Don Bradman Cricket 17: First Impressions

Vidit Bhargava

This is a very quick first impression post. Will right a complete review sometime later this week.

Don Bradman Cricket 17 focuses on Customizability and Analytics. Two aspects which were present in Don Bradman Cricket 14 but not to the extent that DBC 17 provides. There’s something special about being able to create the Cricket ground I grew up practicing cricket in, and then to play as my self in the Indian Jersey on that ground. I’ve wanted this to be true for the entirety of the 18+ years that I’ve been playing cricket games. But DBC 17 still needs lots of work, lots of bug fixes and basically better player physics (something that Don Bradman Cricket 14 nailed it). The umpires appear lanky, their’s a general lack of stiffness in the players and the camera angles need improvement.

The customizability aspect is a double edged sword for this game, while it’s immensely customizable and you can change just about any and every aspect of it, the defaults aren’t great. You’ll need a fair amount of tweaking just to make the game look like what it was in Don Bradman Cricket 14.

Looks like a decent game, also the only one that we’ll probably have for the next 18 months at least. Big Ant seams to be a developer studio committed to improving the game. Should you buy one now? If you are on a PC, I’d probably get one if I liked Cricket games in general. Looks like a decent upgrade to DBC14 from whatever little time I’ve spent with it. Here’s hoping that the 2nd Game in the Don Bradman lineup (and the 16th Cricket Game ever) has a good future.

P.S. The developer in a forum post, told the users about Lots of fun Easter eggs that’ll greet those who get a pirated copy of the game. Sweet! 🙂