The official blockerdave review...

blockerdave

ICC Chairman
Joined
Aug 19, 2013
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London
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England
If I had to sum up DBC17 in a short pithy phrase, I'd say @BigAntStudios have fixed what was broke about DBC14, and broke what was fixed.

That is of course using poetic license, as I don't believe either game is "broken", though the UX/Navigation in DBC17 is close to broken. It's certainly not fit for purpose, and I'm struggling for a term that is not emotive but can describe just how bad it is. I make no apology for starting a review talking about something that seems not related to gameplay, but actually it's that bad it affects gameplay too.

I have been busy over the summer / autumn, and that coupled with the fact I had issues with all the big updates meant I didn't get as involved in the academy as I'd have liked. I wish I'd had more time - I would have fought that UX until @Ross changed it or stuck me on the ignore list forever. It's terrible. It's hard to navigate, forces you into unnecessary scrolling and clicks. In DBC14 you could use a hotkey to download a player from the academy list (1 click): in DBC17 you have to enter the player, go the download bit, and click to download (2 clicks and a scroll). multiply that by a minimum of 12 (for a team roster), and you've gone from 12 button presses to 36. FOR EVERY TEAM YOU CREATE!

Let's say you search for @Munkeymomo brilliant teams - you get a list of 19 teams - to download 1, there's 3 button presses (instead of 1), then another to go back to the search, and the search takes you back to the top of the list, meaning you have to a)remember which team you just did, and b)scroll all the way down to them. This x 19 teams.

I've still not found out how to create a "League" for my created teams - in DBC14 I had lists (which I presume are analagous to leagues) for rebel tour teams, for England's worst xi ashes tour, for teams for online... here any teams I create (which may never get past the 2 I've done so far, given making them is such a ball ache) get lumbered in custom.

Why is roster management split between "add" or "remove" player? If I want to add a player, but can't remember who is in the roster already, I have to actually check the "remove" list.

If I link a player, once it's done it immediately kicks you back out to the main menu, so you have to re-select link player again to do another.

If you manage to find the field editor (yes yes i know there's a shortcut), there's a choice of more fields than Mike Brearley used in his whole career, and no attempt to pre-filter them to your bowler, match type, or game situation.

In DBC14, press pause and you got a nice shot of the scoreboard. In DBC17 you get Windows 8 Red-headed stepchild. 2012 called - it wants its tiles back (and it's bloody welcome to them).

10 paragraphs in, and i'm still not on to gameplay. That is how bad the UX is. I am torn between admiration for @Llewelynf @SnowyCasanova @Fissionmailed @Munkeymomo and how they have overcome how bad the academy UX is to make their stuff (and I'm certainly grateful!), and a little bit annoyed they and others who have used the demo academy a lot haven't called out that navigation. It's worse in the game because there's more there, but all this unnecessary clicks and scrolling is in the academy too and we've been lax as a community for not calling it out.

Graphically it's a bit of a mishmash. There's certainly an upgrade, but there is an arcadey quality that jars a bit. The bright colours, that logo that pops up every replay, the slightly too wiry player models - it all has me wondering where to deposit my quarters. Which is a shame, because the stadia, grass, faces etc. are definitely an upgrade on DBC14. The biggest graphical letdown for me was the lighting, as in I played a game where dusk should fall - this was beautiful in DBC14. Here, apart from the floodlights coming on, there were no other clues that the sky was changing. You could see it when you checked the field, but never felt it in game, where it was forever noon.

But to the gameplay. At times it feels like an unhappy marriage between an arcadey bash-along and a deep cricketing simulation.

Bowling was (until @francobaldo1 came along) the great big letdown in DBC14, with an AI that batted in a different game to the human player. That has been unequivocally fixed. Bowling in DBC17 is excellent. AI edges are in the game and the edge physics look good too. I've seen lovely inside edges and top edges etc. as well as outside edges getting the keeper and slips interested. I like the reflex catching mechanic, having been very sceptical when I first heard about it.

The bowling control system is an excellent evolution of the DBC17 and especially for spin. It's really really good. My only criticisms of the bowling are: 1) i don't like the sidestep when changing angle of approach. I accept it's a visual clue you're doing it right that DBC14 lacked, but it's unrealistic and doesn't look great. It's another arcadey touch in the game. 2)if you're using auto or semi-assisted fielding, the fielders run like they are ploughing through knee-high porridge. i've not been able to find the tile / sub-menu to make them sprint...

There are 2 great things about batting: 1) the ability to move around the crease, and 2) being able to nail straight drives off seamers. (The spinners appear as godlike as all bowlers were in DBC14 - I certainly haven't got one past a tweaker.)

BUT, and it's a big but, batting is spoiled, as others have said, by large swathes of the field being impossible to hit to. Cover being the most obvious. Some of the animations are pretty ugly too, the front-foot square drive/cut being the worst.

A few other things also spoil the batting, which are mostly related to the fielders. Basically, they are appalling when the ball is on the ground, and supermen when the ball is in the air. There are easy 1s, 2's and 3's every where. Hit the ball along the ground and you get a run. Again, very arcadey. Hit the ball in the air, and the landing circle needs to be at least 25m away from a fielder or they will catch it.

The keeper reactions are like when DBC14 first released - the ball hits him and is immediately on its way to the stumps. That and a pre-cog gully to the spinner are particularly annoying.

Finally, a word about the cameras. They seem radically different and nowhere near as good as DBC14. It may be a question of getting used to them, but I am struggling to think why change something nobody I ever saw complained about? Again, these cameras with their additional movement feels more arcadey. Was there publisher pressure for this type of approach (hence the logo), or was it a BA choice?

Sense of perspective, this game is better and in a better state than DBC14 when it was relased, and I'd hope it gets improved. Lets be honest how DBC14 finished and how it released were practically 2 different games. There is enough here to build on that a similar improvement will give an excellent cricket game.

Is it better than DBC14? In some areas, certainly bowling, it's much better. In some areas, like batting, it's probably not. In the UX, it's a worse by a huge margin. Gameplay wise, it's maybe ahead: better bowling + less pre-meditation in batting - less areas to hit to, still put it marginally ahead of good batting - lots of pre-meditation - poor bowling experience.

Is it better than DBC14 + franco's hack? Probably not at this stage.

3.25 out of 5 at it's current, post-day one patch level for me.
 
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And now I'm going to look like I've done a 360° just based on your review (not that I'm actually going to, it will seem like it as I've only just started). I started playing and had similar feelings. Every 5 minutes I'd be scratching my head trying to think why BA added/removed/changed a feature when it was fine before. The one word that came to mind throughout the whole experience was the word 'arcadey'. Everything seems slow and unnatural starting with the batsmens backflip and stance. I don't know what his wife said before the game but my lord does that man slam that bat. I'm also going to post a review (which will be similar to yours) but I want to play more before making an educated decision.

But good review! Kept some class when you were raging about the broken mechanics...
 
@blockerdave what stadium were you playing in for your day night match? I played one in a random stadium I created which is set in European rural and is very sparse in terms of stands etc...and it looked bloody amazing when the sun started to set. You could 100% tell it was getting darker and with the contrast of the dark hilly background and sky it looks great at night.
 
@blockerdave what stadium were you playing in for your day night match? I played one in a random stadium I created which is set in European rural and is very sparse in terms of stands etc...and it looked bloody amazing when the sun started to set. You could 100% tell it was getting darker and with the contrast of the dark hilly background and sky it looks great at night.
An SA one that wasn't durban fields. i'll check the others.[DOUBLEPOST=1482010466][/DOUBLEPOST]
Review brings up a great point about the awkward UX.

i even left stuff out. why do i have to scroll back to the top to accept a filter or search? why does the default for downloading a player offer you 2 players the same, 1 orphaned? who thought that up????
 
An SA one that wasn't durban fields. i'll check the others.[DOUBLEPOST=1482010466][/DOUBLEPOST]

i even left stuff out. why do i have to scroll back to the top to accept a filter or search? why does the default for downloading a player offer you 2 players the same, 1 orphaned? who thought that up????
Lets not forget how bad the player linking system is, players shouldn't be duplicated in a game where each player is linked. And then as the system is so weird, I can't even keep the player I want so I have to delete one and add him to each team manually.
 
This is almost the perfect review rather than all that hyperbolic rubbish elsewhere. Only thing I would like to add is, the running between the wickets feels odd. Like you have no control over when you dive/run the bat in/turn and take a second or third run - you press the button and it does it when it feels like it, unlike the crispness of DBC14. It feels clunky and sort of on rails.

To put the whole game into another sport game speak, this feels like FIFA while DBC14 felt like PES. However, I honestly feel there is an excellent cricket game hiding behind the arcadey exterior.
 
Family emergency has kept me from playing this weekend. Excellent review @blockerdave slightly worrying aswell.

If you had 17 and 14+hack in front of you. Which are you choosing to play each day?

In the short half hour I did get play, I did wonder why 14 wasn't used more as a base? This game does feel like it's completely new with nothing having come before it. Which is a little strange. 14 had a cover drive, 17 doesn't. Bits like that confuse me.
 
I came to the DBC 14 party late (at a time when the '14' wasn't even there) so don't remember the state of it upon release. What kind of issues were in that game that were addressed post-release? I think batting gameplay above all else needs to be seriously looked at - I am okay with clunky menus etc but the limited range at the crease is a big concern.
 
Family emergency has kept me from playing this weekend. Excellent review @blockerdave slightly worrying aswell.

If you had 17 and 14+hack in front of you. Which are you choosing to play each day?

In the short half hour I did get play, I did wonder why 14 wasn't used more as a base? This game does feel like it's completely new with nothing having come before it. Which is a little strange. 14 had a cover drive, 17 doesn't. Bits like that confuse me.

Let me answer that for you... if I could get the ball marker slider added to DBC 14 (to avoid pre-meditation) I wouldn't play DBC 17.
 
I did wonder why 14 wasn't used more as a base?

I've been quietly watching the demo releases roll out and I have wondered similar things, especially regarding the academy. I said a long time ago I would be a quiet spectator during this release because I feel like my investment early on with DBC14 clouded my judgement upon release. As Blocker said, where DBC14 ended up after a month or so was a totally different game, when it hit PC things moved even faster and was a totally different experience and a vastly better one at that. I did buy it day one on PS3 and haven't touched it since the PC release. I get the impression reading from the literate posts that have been made, that there's just not enough of DBC14 in the background holding things together...

Can't make an assessment until I play it and that won't be any time soon. As a touchstone point, I would lean on Blockerdave more than anyone else at the moment, seems to be an influx of chipped shoulders showing up as happened around this time last year.

More than happy to wait for the PC release, as I really should've when DBC14 hit.
 
I came to the DBC 14 party late (at a time when the '14' wasn't even there) so don't remember the state of it upon release. What kind of issues were in that game that were addressed post-release?

Pretty much the whole game was a bit clunky. Batting you couldn't hit past mid on or mid off, fielding was a mess. AI was all over the show and the modifiers for ground/aerial shots were hit and miss, although I didn't have too much trouble with those (Hitting along the ground was difficult for many) once patched, that improved stuff markedly.

Good news is BA moved pretty fast in the early days and once PC hit the "shelves" we got updates almost daily for months and months after release.

I'd love to hear more about the expanded career mode, @blockerdave when you get a chance?
 
Let me answer that for you... if I could get the ball marker slider added to DBC 14 (to avoid pre-meditation) I wouldn't play DBC 17.

Fair enough. Sad to hear. Wonder why the urge to go 'arcadey'. DBC 14 with a few tweaks (the hack) and a few additions like the bowling marker thing would have been ideal.

Your thoughts and Blockers are now views from respected people who know the game inside out.
 

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