we imagine feels rather like being bowled out for a duck.
[source videogamer.com]
Comments 16
I can't say I know anything about cricket, but I hope the game will be released on WiiU (after the apparently much needed polish), just to have a cricket game!
Will Ashes Cricket be coming to America?
The only decent cricket games were the International Cricket Captain series, and maybe EA Cricket 96 (I think it was 96), but only because of the funny commentators.
@Kodeen: Thank you for attempting to help me, but I was making a reference to the ludicrous number of emails Nintendo Life gets regarding the release of Ashes Cricket in the Americas.
This is both bad and good. Bad because another hiatus Wii U game, but good because of the bad-looking PC version (it looks like a Dreamcast game)
And I really wanted this game to turn out great too!
This game was released on Steam a few days ago, but Steam has already pulled it out from sale about many hours earlier due to continuous complaints about how broken the game is, and people demanding their money back.
I wouldn't say this game is a huge loss for Wii U, and it was also planned to be released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 which neither even got, but isn't it suspicious that neither developer nor publisher seem to have released any press statements about the game's current development? It's a shame that cricket games in general are very unpopular in the United States, although this game's home console versions weren't even being planned to be released in North America anyway.
Appeal... denied
It looks like a ps one game.
@MadAussieBloke Ha! Best Gif ever.
a cricket game on the wii u has soooo much potential: imagine asynchronous local mulitiplayer, one person controls the bowling/fielding with the gamepad- giving them the element of total surprise, and the batting team uses either wii motion plus or a pro controller depending on their preference. It could be brilliant.
@MadAdam81
Brian Lara cricket on the megadrive was great fun! Codemasters somehow made it about as much of a party multi-player sensation as micro machines was at the time! Incidentally I hate cricket, so it must be good as it's still one of my most loved megadrive games
@ICHIkatakuri Oh yeah, forgot about that one, although I didn't get to play it much as I never had a Megadrive, although I did play it a lot in stores as many had it in their store display model.
The Wii game was okay though, although it still suffered the same "6 or out" problem that most cricket games have.
@HopeNForever I live in Texas, and I don't know crap about the rules of cricket, but I swear that if this had been released, and was said to actually be awesome, I would get it.
If this broken, sick joke for a game had've been released in 1998, it still would've looked terrible.
These developers should be ashamed for releasing such a broken and worthless excuse for a game. It's retailing for $58 @ Harvey Norman right now. On Steam I can get the following for the same price in 'total'.
Witcher 2, Skyrim, Portal 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Mirror's Edge, Torchlight 2, Spelunky, Terraria, Super Meat Boy, Bastion..
(and DOTA 2 is 'free').
Hmmm....10 of this generation's best and most popular games, or Ashes Cricket 2013. Tough choice..
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