cricket_online
ICC Board Member
- Joined
- Nov 5, 2009
- Online Cricket Games Owned
- Don Bradman Cricket 14 - PS3
- Don Bradman Cricket 14 - PS4
Ok folks was finally able to get my hands on DBC 17 and spent a few hours playing the game and here's my initial review/ first impression of DBC 17. I'm a person who prefers batting and that's why you will see majority of my review focused on the same. Before I start off I would like to say that the game is cricket gaming fans dream come true. There are a few things that still need to be sorted (I will get to them below in "Areas of improvement" section) but make no mistake, it's a pretty solid follow up to DBC 14.
When I started the game, the first thing I did was start a casual match. The game asked me to select difficulty level and I could see options such as "Easy", "Hard", "Hardest", "Custom" etc. When I saw custom setting I decided to fiddle around with "Gameplay Modifiers" before starting the match. I tweaked a few Gameplay sliders (found under settings) and the number of options provided were mind-blowing. I can honestly say that the amount of customizations available will cater to cricket fans ranging from casual ones who prefer "pick up and play" to hardcore ones who want everything just right. Gameplay modifiers is the biggest and most important addition in DBC 17 IMO. I changed the "ball marker" slider to 50 and "Max Pace" slider to 75 and started a match with custom difficulty. After I selected the teams I was asked to specify the match difficulty once again and these difficulty settings are the ones folks who played DBC 14 are familiar with ("Pro", "Veteran", "Legend" etc.) I was a bit confused as I had no idea what the difference between "Custom/Hard/Hardest" and "Pro/Veteran/Legend" difficulty levels is. In fact that's one area Big Ant can improve on, i.e. provide explanation regrding various settings and modifiers. Even when I was fiddling around with gameplay modifier sliders, I didn't have a clear idea what some of the modifiers meant and whether I should increase or decrease the slider.
Now onto the match gameplay. The visuals are a step up from DBC 14. Everything looked smooth and I didn't have any framerate or related issues. It could be that I used the standard teams and not the academy ones. Fans of grass and horticulture in general will be thrilled to know that the grass looks spectacular
I won the toss and decided to bat in an odi. I took the stance and was eager to find out whether I will be able to see the line & length marker early. The bowler was three quarters into his runup and the ball marker turned up and I was over the moon. So folks like myself and @Pat can finally play bowling on its merit. Thank you Ross! The bowler bowled the delivery and it zipped past my bat. The feedback (another great addition) said I was late. I checked the delivery speed and it said 171 kph!!! I thought it was an error and got ready for the next delivery. Next one seemed even faster and I couldn't connect once again. This time the speed was 181 kph. The next delivery zipped by at 178 kph and I quit the match to tweak the gameplay modifiers.
I saw lot of people saying that the bowling doesn't look fast enough. Guess what folks, "Custom" difficulty is for you. Ramp up the "Max Pace" slider and Jeff Thomson in his prime would look like a military medium pacer. I had set the "Max Pace" slider to 75 and the ball speed was touching 180 kph. I shudder to think what would've happened had I changed it to 100! Next up I lowered the modifiers but found out that I had erred on the side of caution and batting seemed too easy. I tweaked the sliders some more and I think I'm close to my goldilocks zone.
The game is pretty good but it isn't a perfect game. There are still a few areas of improvement and hopefully some of them (especially 1, 2 and 3) can be patched...
1. IMO one thing which should be tweaked and prioritized to be included in a patch is Cover Drive. The cover drive range is from mid off to extra cover/wide off and if you have extra cover and mid off, you can't do much with cover drive. I tried playing on the easiest level but still couldn't get cover drive to go right of extra cover. The arc from right of extra cover to Cover point can't be driven through. Even if an occasional drive does go through the area, it shouldn't be that rare. A cover drive though the cove or cover point is one of my favorite shots and I would love for it to be added in the game the same way square drive was added in DBC 14.
2. It's way too easy to get 1s and 2s. Once you hit a ball you can take a run no matter where it goes. I hit the ball straight to extra cover, mid off, square leg etc. and took singles easily. You can maintain a run rate of 8+ without taking a risk as the fielding side can't put any pressure by blocking singles. DBC 14 had superhuman fielders but in DBC 17 the fielders are on the other extreme. Would be great if fielding within the circle can be tightened a bit.
3. The AI batsmen run too conservatively similar to how they were pre-patch in DBC 14. It would be great if AI can run aggressively and take 2s and 3s the way a human player would.
4. The front foot cut shot needs to be looked at as the animation looks as if a tailender is backing away and poking bat at the ball. I understand this may need a new animation and may not be easy to patch so this item can be addressed in a future iteration.
5. The incorrect overthrows bug is still present. I tried taking a bye and the throw from the wkt keeper went for 4. Instead of getting 5 runs I was given 4 byes.
6. Fields and field settings are similar to DBC 14 - at least in the odis. You still see weird fields such as no deep fielder on the leg side with a huge gap making it easy to hit boundaries on the leg side.
Overall DBC 17 is a great follow-up to DBC 14. Thanks @BigAntStudios, @MattW and Big Ant team for listening to cricket fans and giving us a game which I'm sure we will spend countless hours playing.
When I started the game, the first thing I did was start a casual match. The game asked me to select difficulty level and I could see options such as "Easy", "Hard", "Hardest", "Custom" etc. When I saw custom setting I decided to fiddle around with "Gameplay Modifiers" before starting the match. I tweaked a few Gameplay sliders (found under settings) and the number of options provided were mind-blowing. I can honestly say that the amount of customizations available will cater to cricket fans ranging from casual ones who prefer "pick up and play" to hardcore ones who want everything just right. Gameplay modifiers is the biggest and most important addition in DBC 17 IMO. I changed the "ball marker" slider to 50 and "Max Pace" slider to 75 and started a match with custom difficulty. After I selected the teams I was asked to specify the match difficulty once again and these difficulty settings are the ones folks who played DBC 14 are familiar with ("Pro", "Veteran", "Legend" etc.) I was a bit confused as I had no idea what the difference between "Custom/Hard/Hardest" and "Pro/Veteran/Legend" difficulty levels is. In fact that's one area Big Ant can improve on, i.e. provide explanation regrding various settings and modifiers. Even when I was fiddling around with gameplay modifier sliders, I didn't have a clear idea what some of the modifiers meant and whether I should increase or decrease the slider.
Now onto the match gameplay. The visuals are a step up from DBC 14. Everything looked smooth and I didn't have any framerate or related issues. It could be that I used the standard teams and not the academy ones. Fans of grass and horticulture in general will be thrilled to know that the grass looks spectacular
I won the toss and decided to bat in an odi. I took the stance and was eager to find out whether I will be able to see the line & length marker early. The bowler was three quarters into his runup and the ball marker turned up and I was over the moon. So folks like myself and @Pat can finally play bowling on its merit. Thank you Ross! The bowler bowled the delivery and it zipped past my bat. The feedback (another great addition) said I was late. I checked the delivery speed and it said 171 kph!!! I thought it was an error and got ready for the next delivery. Next one seemed even faster and I couldn't connect once again. This time the speed was 181 kph. The next delivery zipped by at 178 kph and I quit the match to tweak the gameplay modifiers.I saw lot of people saying that the bowling doesn't look fast enough. Guess what folks, "Custom" difficulty is for you. Ramp up the "Max Pace" slider and Jeff Thomson in his prime would look like a military medium pacer. I had set the "Max Pace" slider to 75 and the ball speed was touching 180 kph. I shudder to think what would've happened had I changed it to 100! Next up I lowered the modifiers but found out that I had erred on the side of caution and batting seemed too easy. I tweaked the sliders some more and I think I'm close to my goldilocks zone.
The game is pretty good but it isn't a perfect game. There are still a few areas of improvement and hopefully some of them (especially 1, 2 and 3) can be patched...
1. IMO one thing which should be tweaked and prioritized to be included in a patch is Cover Drive. The cover drive range is from mid off to extra cover/wide off and if you have extra cover and mid off, you can't do much with cover drive. I tried playing on the easiest level but still couldn't get cover drive to go right of extra cover. The arc from right of extra cover to Cover point can't be driven through. Even if an occasional drive does go through the area, it shouldn't be that rare. A cover drive though the cove or cover point is one of my favorite shots and I would love for it to be added in the game the same way square drive was added in DBC 14.
2. It's way too easy to get 1s and 2s. Once you hit a ball you can take a run no matter where it goes. I hit the ball straight to extra cover, mid off, square leg etc. and took singles easily. You can maintain a run rate of 8+ without taking a risk as the fielding side can't put any pressure by blocking singles. DBC 14 had superhuman fielders but in DBC 17 the fielders are on the other extreme. Would be great if fielding within the circle can be tightened a bit.
3. The AI batsmen run too conservatively similar to how they were pre-patch in DBC 14. It would be great if AI can run aggressively and take 2s and 3s the way a human player would.
4. The front foot cut shot needs to be looked at as the animation looks as if a tailender is backing away and poking bat at the ball. I understand this may need a new animation and may not be easy to patch so this item can be addressed in a future iteration.
5. The incorrect overthrows bug is still present. I tried taking a bye and the throw from the wkt keeper went for 4. Instead of getting 5 runs I was given 4 byes.
6. Fields and field settings are similar to DBC 14 - at least in the odis. You still see weird fields such as no deep fielder on the leg side with a huge gap making it easy to hit boundaries on the leg side.
Overall DBC 17 is a great follow-up to DBC 14. Thanks @BigAntStudios, @MattW and Big Ant team for listening to cricket fans and giving us a game which I'm sure we will spend countless hours playing.
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