Don Bradman Cricket 17 First Impressions Thread

kamy100

County Cricketer
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UK
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  1. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Xbox 360
I thought that I would start a first impressions thread as more and more people will be getting the game today and tomorrow.

I have been playing the game since last night and I am delighted that it is an improvement over DBC14 which is a game that I was still playing up to a few weeks ago.

I generally just play offline so the issues with online are not a problem for me.

I have not had access to the academy releases in the PC so first up I went straight to the tutorials for bowling and batting. I love the new bowling mechanics and the changes that have been made make for a more intuitive experience which is what I really wanted to see.

Gameplay is what makes or breaks a game and for me DBC17 gets the balance right. I played a test match England (me) v India. I won the toss and decided to bat. It was a dusty wicked so it was very pleasing to see India take that into account and open the bowling with Ashwin!!! As I am still getting used to the new batting mechanics I managed to struggle to 260 all out. If was great to see the field also changing to counteract my scoring zones which forced me to alter how I was playing.

India started their innings and once I got hang of the new balling mechanics I found that I could really restrict their scoring and bowl tactically which was something that would never have happened in the previous game. I also noticed that Virat was much more aggressive than the other batsmen and tried to dominate my bowlers this was good to see as it adds realism. In the end I got India out for 433 which they scored off 103 overs. I am now going to play the second innings.

There are of course things that could be improved. Sometimes the game has glitched with batsman being in weird positions half way up the pitch, I have had one complete crash whilst playing the game. There does not seem to be an ingame save button so you have to exit out of the match to save it. I wanted to save regularly after my crash. It is disappointing to see replays have not been improved and the same erros from previous version remain whereby sometimes replay starts when bowl has already left bat so does not show the actual shot. All of these issues are generally cosmetic.

Is it a perfect game? Of course not but for me it is biggish improvement on the previous version and that is all I can ask. Given that bigant is a relatively small developer and that makes what they achieved even more remarkable. DBC17 is a fantastic game with deep gameplay and one that will be improved over the next few months. Well done to all that were involved in making it.

Please excuse and spelling/grammar errors as I have typed this on my tablet!
 
Last edited:

Langeveldt

Panel of Selectors
Joined
Nov 26, 2004
Online Cricket Games Owned
  1. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - PS3
  2. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Xbox 360
  3. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Steam PC
  4. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - PS4
This sounds really promising, and nice to see someone playing more than 20 overs.

Did you notice the tailend batsmen were weaker when you bowled at them?

Which difficulty level? It sounds really nicely balanced and you are having a good test.
 

Wealey

ICC Board Member
Joined
Jul 25, 2009
Location
Hampshire
I thought that I would start a first impressions thread as more and more people will be getting the game today and tomorrow.

I have been playing the game since last night and I am delighted that it is an improvement over DBC14 which is a game that I was still playing up to a few weeks ago.

I generally just play offline so the issues with online are not a problem for me.

I have not had access to the academy releases in the PC so first up I went straight to the tutorials for bowling and batting. I love the new bowling mechanics and the changes that have been made make for a more intuitive experience which is what I really wanted to see.

Gameplay is what makes or breaks a game and for me DBC17 gets the balance right. I played a test match England (me) v India. I won the toss and decided to bat. It was a dusty wicked so it was very pleasing to see India take that into account and open the bowling with Ashwin!!! As I am still getting used to the new batting mechanics I managed to struggle to 260 all out. If was great to see the field also changing to counteract my scoring zones which forced me to alter how I was playing.

India started their innings and once I got hang of the new balling mechanics I found that I could really restrict their scoring and bowl tactically which was something that would never have happened in the previous game. I also noticed that Virat was much more aggressive than the other batsmen and tried to dominate my bowlers this was good to see as it adds realism. In the end I got India out for 433 which they scored off 103 overs. I am now going to play the second innings.

There are of course things that could be improved. Sometimes the game has glitched with batsman being in weird positions half way up the pitch, I have had one complete crash whilst playing the game. There does not seem to be an ingame save button so you have to exit out of the match to save it. I wanted to save regularly after my crash. It is disappointing to see replays have not been improved and the same erros from previous version remain whereby sometimes replay starts when bowl has already left bat so does not show the actual shot. All of these issues are generally cosmetic.

Is it a perfect game? Of course not but for me it is biggish improvement on the previous version and that is all I can ask. Given that bigant is a relatively small developer and that makes what they achieved even more remarkable. DBC17 is a fantastic game with deep gameplay and one that will be improved over the next few months. Well done to all that were involved in making it.

Please excuse and spelling/grammar errors as I have typed this on my tablet!

Love how Ashwin opened the bowling!

What were the dismissals like mate?
 

kasabian21

International Coach
Joined
Aug 15, 2013
Online Cricket Games Owned
In twistie's live stream yesterday he got two edges in whilst bowling in a 5-5 match.
 

Langeveldt

Panel of Selectors
Joined
Nov 26, 2004
Online Cricket Games Owned
  1. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - PS3
  2. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Xbox 360
  3. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Steam PC
  4. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - PS4
In twistie's live stream yesterday he got two edges in whilst bowling in a 5-5 match.

Yeah I've seen some nice edges against the AI. I saw someone practicing and getting a load. Would like to see a clean bowl or two. Maybe we can get someone livestreaming them bowling while we wait for our games.
 

kamy100

County Cricketer
Joined
Oct 27, 2003
Location
UK
Online Cricket Games Owned
  1. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Xbox 360
This sounds really promising, and nice to see someone playing more than 20 overs.

Did you notice the tailend batsmen were weaker when you bowled at them?

Which difficulty level? It sounds really nicely balanced and you are having a good test.

I have been playing on Pro difficulty. The tailenders were much easier to get out than previous version where all to often they put up big scores consistently.
 

karolkarol

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Perthshire
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Did you find that you could set a batsman up at all when you were bowling?
 

kamy100

County Cricketer
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Location
UK
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  1. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Xbox 360
any edges in your bowling innings mate whether resulting in wickets/chances or not?
When I was batting 4 of my players were out to edges, including a top edge from an attempted sweep shot which again I had not seen in the last version.

Once I got the hang of bowling I managed to get a number of edges.
 

kamy100

County Cricketer
Joined
Oct 27, 2003
Location
UK
Online Cricket Games Owned
  1. Don Bradman Cricket 14 - Xbox 360
Did you find that you could set a batsman up at all?

I am still getting the hang of bowling. I concentrated on getting the greens on the bowling meter and bowling q good line and length which helped to restrict scoring which then led to wickets. When my bowling was all over the place they scored much more freely. I didn't try to setup a batsman but when I get a proper grip of the bowling I will try and do that.
 

blockerdave

ICC Chairman
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London
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When I was batting 4 of my players were out to edges, including a top edge from an attempted sweep shot which again I had not seen in the last version.

Once I got the hang of bowling I managed to get a number of edges.

Thanks - this is what i'm really interested in. In DBC14 I had no problem finding the edge when I was batting: it was when I had the cherry in my hand I had the problem.
 

karolkarol

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You'd like to think that with the addition of the new fielding mechanic there would have been more emphasis put on edges whilst bowling.
 

blockerdave

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You'd like to think that with the addition of the new fielding mechanic there would have been more emphasis put on edges whilst bowling.

i think @MattW being involved was huge on this from the bowling experience perspective. i think BA obviously are they type of guys who would have learned and improved it anyway, but before he went "poacher turned gamekeeper" i think Matt shared a lot of the same frustrations we all did about the edges and bowling experience in general.

which of course means he is entirely to blame now for any issue in the bowling experience.
 

Gamer Pradosh

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i think @MattW being involved was huge on this from the bowling experience perspective. i think BA obviously are they type of guys who would have learned and improved it anyway, but before he went "poacher turned gamekeeper" i think Matt shared a lot of the same frustrations we all did about the edges and bowling experience in general.

which of course means he is entirely to blame now for any issue in the bowling experience.
Totally agree...Him being a big bowling fan helped a lot, mainly for us...:D
 

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