Don Bradman Cricket 17

Just buy cricket 22 for the same price

Pros:
- Good enough for me to have spent 100+ hours on it
- Same thing as Ashes Cricket (mostly) but cheaper
- Crashes less than during release
- Looks slightly better than DBC14 (imo)
- Controls - not intuituive but really fun once you've learnt them
- Pro mode first person camera
- Batting is fluid
- Spin bowling looks good and has lots of variations

Cons:
- Devs don't give a shit (No patches since May, only 6 months of support for a full price game)
- Ashes Cricket
- Only £10 less cheaper Ashes Cricket
- Still crashes every now and then, especially during replays
- Makes a GTX 1070 system run at full speed with 2010 graphics
- Fielding sucks
- Fast bowling actions don't look good
- Fielders seem to prefer running backwards and always catching 1 handed
- Fielders also like sliding into the boundary and gifting the batsmen 4's
- Commentary is repetetive
- Probably alot of more stuff that hasn't been listed
- Only ever connected to online twice, the second time it disconnected

Conclusion:
Get Ashes Cricket if you want a (slightly) better game or DBC14 if you want a cheap(er) game

TL;DR

A downgrade from DBC 14.

[table]
[tr]
[th]Category[/th]
[th]Score[/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Graphics[/td]
[td]4/10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Gameplay[/td]
[td]8/10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Animations[/td]
[td]2/10[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]Overall[/td]
[td]

4/10

A downgrade from DBC 14. Customization and a more detailed Career Mode are it's only positives.

EDIT (18/04/2017) - After giving it another go, in the past couple of months, I would like to add that there is a bit more improvement over DBC 14.

The way the shots are played, the animations are much more real looking than DBC 14. Also unlike DBC 14 where you had to pre decide what shot to play, as there was no time to look at the ball and then decide, here in DBC 17, there is a half a second time frame that gives you the chance to decide where to play the ball as a batsmen. Much like in real cricket. Which is a big improvement according to me. So overall, the gameplay indeed is improved, in addition to the previosuly mentioned feature additions.

All in all, if u are confused between DBC 14 and DBC 17, here's the difference,
If u can let go in the graphics department a little bit in exchange for a much realistic experience, go for DBC 17.
If u cant handle the PS3 kinda graphics(which are much downgraded than DBC 14) and want a much polished looking game, but with a limited gameplay experience in terms of animations, go for DBC 14.

And finally, one thing to note here is that both games are dead with zero support from devs and close to non existent multiplayer community. So whatever tiny bugs are there, wont ever be fixed.

At launch this game was buggy and didn't seem like worth it ,but now after a few patches i can safely say its better than DBC 14.The batting feels more refined compared to DBC 14 ,ball can go to more places and bowling is just simply much better .Overall its a very nice improvement over DBC 14,its still over priced at 3k INR in india ,i would be more happy to pay around 2k INR . Hopefully the next iteration is even better with more bowling animations(something i really felt missing,especially fast bowling ,with same monotonous action) and more polished gameplay.

Not as good as DB 14 at the moment. Perhaps it never will be.

Graphics - I get why they changed the ball now bounces off rather than "clips through" just about everything - but this means getting the ball back to the bowled is a vomit inducing camera spinning dizzying whirwind of throws misses and staring at a still ball in the middle of the pitch. Mostly though the player graphics and animations don't look as good. I miss the muscular chest stretch of DB '14's quick bowlers rather than the "made out of plastacine left overs" look the new graphics have. All blobby and like several body parts that aren't co-ordinated with each other

Overthrows. If you have an attacking offside field (which in tests as a pace bowler happens a lot) then a nudge to cover will get the cover fielder to run in like a lunatic, throw the ball at the BASE OF THE STUMPS AS HARD AS HE CAN. The batsman is not looking to take a run, no one is at the stumps to take the ball and because only 2 or 3 fielders are on the on side the ball too often whizzes to the mid wicket boundary at which point the commentator tells me what a good shot it was!!!

Quality of life 1. As a batting allrounder I get taken off after 2 over spells often - only to be bought back on 6 overs later and have to re-find my fields in an interface that is a step back (again) from DB '14
Quality of life 2. How many clicks to start a game? 1,2,3,4,5,6,7?
Quality of life 3. The wait between deliveries has gone up considerably. For some reason the bowler faffs about for a while. The game is for my benefit not hte AI's... GET ON WITH IT a 12 year career playing every game is an 1800 undertaking as it is without this constant dithering.

Stuff that's just "wrong" Why am I increasing my pace stat when in my first club game I can bowl 145 Kph? The ball seems to go "game time" quicker as you increase this stat, but the speed the game tells you you are bowling never changes.
Square cut. I lean back then Towards the ball that is under stump hiugh, push up and left - that's a cover drive not a square cut, but no he steps away (the opposite of what I'm doing on the joypad) and wafts a cross bat square cut that either misses or cuts to gulley and out.

There's more but that feels like picking on the game.

DB '14 was not the game it ended up being when it was released. However I have seen no new patches for this game and it's been out months so maybe the bad reviews here have scuppered ongoing development.

The long and short of it - after 3 years it should have been better than this. The rebounding physics stuff seems a step in the right direction but the presentation, gameplay and quality of life all took a step back and don't look like being fixed.

Thumbs down for now - if they fix it I will review that.

I have played 3688 hours on Don Bradman Cricket 14 and still love the game. However, Don Bradman Cricket 17 is a big step backwards and the developers have almost ignored all requests from users for new addition / features to the game.

Don Bradman Cricket 17 does not even track your earned stats for your created players like Don Bradman Cricket 14 did.

Tail enders bat exactly like top or middle order batsman. There is no distinguishing between animations between proper batsman and those tail enders who have poor defensive abilities.

The lack of different bowling animations makes the game look very boring in terms of bowling. Even games like Brian Lara Cricket 2005 and Brian Lara Cricket 2007 had different types of animations for bowlers.

The new ball will swing as much as a ball that looks worn 70 overs late. There is no similarities between how the ball acts in real life and how it does in the game. Why is this game called a simulation if it does not represent real life?

The pitches are not distinguishable. There are no green seamers where the ball moves around off the seam. There is no dusty pitches where the ball spins significantly and creates issues for batsman every ball. I do not understand why there are different looking pitches when they all play exactly the same.

Created stadiums look absolutely awful in the game. They look like the crowd are sitting on cardboard boxes. You cannot even create a created stadium with grass embankments with people sitting on grass like some cricket grounds around the world.

BigAnt has ignored all the suggestions from fans who bought Don Bradman Cricket 14 and have created a game of what they believe consumers want. This falls short of what we want. Sadly this game is a shadow of Don Bradman Cricket 14 which is still the best Cricket game ever created.

Its the best cricket game in the market , but thats not good enough :

I can't recommend this game at all which is a shame because they did well with their first cricket game, Don Bradman Cricket 14.

You can't set your own fields and have them stick the computer will just randomise your field placings when you exit the menu

the AI doesn't utilise bowling all rounders when bowling so teams with multiple all rounders won't be as good as they should be

I've had boundaries that rolled along the ground for 4 being called as a 6

you can't change your equipment colours in career mode you're stuck with the default

the career mode international teams all use white kits regardless of how it is set in the academy or the match type you're playing

the logo database fills up incredibly quickly so you're stuck with multiples of the same logo and can't add more to the console designed logo sharing

No rating out of 10 just a flat not recommended.

If your coming from DBC 14 your first experience will be huh? How did they ruin this game?


Pros:
- More stats
- Improved Menu UI
- I like on screen UI as I'm bowling
- More stuff

Cons:
- Commentary is buggy
- I got 2 wickets in an over and complains that I need to tighten up because 8 runs were scored
- No mention like in DBC of going into the 30's, 40's, getting my 50
- Tells me great hit won't need to run, gets fielded
- I could go on and on, but it feels worse then DBC 14
- The game looks and feels worse. Glitchy, slow UI, fuzziness at times, DBC14 graphics are a better overall experience
- random runs being recorded,

I would really like to see the devs at least chip away at issues, i.e regular releases to at least show they care, fix one thing, release that, repeat. It's friggen tumble weed on the update.


I got nervous when I saw they were doing bat editor, stadium builder, etc why not focus on making the core actually playable, improved instead of wasting dev time on these secondary features. DBC14 was great, but I feel if you actually listened to your users, and focused on fixing the stuff that was broken, not breaking the stuff that was OK, we would have a much better game.


Frustrating as this could have been my favourite game of all time, now I'm just too late to refund and hoping for updates

Do not buy this game anytime soon. Why? I'll tell you

Pros:
- Career mode is a big improvment.
- Animations are good.
- Academy

Cons:
- Wrong Kits (White kits for ODI and T20s).
- Wrong Stats (Displaying First Class, List A, T20 stats for Test, ODI & T20I respectively.
- Can't get past the main loading screen.
- Randomly crashes.
- Have to choose the line up again and again in career mode.
- Stats for international cricket are not available in career mode.
- A bug where game gets blurrier.
- Umpiring errors.
- Graphics are meh.
- Commentary will make your ears bleed.
- Game is poorly optimized and runs in borderless windowed mode. Game will stutter from time to time on my 1060 and i5 3550 with 8 gigs of RAM.
- Max resolution is 1920x1080.

Devs don't give two shits if you are having any problem. I was having an online issue in DBC 14 and I contacted the devs and this is what I was told "We are the developer of the game, we are trying to help you out of goodwill - we have no responsibility at all to even answer you". It's pretty much the same support for this game too. Right now I'm stuck on the main screen and can't get past it. I paid $50 for a game that I can't even play atm.

TL;DR: Do not buy this game right now. Tons of bugs and some of them will make the game unplayable. It's not even worth $20.

Until the devs get around to releasing the actual "Release Candidate" version of the game, stay away.
I've got over 600 hours in DBC 14, so I was desperately looking forward to this.
What I got is plagued with stupid bugs, which basically ruin the entire experience.
For example, I set a field for my career bowler. The batsman plays the ball to where I had placed a fielder, easy catch for my man....Nope, my fielder has somehow moved between balls from say, cover, and is now stood down at fine leg or somewhere else.
Having fielders stood on the boundary, a ball is hit towards them, they stand on the boundary rope and watch the ball go past for 4.
Just stupid stuff like this.

Hopefully they'll patch it soon and make it playable. Until they do that, I strongly suggest waiting.

EDIT: Post Patches early May: Stay away guys, play DBC 14 or something else. They've made this even worse than it was before.

Edit: Now that Ashes Cricket is out, DBC '17 is officially dead. Sad to see that the devs did little to support / improve this game. Hardly any bug fixes, and zero value for your hard earned money. I've put in 30+ hours simply because I'm a cricket fan, but I'm sure I'm not going to purchase any of Big Ant's future games at full price.

TLDR;

Pros:-
1. Improved gameplay over DBC 14
2. Great control mechanics
3. Highly customisable
4. A fun cricket game....

Cons:-
1. .... which is plagued by lack of production finesse
2. Abysmal commentary
3. Plenty of in-game glitches, which tend to get frustrating
4. Lots of issues from DBC 14 carried over

My verdict: Buy it if you must have a fun cricket game to play right now, else wait for a decent discount and a couple of patches / updates.

7/10

DBC 17 comes nearly three years after DBC 14 broke new grounds in creating a fun yet challenging cricket game for all platforms, something which the biggies of the gaming industry *cough*EA*cough* had considered too demeaning for them to take up. DBC 14 was a genuinely fun game, but it had its issues, some of which were never resolved. Of course, the success of DBC 14 meant that the next iteration had to be big enough to live up to the high standards set by the studio.

Sadly, I cannot give a convincing thumbs up to this iteration of the game. A lot has improved - batting is much more fluidic and realistic, especially at the tougher difficulty levels (if you are a DBC 14 veteran, don't be afraid to crank up the AI), bowling is tougher than before, but much more rewarding, once you get the hang of it, and fielding has been pushed up a couple of notches for the good. The interface remains simplistic, and focuses on getting you in the game as soon as possible. There are still no licensed players, but the fledgling community should take care of that. The career mode is much more comprehensive now, and slightly less frustrating than before (again, this depends on how it is evolved during the game's) life cycle.

However, the improvements end here, at least for now. For a game priced at par with AAA titles, DBC 17 lacks production flair. A little more colour to the presentation would have done wonders, especially in the moments leading up to or after a match. Commentary is abysmal - there is no other word for it - with drab voices, unexcited commentators, and frequently messed up lines. Over time, you will realise how the bad commentary actually kills half the fun to be had out of the match. Animations could have been spruced up much more, and the fluidity could have been worked upon. It's not that the end game is bad, just that three years and a AAA price were enough for anyone to expect all the previous issues ironed out, and substantial improvements put in.

While I can easily recommend this game to a DBC newbie / cricket enthusiast (assuming you are okay shelling out this kind of money), I will be hard pressed to do so to anyone who has played DBC 14. The game needs a couple of updates and major patches before it deserves that credit. I will be sure to update my review if and when that happens.

Enjoyed Don Bradman Cricket 14? Keep it. Keep playing it. This is the same game but with slightly different UI and graphics. I already get shafted by buying the same game every year with FIFA, I don't need it with cricket as well as soccer.

I know I've only played half an hour of this on Steam but I've spent days building my career on DBC 14, on Xbox 360 (I know, this review doesn't really sound believeable but I guess you'll have to take my word here).

Everything felt EXACTLY the same. No improvement, nothing worse just... exactly the same. DBC 14 was AMAZING because it was a cricket game that actually felt more like a simulation than an arcadey game. Yet, it has its flaws but by god it was the best cricket game BY A MILE. It was remarkable.

I had a huge expectations for this and didn't read much into it leading up to buying it. I genuinely believed that Big Ant would take the incredible base they've made with DBC 14 and build on it, getting rid of the little annoying bugs, adding new features (YOU STILL CAN'T SAVE A FIELD SETTING BY THE WAY, ENTER IT MANUALLY EVERY TIME), and making the AI better and the overall gameplay experience. I got none of that.

Sorry but I haven't waited 3 years for a disappointment like this. Refund requested. What a let down. Rant over. Apologies to those who read it.

TL;DR - Keep playing DBC 14 instead of investing in this tripe.

New to the franchise. I've enjoyed what I've played so far! Bowling is very nice. Batting is difficult but I'm sure more practice will pay off. Fielding is a bit bizarre. Players will sometimes run straight past a ball and leave it for another fielder, costing runs. I find the commentary dull, repetitive and sometimes has nothing to do with what's just happened in the over. Graphically it's very good. Runs smoothly and does the job. Hoping some patches will sort out the fielding out!

Just not very good. Big Ant must have grown big heads in the offseason, offering this for a higher price than its predecessor, when clearly there are monumental issues with this title. Commentary is just completely off, extras aren't applied to the scoreboard, and fielders are just inept. Not to mention there is no ultra-widescreen support, which would be fine if the letterboxing option actually worked (so the game wasn't constantly stretched).

This is a huge disappointment after the big effort Big Ant put in to Cricket 14. This is still a fun title to play, but there are just too many underlying issues that affect gameplay, which still haven't been fixed - more than three months after its release.

At this stage, Don Bradman Cricket 14 remains a better title.

Cannot recommed the game in the current state.

DBC14 is alot better currently.

Biggest gripes: (I have only played career)
Running between the wickets feels slow.
There is ALWAYS a single even if you block the ball.
You can run fours quite often because boundry fielders only stop the ball, and another fielder runs to throw the ball in.
Your career batsmen feels like someone who has never held a bat. Close to no skill.

Good parts:
Bowling feels more intuitive
More customization options
Community players/teams look great so far.

Should have released this game as Early Access title and after feedback and patches should have launched the game.
One of the positive is career mode, which has improved a lot than DBC 14.
Online mode is a total mess up with full of glitches, there isn't much customisation while creating custom online matches. Do not buy this game for now if you wish to spend more time in online games like me.
Will updated the review once the bugs are ironed out.

Doesn't worth the price tag right now.

I bought this game almost half hour after it was released, having only played the demo till then, thinking it would be a pretty straight forward joystick cricket game. Having not played DBC 14, this one shocked me by its level of detail to A.I gameplay. I can't compare it to DBC in terms of graphics or smoothness, but its pretty obvious that it runs on higher specs and is probably why people find it stuttery. The game is challenging, dont expect to get wickets or runs when you feel like it. U can notice the gameplay difference in career mode as you ascend the ladder, even at the easiest settings one has to play smart, no re-load option mid game, if you're out, you're out, better luck next time. A.I mentality is very noticeable, by their reactions to being tired and under confident and vice versa. There's some annoyance with the manual fielding, but cmon, you always reset that to automatic. Overall I'm happy to see a cricket game that isnt just good for he fans, but a good challenging gaming experience for anyone. It took my guy 3 seasons to finally be selected from club cricket level.

I, for the life of me, cannot understand why all the reviews are positive so far!

I cannot stress enough, this game is a downgrade from Don Bradman Cricket 14!!! It would have been more appropriate for the developers to release this as an early access title considering its current state...

Every single aspect of this game, aside from its lofty aspirations, is worse than its predecessor!!

When my wife played this game for the first time, she stated "It's as if they took all the parts of Don Bradman Cricket 14 that needed fixing, failed at fixing them, and then broke every other part of the game while they were at it"...

I have never been so disappointed with a $65 (AUD) purchase in my whole life!

A few of my favourite issues with this game are:

1) The physics – one of the highlights of DBC 14 for me was the realistic way the ball came onto the bat - fast!! DBC 17 has destroyed this feeling, it feels as if the ball is more inflatable beach ball than cricket ball!! This seems partly due to the speed of both the bat and the ball, which are both far too slow to accurately represent the game of cricket... or physics in general!!

2) The bowling controls are in fact less dynamic and allow for less control than DBC 14 (While requiring twice as many buttons to be pressed) - instead of controlling the length of the ball with the timing of the thumbstick movements (A great system which actually required skill to bowl the ball where you wanted to), you simply press a button to choose a length, and a modifier to move it foward or backwards a little... meaning there are 12 exact lengths that can be bowled, and no skill is required to achieve the same length delivery ball after ball...

3) While the graphics and lighting may in fact be "improved/running on a better engine" from the previous version, they do not look better overall - its hard to explain... everything is just too rounded and shiny looking, to the point that IMO, DBC 14 looks better, as it captures depth and shadows better.

4) The system for setting fields is massively overcomplicated, as is the UI experience in general!

5) There are things wrong with almost every part of this game, fielding, batting, bowling, the UI, the academy... Some of it major, some of it minor, but its guaranteed to annoy the hell out of anyone who enjoys the sport of cricket!!

So I will end with this suggestion:

- If you are the sort of gamer that is prepared to pay a AAA price for a low-budget indie game, and say things like "quality doesn't matter, I want to support this developer, regardless of how unfinished their games are" and "This game has the potential to be the greatest cricket game of all time!! Who cares if its going to take another 3 years of development to realise this dream!!" and "I am happy to spread lies about the quality of this game" - This is the game for you!!!

- If however, like myself, you prefer notions such as "value for money", "honesty" and "Calling a spade a spade", then avoid this game like the plague, as it is unfinished, sh*te, and a complete and utter downgrade from its predecessor!!!

I have played this game for 3 hours almost straight. I have the Xbox One version as well. There were few issues in the xbox version but let me tell with a big smile, most of them are sorted out for the PC release. This is fantastic and the game is fantastic. There are more stats that pop up like RRR, RR how many runs needed to win, projected score now while playing. This was something users demanded and let me tell you on BigAntStudios listens as a developers. Few shots were missing but now those shots are playable. I played beautiful cover,square drives. There are batsman who run quicker now, the superhuman wicket keeper and fielders have toned down. I will go out and say this is the best cricket game ever and BigAnt have supassed the Don Bradman 14 expectations and set a new bar.