R
Royce
Guest
(UPDATE: This is an updated review, the original contained more colourful language, disparaging comments about the devs and so on, I was angry, hopefully this will be a more palatable experience 
)
I really had high hopes for this game, i really did... however, as it currently stands, I'm taking it back before 7 days are up and getting my money back (Unless these concerns are at least partially fixed!) - it is not what I expected... I'm sorry, but I paid $100 for this game, I expect a finished product!!
Heres a few problems that I've noticed with the game:
- During my first 3 hours of play, it crashed 6 times (UPDATE: Played the game some more, stopped counting crashes...)
- When I downloaded new teams from the academy, most of the names for both the teams and their players showed up as "censored", rendering them unusable, this also caused umpires to become censored, although I didnt download any...
- Unless there's some weird setting I'm missing, the ball can only be hit in 5 specific directions, with about a 10 degree tolerance either side... Every ball i hit goes exactly in one of these 5 directions, no matter where I push the sticks, and refuses to go anywhere else... There are literally 15-45 degree gaps in the field in which it is impossible to hit the ball!
- The game lags horribly during the bowlers run-up, on all cameras, 2 players or 1... this is not what I expected and unacceptable for a console game...
- Diving, everyone dives, ball coming at your chest, DIVE! Ball flying back to the wicket keeper, don't sidestep and catch the ball like a normal person... DIVE DIVE DIVE!!! This also renders run-outs completely impossible 90% of the time, and can be taken advantage of when batting by running for 1 run more than you should be able to get off any given hit because all throws to the keeper cause a dive...
- Cricket shots!! There are a number of batting animations that are nothing like real cricket (Younis Khan aside apparently :P...)
- It is possible to score a single off pace bowling every time the ball is hit, hit it straight to mid on - single, block - single... it is far too easy to score a run a ball or more without even trying!!
- Lots of problems with batting cameras, I played for about an hour annoyed off at how far away the batting close camera was, only to realize it was batting far, but bugged and displaying the wrong option in the menu...
- Also, the batting far camera is not terribly usable, as the ball is often bowled well below the sight screen and is extremely difficult to see!! ie: Cant see the ball through the umpire (Who often wears the same colored shirt as the ball)
- The button for sprinting while running between wickets doesn't seem to have any effect...
- All cameras do not work as well as I would have hoped, replays are very hit and miss, often focusing on the wrong areas (ie: a patch of grass in the outfield for a stumping etc)
- The new field setting system makes creating, setting and maintaining fields far more difficult than it used to be in DBC 14, PLEASE bring back the "set for all bowlers/batsmen" open... also please update this to "set for all bowlers/set for all batsmen/set for pace bowlers/set for spin bowlers"...
- Similarly, why cant I change the preset fields that come with the game, or the preset field tactics?
- I am also experiencing issues while setting fields in game, in that when I select a field, this is not the field that I actually get, players are moved around and it is literally impossible to put players exactly where I want them, even when I set the field manually, it changes immediately...
- Also in terms of fielding, I do not understand the decision to allow us to pick by field tactic, why would I tailor my bowling to a randomly selected field, rather than my field setting to the way I want to bowl? I understand the concept they were going for, but I feel its the wrong direction...
- I had a catch dropped at mid-on while I was batting, it bounced about 15 meters out of the fielders hands toward another fielder at mid-off, it stopped 2 feet from him... I ran 4 runs, both fielders commiserated a dropped catch...
- Most reverse sweeps you miss will result in a stumping, with your back foot behind the line...
- The inverted control option for the bowling doesn't work correctly...
- When attempting to throw a ball in from the outfield, the throwing meter is most often interrupted by the game skipping to the next ball to be bowled...
- When throwing a ball in from the outfield, using the "relay" throw, it sometimes throws the ball to a fielder further out in the field, occasionally throwing a 4 to someone over the boundary...
- The crowd and stadiums do not, imo, look better than DBC 14, and in fact suffer from more graphical glitches (ie: People sitting in and clipping through the covers on larger grounds where the sight screen has covers over the nearby seating)
- Why do club tournaments only consist of 8 teams? Similarly, why is it up to me to pick them?
- Cant properly turn the red circle surrounding the ball when its in the field
- All bowlers will bowl 2 feet down the leg side, often!!
- You also cant queue more than 1 run at a time it seems, occasionally it works for 2, but never 3...
- Running between the wickets - animations are seriously sub-par! Spring doesn't seem to work, dives are odd and look little like real life dives, and often fail to execute when the button is pressed...
- Running between wickets is also buggy, and often 1 runner is left 3/4 of a pitch behind the other as they overran...
- Also, while all the modification sliders are great, why not just make the game as realistic as possible in the first place? Why must I trial and error for hours on end to get the ball to react as it would IRL, when thats what I'm paying you people to do for me? (I appreciate the idea, but the baseline settings don't really seem to mirror reality - ie: bouncers!)
- Also, when turning the pace of the ball all the way up on the modifiers, it causes the close batting camera to change to the far batting camera about .2 of a second before hitting the ball... unplayable!!
- The menu system in the game is not very good, coming from DBC 14, its seems that the simple, 1 button press system was not up to scratch, so now for most things we do in the menu, its 3 - 4 button presses for a similar outcome... ie: downloading teams, selecting which team to be on, etc...
-As above, please be aware BA, when I press start, move my cursor over to game settings, press x, move the cursor down to the setting I want to change, change it, I do not need a confirmation upon leaving the menu that I want to save my changes, I obviously want to save my changes, or I wouldn't have made them... (I realize this is an issue of personal preference, but I'm still annoyed about it :P)
Seriously, this is unacceptable $100 game! I expect better!!
To sum up this review, I leave you with the parting words of my wife, who now refuses to play this game... (We play DBC 14 at least twice a week for reference... she loves it more than me)
"Its like they fixed everything from DBC 14 but broke everything else"
UPDATE: BlockerDave said the exact same thing too in his review :P
)I really had high hopes for this game, i really did... however, as it currently stands, I'm taking it back before 7 days are up and getting my money back (Unless these concerns are at least partially fixed!) - it is not what I expected... I'm sorry, but I paid $100 for this game, I expect a finished product!!
Heres a few problems that I've noticed with the game:
- During my first 3 hours of play, it crashed 6 times (UPDATE: Played the game some more, stopped counting crashes...)
- When I downloaded new teams from the academy, most of the names for both the teams and their players showed up as "censored", rendering them unusable, this also caused umpires to become censored, although I didnt download any...
- Unless there's some weird setting I'm missing, the ball can only be hit in 5 specific directions, with about a 10 degree tolerance either side... Every ball i hit goes exactly in one of these 5 directions, no matter where I push the sticks, and refuses to go anywhere else... There are literally 15-45 degree gaps in the field in which it is impossible to hit the ball!
- The game lags horribly during the bowlers run-up, on all cameras, 2 players or 1... this is not what I expected and unacceptable for a console game...
- Diving, everyone dives, ball coming at your chest, DIVE! Ball flying back to the wicket keeper, don't sidestep and catch the ball like a normal person... DIVE DIVE DIVE!!! This also renders run-outs completely impossible 90% of the time, and can be taken advantage of when batting by running for 1 run more than you should be able to get off any given hit because all throws to the keeper cause a dive...
- Cricket shots!! There are a number of batting animations that are nothing like real cricket (Younis Khan aside apparently :P...)
- It is possible to score a single off pace bowling every time the ball is hit, hit it straight to mid on - single, block - single... it is far too easy to score a run a ball or more without even trying!!
- Lots of problems with batting cameras, I played for about an hour annoyed off at how far away the batting close camera was, only to realize it was batting far, but bugged and displaying the wrong option in the menu...
- Also, the batting far camera is not terribly usable, as the ball is often bowled well below the sight screen and is extremely difficult to see!! ie: Cant see the ball through the umpire (Who often wears the same colored shirt as the ball)
- The button for sprinting while running between wickets doesn't seem to have any effect...
- All cameras do not work as well as I would have hoped, replays are very hit and miss, often focusing on the wrong areas (ie: a patch of grass in the outfield for a stumping etc)
- The new field setting system makes creating, setting and maintaining fields far more difficult than it used to be in DBC 14, PLEASE bring back the "set for all bowlers/batsmen" open... also please update this to "set for all bowlers/set for all batsmen/set for pace bowlers/set for spin bowlers"...
- Similarly, why cant I change the preset fields that come with the game, or the preset field tactics?
- I am also experiencing issues while setting fields in game, in that when I select a field, this is not the field that I actually get, players are moved around and it is literally impossible to put players exactly where I want them, even when I set the field manually, it changes immediately...
- Also in terms of fielding, I do not understand the decision to allow us to pick by field tactic, why would I tailor my bowling to a randomly selected field, rather than my field setting to the way I want to bowl? I understand the concept they were going for, but I feel its the wrong direction...
- I had a catch dropped at mid-on while I was batting, it bounced about 15 meters out of the fielders hands toward another fielder at mid-off, it stopped 2 feet from him... I ran 4 runs, both fielders commiserated a dropped catch...
- Most reverse sweeps you miss will result in a stumping, with your back foot behind the line...
- The inverted control option for the bowling doesn't work correctly...
- When attempting to throw a ball in from the outfield, the throwing meter is most often interrupted by the game skipping to the next ball to be bowled...
- When throwing a ball in from the outfield, using the "relay" throw, it sometimes throws the ball to a fielder further out in the field, occasionally throwing a 4 to someone over the boundary...
- The crowd and stadiums do not, imo, look better than DBC 14, and in fact suffer from more graphical glitches (ie: People sitting in and clipping through the covers on larger grounds where the sight screen has covers over the nearby seating)
- Why do club tournaments only consist of 8 teams? Similarly, why is it up to me to pick them?
- Cant properly turn the red circle surrounding the ball when its in the field
- All bowlers will bowl 2 feet down the leg side, often!!
- You also cant queue more than 1 run at a time it seems, occasionally it works for 2, but never 3...
- Running between the wickets - animations are seriously sub-par! Spring doesn't seem to work, dives are odd and look little like real life dives, and often fail to execute when the button is pressed...
- Running between wickets is also buggy, and often 1 runner is left 3/4 of a pitch behind the other as they overran...
- Also, while all the modification sliders are great, why not just make the game as realistic as possible in the first place? Why must I trial and error for hours on end to get the ball to react as it would IRL, when thats what I'm paying you people to do for me? (I appreciate the idea, but the baseline settings don't really seem to mirror reality - ie: bouncers!)
- Also, when turning the pace of the ball all the way up on the modifiers, it causes the close batting camera to change to the far batting camera about .2 of a second before hitting the ball... unplayable!!
- The menu system in the game is not very good, coming from DBC 14, its seems that the simple, 1 button press system was not up to scratch, so now for most things we do in the menu, its 3 - 4 button presses for a similar outcome... ie: downloading teams, selecting which team to be on, etc...
-As above, please be aware BA, when I press start, move my cursor over to game settings, press x, move the cursor down to the setting I want to change, change it, I do not need a confirmation upon leaving the menu that I want to save my changes, I obviously want to save my changes, or I wouldn't have made them... (I realize this is an issue of personal preference, but I'm still annoyed about it :P)
Seriously, this is unacceptable $100 game! I expect better!!
To sum up this review, I leave you with the parting words of my wife, who now refuses to play this game... (We play DBC 14 at least twice a week for reference... she loves it more than me
)"Its like they fixed everything from DBC 14 but broke everything else"
UPDATE: BlockerDave said the exact same thing too in his review :P
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