Don Bradman Cricket 2017: a review......

[Dutch2019]

Don Bradman Cricket is the worthy successor to Don Bradman 14. The attention to detail and the depth of gameplay is quite amazing. The fact that you can now choose to play either as a female or male cricketer is fantastic.

I myself have been playing the game the last week and can quite clearly say it is the best cricket game ever made; ever! And I have played them all and always been thoroughly dissapointed.

The Don Bradman series is different because it caters to such a wide range of tastes: want a quick fire 5 over bash? No problem. Want a five day test match? Done! And both variations give a realistic and satisfying game.

The level of editing now available is mind-boggeling and thanks to the talents of many in the community you can download your favourite players, kits, teams, bats and even stadiums.

I myself am setting up my own custom league and making a number of small town stadium to go along with them. I would never have thought that that would be possible in a cricket game.

Another great addition are the game play modifiers so that you can now tweak every aspect of gamkeplay so it suits your own needs: need more time to judge the pace and length of the ball? That is now possible along with a whole array of other modifiers such as bounce, friction, front-foot anticipation....the list goes on!

Cricket is a complicated game consisiting of many types of cricket and each area of discipline (batting, bowling and fielding) has its own dynamic and skills: these are really well catered for in DBC17 and you really have the sense of being part of a bigger picture where everything matters down to the tiniest detail.

Another plus is that the team making the game are themselves very passionate about the game and have listened intently to to the community, striving to bring the game both the hard-core cricket fan and the casual gamer can enjoy.

I think they have done a really good job in presenting players with the possibility to find there own particular niche within the game.

They are committed to bringing tweaks and patches where needed and listening for feedback as to where the game needs some good old spit and polish.

Having already spent many hours on this game i can highly recommend it to every cricket lover: yes it will take a little bit of learning: but thats what you want out of a game: the satisfaction of developing your skills and seeing that pay-off in the field of play. On the other hand there are so many modifiers and custom modes that you can just strap straight up and bash your way to glory as your favourite cricketing hero.

Conclusion: should you get this game? If you like cricket: yes! The game oozes cricket in all it's infinite subtleties.

[Dr. Dee]

Nice review, Dutch. Thanks.

[b9thirty99]

A good review. But is this based on PC?

[ironmanmk42]

Have the tons of bugs/issues been fixed for PC compared to Console? Such as several crashes on PS4 Pro? about 45% of the batting field not being available? the crazy number of wides and byes by AI? unable to hit to fine leg via fine leg glance, steer to third man, cover drives, flicks, midwicket pulls?
Batsman not gounding bat while running, able to take a run at min off of every ball hit? bad commentary? poor replay angles? AI being punishing even on easy difficulty? bad animations for cuts/pulls and unable to play nice square cuts or cover drives? getting bowled by attempting shots on back foot because he plays with bat at his chest? super wicket keepers leaping 10 feet to take catches for point cuts or super bowlers who field every ball, esp spinners? better/varied animations for batsmen and bowlers? diff skill levels for players? (super opener plays the shots the same exact way as 11th man with same skill/power etc.)

Don't get me wrong. I love DBC14 and I think DBC17 is just a marginal improvement in some areas and downright bad in many others but it is a decent game. On consoles, I rated it 6.5/10

I hope the PC version is markedly improved

[Fryzigg]

Originally posted by ironmanmk42:

Have the tons of bugs/issues been fixed for PC compared to Console? Such as several crashes on PS4 Pro?

Well at least that would be fixed, since it wasn't occuring on the XOne, basically exclusive to the PS4. I also feel a lot of your points are quite an embellishment, altough I agree with most of the sentiments. Just wondering if you've played around with the sliders because they impact my enjoyment on the game quite significantly.

[Dr. Dee]

ironmanmk42, the PC version will be the same as the console version. Don't expect any difference between the platforms. Big Ant are aware of all of the points you make. Some of them will get fixed over time, some won't. Just don't expect radical changes by the release date. Given that it makes little commercial sense for Big Ant to support the PC platform at all, I'm grateful that they do. We just need to be patient and constructive and things will improve over time. The upside on PC is we often get the updates first and more frequently.

[Dutch2019]

Yes this is the PC version and a lot of work has gone on and is still ongoing to fix many of the issues faced: there is a console patch imminent as well with these fixes in them. The game runs really well and of course as with any game there will be things that will need tweaking and fixing but there is so much customisation and modifying that can be done user side s well.

[Mr Castrol]

PC will get most of the Fixes before console because steam is easyer to do so.Take RLL3 we had heaps before console and took them months to release a patch on console whislt we where happy playing bug free away lol

[&The3Bears!]

Originally posted by ironmanmk42:

Have the tons of bugs/issues been fixed for PC compared to Console? Such as several crashes on PS4 Pro? about 45% of the batting field not being available? the crazy number of wides and byes by AI? unable to hit to fine leg via fine leg glance, steer to third man, cover drives, flicks, midwicket pulls?
Batsman not gounding bat while running, able to take a run at min off of every ball hit? bad commentary? poor replay angles? AI being punishing even on easy difficulty? bad animations for cuts/pulls and unable to play nice square cuts or cover drives? getting bowled by attempting shots on back foot because he plays with bat at his chest? super wicket keepers leaping 10 feet to take catches for point cuts or super bowlers who field every ball, esp spinners? better/varied animations for batsmen and bowlers? diff skill levels for players? (super opener plays the shots the same exact way as 11th man with same skill/power etc.)

Don't get me wrong. I love DBC14 and I think DBC17 is just a marginal improvement in some areas and downright bad in many others but it is a decent game. On consoles, I rated it 6.5/10

I hope the PC version is markedly improved

All of this is true... My only question is where are the planetcricket crew? No-one has used the word 'hyperbole' yet???