From what I've seen Dave far too many of the issues that were in the previous version remain. The obviously were not a priority and now the game has been released there are so many other things that need to be fixed that these issues will be seen as minor in comparison. I seem to remember the majority wanting gameplay and realism to be the main improvement, instead Big Ant went for looks and appear to have made it more arcadey.
As much as I loved your video of all the wickets, I can't think of one that was the result of the ball beating a defensive shot/block and once again we have the chipped shots/ too attacking from the off issues. I think there is one example of an LBW in another one of your vids, but it is the result of the strangest looking block, where the batsman decides to stick the bat behind his leading leg at some weird angle. This was also prominent in DBC14.
Do bouncers actually do anything in this version,? That's the question that has been irking me the most. I've seen hardly any bowled in the videos that I have seen, which makes me think that there has been no improvement in this area either.
Actually yesterday I got what I think was my first wicket with a bouncer. Which oddly came as a result of trying to overcome AI shortcomings... having bowled 5 dot balls I knew the AI would try and smash the 6th. I bowled a very short effort ball bouncer, the hook came, a top edge and caught on the run at fine leg: a brilliant, pure cricket dismissal and truly brilliant.
Yes the edges / bowleds / lbws off defensive prods are too rare, I'll agree. But there are some huge plusses and I think an ability to get a feeling of a bowling plan that you can't get in DBC14 and never had in any other game.
Some examples: one pitch where it wasn't swinging but cutters were moving a fair bit (and pitch variation is great in this game), I came around the wicket to a left arm tail ender to angle it in to him, bowled a leg cutter to move it back away and him bowled playing round it... out of my seat! On a hard pitch with the batsmen playing back foot I pushed up a fuller out swinger he had a drive and nicked it to 3rd slip... after several flighted balls from the spinner dished up an effort arm ball and slid it through the gate.
I called the game arcadey in my initial review and I was wrong. The presentation looks arcadey: the logo and the way it flashes across the screen, the default (no filter) is way too bright... but it is NOT arcadey. In an arcadey game it doesn't matter if it's a soft pitch and you forgot to move your keeper and slips up - here the edges don't carry. There is lots of depth like that in the game.
The AI could be improved significantly but they have already made some improvements to it, and I hope they still do. I don't think they added "bells and whistles" they clearly tried to find a solution to lack of licenses and console mods, and unfortunately the logo creator hasn't really worked: It's made the making of mods less accessible, the result is hit and miss on console and it appears to have caused a lot of crashes. But surely the ambition should be applauded.
The missing shots have been reintroduced. I think length control in bowling could be less pin point but otherwise I would say everything gameplay wise is a step up.
The AI should be where the focus is on any improvements, beyond actual crash/stability/bugs. The rest of the gameplay is ace.
