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Please send me your own reviews of International Cricket Captain. Review by Guy. One should always applaud the development of a new cricket game, since nobody to date has seemed very interested in creating a high quality strategic simulation that would rival, say, the best American Football games. Unfortunately, this is not it. There are many glitches which could and should have been ironed out in beta testing. Some of these have been fixed by patches via a web site, but if you don't have internet access then tough luck. Bottom line is that the game was clearly released way too early. Confusingly, the game seems to have been produced by people who actually know very little about cricket. For example, the points scoring system for the county championship was wrong, as was the follow-on system. Also, the most "attacking" method of bowling is a leg stump line and the most "defensive" is off stump, whereas any cricketer knows that it is the other way around. Little matters like allowing a bowler to bowl around the wicket are simply omitted altogether. The basic concept of the game is attractive. The player has to manage and captain a county side through a typical county season. Test calls can intervene, although the right to captain England has to be earned by good performance at county level. Unfortunately, the basic engine underlying the game seems to be very simplistic. The computer has definitely worked out what is going to happen before the ball is bowled so that field placings, for instance, have virtually no effect. Frequently fielders on the boundary simply stand still and watch a ball go past them for four. This is frustrating, as your scope as the captain of the fielding team is severely restricted. The gameplay is also unbalanced. The computer-controlled team scores at a very rapid pace while batting, whereas the human team has to take huge risks to score runs at anything like an acceptable rate. Sometimes even tailenders make out like Brian Lara! What the world is waiting for is a much better version of this game. Unfortunately, I don't think this is likely to happen (although there is a new version coming out for the World Cup this summer) because the basic model used for this game is fundamentally flawed, and there is so much time and ego already invested in it that nobody is likely to admit this and go back to the beginning to start again. I would give it four out of ten. If you are happy with an arcade game then give it a try, but if you are looking for a serious simulation then in my opinion it is best avoided. |
Revised:
Saturday, 16 March 2013. |
