Markkkkk's Review

[Markkkkk]

You know how it goes. We've all seen reviews before and I have decided to give it a shot. Sadly I'm not the best at long writing as I tend to get carried away but whatever.

I've played Don Bradman for a long enough time now that I can make a fairly valid opinion on the game, and I'm sorry everyone but it's extremely negative.

I've spent the majority of my time so far on the Academy making players and it's a hell of a mission. Little things that really piss me off like the fact that even though the game has DOB for every player you still have to enter their age (what's the point of a DOB then?) or how you can only download 1 bat/player/team at a time which becomes an extremely painful process when you realize how many bats and teams there are. The UI (or UX I don't know what it's called) is the most annoying thing I've ever had to experience in a game. The fact that you have an 'add player' and 'remove player' is just stupid and the fact that you have to get through the flipping maze in Maze Runner in order to download something compared to DB14's one click option just seems barbaric (But Blocker got most of this in his review so I wont spend 6 years on it).

If you take DB14 and look at the final product you would think that DB17 would be the game. Chuck in a better career mode, stadium editor, bats, AI/bowling improvements, kits, logos, gameplay modifiers (etc.) and you'll have the perfect cricket game but for some reason Big Ant took a little bit of everything (DB14 release version - promised features) and kind of smushed it together. There's so many head scratching additions/removals that I have to make lists.

Non Gameplay aspects:

I won't say the graphics have been downgraded but they look like they are a lower quality. I can't point out exactly why they seem worse to me so I won't stay on that for too long and happy to admit they have improved if someone can provide me evidence.

I was writing up how I was annoyed that Big Ant removed the Competition/Tour designer until I realised that they were under 'Match Designer' and this might be because I haven't touched up on my Australian jargon but that doesn't make logical sense. Can't you add some of those god awful tiles in the academy instead of hiding them like Waldo?

Another big problem is the fact that you can't give a player a bat from the academy-player-editor-page-thingy but you have to go to the bats you have and assign them like that. That's a massive headache when you're making teams.

The whole UI just seems sloppy and a whole lot of work. I loved the DB14 ones but alas I guess it's a year of 'The tiles from hell'.

Batting:

Eff me sideways is this crap. From the start when you look at the field the whole 'Fielder ratings' seems overwhelming but it is an improvement and remains one of the few positives (in matter of fact, I quite enjoy it after getting used to it' but after that it goes downhill. What the hell is that stance? Is he mining for gold or tapping a bat? It's the most disgusting thing I've seen, why chose that over the last game's stance? Moving around the crease feels slow and like you're walking in quicksand. it has improvements like if you hold down for longer you take a bigger step and you can move diagonal but my word does it feel crap doing it and your player takes such a big step I still haven't after 20+ overs of batting been able to move my player to leg stump.

The shots look shocking, the cut, the pull, the cover drive and all. Once again it leaves me scratching my head. 14 had good enough animations but now this is multiple step backwards, why change it to this? From what I've seen if you take out the look of the shots batting isn't that bad (if you ignore the 90% of the field you can't hit to) and I'm sure once you can hit 360 degrees it'll be fun but until then I wont be batting too much.

The colour around the ball showing up earlier was a great addition, makes it so much easier to play without premeditating.

Bowling:

The only savior is bowling. Once you get sliders right the bowling is a blast. Spin is a lot easier and the ball turns which is always a plus when it comes to cricket games. Pace bowling is fun but the same problems still linger from DB14 (which aren't bowling but more AI batting which in turn is kind of batting as you're bowling to them and so your bowling experience relies on the AI batsmen). Short balls seem to be like a scone and tea for batsmen and even if it's Mitchell Starc bombing in they tend to laugh it off rather quickly. The AI shot selection is iffy at best as I have only seen 3 leaves so far in 50+ overs of bowling and all 3 pitched on the stumps and hit the batsmen on his leg (he ran out the line of the ball).

A big concern was AI mentality and how they approach a game and I'm still disappointed by this. So far in the however many test matches I've simmed I have yet to see a test go into the second session of day 4 even though teams are posting scores of 400+ every second innings. When Cook is scoring a run a ball 200 that's when you know things need to be looked at.

Fielding:

A young man once said 'Eff me sideways is this crap' and I feel it is a good evaluation of fielding. The players seem to have 0 intent of running to the ball (I've had 4 or 5 instances of a player running to a catch he can easily reach before stopping 5 meters short)

The players are slow, unrealistic and I would never of thought that last years superhuman fielders could be matched but boy was I wrong.

But the worst thing about fielding is that flipping menu to edit a field. 1 click in DB14 has become 5+ just to set a field (although I like the fact you can move your ring fielders and position your slips) and that is extremely annoying. Where did the helpful UI from DB14 go (batsmen's weakness for example).



All in all the word 'arcadey' keeps coming back.The fact that things like players not reflecting their abilities (to a lesser extent of last year though) have not been fixed is really disappointing and with the new shot animations and weird UI I really wonder what got into Big Ants head.

My one concern heading into DB17 was the womans cricket because I assumed that adding woman into the game would take away time and money that could be put into gameplay and UI and although I appreciate the gesture I believe this has been the case. I know 'sexist' will come to mind but honestly how many players will use the females? It just doesn't seem something that is worth the while to invest in especially when the game itself doesn't have a cover drive (I haven't said this very well but hopefully my point gets across).

For me this game is a lot more concerning then DB14 atleast in 14 you could see a great cricket game behind all the bugs but this one feels like I'm looking at an arcadey rip off of DB14 through a dirty window and no matter how much Big Ant clean said window (figurative for bugs) I can't see this game being the game we expected unless major money and time is invested (animations, UI and the whole lot).

Let me say I have no problem with Big Ant wanting to go down the arcade route I just wish they said something first so I could have taken my R1000 and put it towards a practice bat or a game that appeals to me more like Cricket Coach.

Hopefully Big Ant prove me wrong and pull a rabbit out a two inch arse but once I've finished making some SA domestic players I can see myself putting this game aside until it gets some heavy patching (Yes I'm pessimistic unfortunately I wasn't allowed to chose my traits at birth).

 

[Chief]

I know 'sexiest' will come to mind but honestly how many players will use the females?

This is either a brilliant typo, a Freudian slip or a very odd question.

 

[Markkkkk]

This is either a brilliant typo, a Freudian slip or a very odd question.

Couldn't get the wording! At one stage I had 'How many people will people play with females'. Incase it isn't known I'm asking how many of us gamers will actually use the females in the game because I can only see myself playing with the mens' teams.

 

[cricket_online]

Nice review. Observations on batting, AI fielding and UI/UX are spot on.... and to answer your question "UI" stands for User Interface whereas "UX" stands for User Experience.

 

[Chief]

Couldn't get the wording! At one stage I had 'How many people will people play with females'. Incase it isn't known I'm asking how many of us gamers will actually use the females in the game because I can only see myself playing with the mens' teams.

Did you MEAN "sexiest"? Or "sexist"?

 

[Markkkkk]

Did you MEAN "sexiest"? Or "sexist"?

Yea sexist would probably make more sense...

 

[flake]

Agree with this, I strangely enjoyed the game on the first night I played, but then I saw something else as the sun rose. Batting is simply awful. Bowling is great. Most people enhoy a cricket game for mostly the batting aspect. And this is truly a shocker. Hardly any shots. Horrible animations. I'm about to put DBC14 back in. Hardly worth the wait I was eagerly anticipating for over a year. I hope BA manage to patch this but somehow the problems seem to deep to fix.

 

[cricket_online]

Agree with this, I strangely enjoyed the game on the first night I played, but then I saw something else as the sun rose. Batting is simply awful. Bowling is great. Most people enhoy a cricket game for mostly the batting aspect. And this is truly a shocker. Hardly any shots. Horrible animations. I'm about to put DBC14 back in. Hardly worth the wait I was eagerly anticipating for over a year. I hope BA manage to patch this but somehow the problems seem to deep to fix.

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts that when you play the game for the first time you focus on the additions, i.e. ball marker visible before the delivery is bowled and gameplay modifiers. You assume that these net new additions are on top of what was already there in DBC 14. Then after a few hours you realize that the DBC 14 base is no longer there so the net new additions can't make up for the pieces that have suddenly vanished.

 

[OrrsApples1]

When it comes to setting fields: you can avoid having to go through all the menus. Press up on the dpad to bring up the quick tactics menu, select the batter, and press Y/triangle. Much faster.

 

[Col. Hans Landa]

Non Gameplay aspects:

I won't say the graphics have been downgraded but they look like they are a lower quality. I can't point out exactly why they seem worse to me so I won't stay on that for too long and happy to admit they have improved if someone can provide me evidence.

I think it is because of the lighting(?). I also feel that the torso-limbs proportionality is off.

 

[Rohit Basu]

I am

You know how it goes. We've all seen reviews before and I have decided to give it a shot. Sadly I'm not the best at long writing as I tend to get carried away but whatever.

I've played Don Bradman for a long enough time now that I can make a fairly valid opinion on the game, and I'm sorry everyone but it's extremely negative.

I've spent the majority of my time so far on the Academy making players and it's a hell of a mission. Little things that really piss me off like the fact that even though the game has DOB for every player you still have to enter their age (what's the point of a DOB then?) or how you can only download 1 bat/player/team at a time which becomes an extremely painful process when you realize how many bats and teams there are. The UI (or UX I don't know what it's called) is the most annoying thing I've ever had to experience in a game. The fact that you have an 'add player' and 'remove player' is just stupid and the fact that you have to get through the flipping maze in Maze Runner in order to download something compared to DB14's one click option just seems barbaric (But Blocker got most of this in his review so I wont spend 6 years on it).

If you take DB14 and look at the final product you would think that DB17 would be the game. Chuck in a better career mode, stadium editor, bats, AI/bowling improvements, kits, logos, gameplay modifiers (etc.) and you'll have the perfect cricket game but for some reason Big Ant took a little bit of everything (DB14 release version - promised features) and kind of smushed it together. There's so many head scratching additions/removals that I have to make lists.

Non Gameplay aspects:

I won't say the graphics have been downgraded but they look like they are a lower quality. I can't point out exactly why they seem worse to me so I won't stay on that for too long and happy to admit they have improved if someone can provide me evidence.

I was writing up how I was annoyed that Big Ant removed the Competition/Tour designer until I realised that they were under 'Match Designer' and this might be because I haven't touched up on my Australian jargon but that doesn't make logical sense. Can't you add some of those god awful tiles in the academy instead of hiding them like Waldo?

Another big problem is the fact that you can't give a player a bat from the academy-player-editor-page-thingy but you have to go to the bats you have and assign them like that. That's a massive headache when you're making teams.

The whole UI just seems sloppy and a whole lot of work. I loved the DB14 ones but alas I guess it's a year of 'The tiles from hell'.

Batting:

Eff me sideways is this crap. From the start when you look at the field the whole 'Fielder ratings' seems overwhelming but it is an improvement and remains one of the few positives (in matter of fact, I quite enjoy it after getting used to it' but after that it goes downhill. What the hell is that stance? Is he mining for gold or tapping a bat? It's the most disgusting thing I've seen, why chose that over the last game's stance? Moving around the crease feels slow and like you're walking in quicksand. it has improvements like if you hold down for longer you take a bigger step and you can move diagonal but my word does it feel crap doing it and your player takes such a big step I still haven't after 20+ overs of batting been able to move my player to leg stump.

The shots look shocking, the cut, the pull, the cover drive and all. Once again it leaves me scratching my head. 14 had good enough animations but now this is multiple step backwards, why change it to this? From what I've seen if you take out the look of the shots batting isn't that bad (if you ignore the 90% of the field you can't hit to) and I'm sure once you can hit 360 degrees it'll be fun but until then I wont be batting too much.

The colour around the ball showing up earlier was a great addition, makes it so much easier to play without premeditating.

Bowling:

The only savior is bowling. Once you get sliders right the bowling is a blast. Spin is a lot easier and the ball turns which is always a plus when it comes to cricket games. Pace bowling is fun but the same problems still linger from DB14 (which aren't bowling but more AI batting which in turn is kind of batting as you're bowling to them and so your bowling experience relies on the AI batsmen). Short balls seem to be like a scone and tea for batsmen and even if it's Mitchell Starc bombing in they tend to laugh it off rather quickly. The AI shot selection is iffy at best as I have only seen 3 leaves so far in 50+ overs of bowling and all 3 pitched on the stumps and hit the batsmen on his leg (he ran out the line of the ball).

A big concern was AI mentality and how they approach a game and I'm still disappointed by this. So far in the however many test matches I've simmed I have yet to see a test go into the second session of day 4 even though teams are posting scores of 400+ every second innings. When Cook is scoring a run a ball 200 that's when you know things need to be looked at.

Fielding:

A young man once said 'Eff me sideways is this crap' and I feel it is a good evaluation of fielding. The players seem to have 0 intent of running to the ball (I've had 4 or 5 instances of a player running to a catch he can easily reach before stopping 5 meters short)

The players are slow, unrealistic and I would never of thought that last years superhuman fielders could be matched but boy was I wrong.

But the worst thing about fielding is that flipping menu to edit a field. 1 click in DB14 has become 5+ just to set a field (although I like the fact you can move your ring fielders and position your slips) and that is extremely annoying. Where did the helpful UI from DB14 go (batsmen's weakness for example).



All in all the word 'arcadey' keeps coming back.The fact that things like players not reflecting their abilities (to a lesser extent of last year though) have not been fixed is really disappointing and with the new shot animations and weird UI I really wonder what got into Big Ants head.

My one concern heading into DB17 was the womans cricket because I assumed that adding woman into the game would take away time and money that could be put into gameplay and UI and although I appreciate the gesture I believe this has been the case. I know 'sexist' will come to mind but honestly how many players will use the females? It just doesn't seem something that is worth the while to invest in especially when the game itself doesn't have a cover drive (I haven't said this very well but hopefully my point gets across).

For me this game is a lot more concerning then DB14 atleast in 14 you could see a great cricket game behind all the bugs but this one feels like I'm looking at an arcadey rip off of DB14 through a dirty window and no matter how much Big Ant clean said window (figurative for bugs) I can't see this game being the game we expected unless major money and time is invested (animations, UI and the whole lot).

Let me say I have no problem with Big Ant wanting to go down the arcade route I just wish they said something first so I could have taken my R1000 and put it towards a practice bat or a game that appeals to me more like Cricket Coach.

Hopefully Big Ant prove me wrong and pull a rabbit out a two inch arse but once I've finished making some SA domestic players I can see myself putting this game aside until it gets some heavy patching (Yes I'm pessimistic unfortunately I wasn't allowed to chose my traits at birth).

I am too totally unsatisfied may be they were drunk while making this game it should be called dbc 13 not 17 wasted my money buying it

 

[bharat]

Would be good to see a point by point comparison with DBC 14. Am really curious if the game was de-evolution from DBC 14 (I owned DBC 14 but never played it, due to circumstances).
Also I find the idea of having woman players useless. If they do some statistical analysis on number of viewers of woman cricket, number of women who would buy a video game to play with woman teams or the number of men who would play as a woman, it would be very small number I feel. Rather they chose to go with the p.c culture(political correctness culture) and wasted time. Next version would have alien players since space aliens need equal representation.

 

[Langeveldt]

Would be good to see a point by point comparison with DBC 14. Am really curious if the game was de-evolution from DBC 14 (I owned DBC 14 but never played it, due to circumstances).
Also I find the idea of having woman players useless. If they do some statistical analysis on number of viewers of woman cricket, number of women who would buy a video game to play with woman teams or the number of men who would play as a woman, it would be very small number I feel. Rather they chose to go with the p.c culture(political correctness culture) and wasted time. Next version would have alien players since space aliens need equal representation.

Women players would have been great if there was a better base of a game to play them on. My girlfriend is a cricketer and is excited for me to bring the game over to NL tomorrow. Problem is I will have to tell her in the car back from the airport not to bother with it. We will probably have a laugh over my stadium announcing and then go back to Franco's DBC14.

If you want me to compare the two, it's like DBC 14 with lower skilled batsmen edging more (yay!), and a very cool and in depth career mode (yay!), a stadium editor (yay!), but with almost every other piece of animation and gameplay reduced in depth and meaning, probably back to Ashes Cricket 09 levels if I was to compare it to an out of the box game.

 

[Biggs]

I'm asking how many of us gamers will actually use the females in the game because I can only see myself playing with the mens' teams.

I use the women's teams in the BBL app quite a lot? Fun for a change of scenery. Male gamers prolly aren't going to use the women all that much but it does give female gamers out there a choice that didn't exist before, which I think is pretty neat.

Awesome review. I like you and would subscribe to your magazine. Beer?

 

[Royce]

Would be good to see a point by point comparison with DBC 14. Am really curious if the game was de-evolution from DBC 14 (I owned DBC 14 but never played it, due to circumstances).
Also I find the idea of having woman players useless. If they do some statistical analysis on number of viewers of woman cricket, number of women who would buy a video game to play with woman teams or the number of men who would play as a woman, it would be very small number I feel. Rather they chose to go with the p.c culture(political correctness culture) and wasted time. Next version would have alien players since space aliens need equal representation.

How dare you! You didn't even mention dolphins!! Or Chimps!! Or Transgender! OR Non-Binary! Or Asexual! Or Bananas!

Even my wife agrees with what your saying lol :P