Nothing beats the sound of leather on willow (International Cricket Captain 2000 (PC))

Member Name: fluidfernando

Product:	International Cricket Captain 2000 (PC)
Date:	18/02/05 (175 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Unique type of game for cricket

Disadvantages: Fairly dated now

ICC is a game that I fear only cricket fans will enjoy. ICC is a team-management game, and not one where you are the cricketer, it's like the Championship Manager equivalent of Cricket.

Cricket is associated with being very boring, very English, and only the posh and old people watch it - this is not true, and although cricket can be very long yes, it also can be very exciting, and this game typifies that.

You have the option of captaining any of the main cricket county teams like Warwickshire, Surrey, Essex etc, and also the option of captaining a national team. You can opt to manage a county team, and if you are successful, you may after time be offered the England job.

The requirements for this game are:
Windows 95/98
Intel Pentium 133Mhz
16Mb RAM
DirectX supported graphics card with 2Mb RAM
80Mb Hard Disk Space
2x Speed CD-ROM
Keyboard and Mouse
DirectX supported sound card

This game is endorsed by the England Captain - Nasser Hussain.

One of the things I like about this game is the option of playing historical scenarios - from the Ashes to the World Cup you will enjoy the challenge of beating the almighty Aussies and the superb South Africans.

The World Cup (1999) is playable again, where you choose any of the World Cup countries, and lead them to victory.

The main feature of this game is the absolutely MASSIVE statistical database, of almost every single player in the game, from age to records, all provided by the 2000 Wisden Cricket Almanack.

There is a multi-player option on this game although I have never used this myself. According to the CD you can play an online league with other people.

There is a photo accompanying every player, and both the name and photo can be customised to suit you. Photographs of cricket grounds (international and county) are also provided and when you play the game, the background has one of these photos and is very nice to the eye.

The game itself is fairly complex - and you need a good cricket brain to succeed. You can organise your finances and determine your focus on your buying potential, physios, coaches, etc.

You can allocate certain training regimes to people, from net practise to technique - and often you won't have enough training regimes for every person, so you need to choose wisely. Fatigue is a big factor in this game and you have to make sure that they are fit.

There is no sort of player happiness factor in this game, and pretty much the game is statistically based rather than emotionally.

Statistics are all over the place. Each player has batting and bowling averages, 50's, 100's, career records - and plenty more. The counties also have their statistics including founding date, partnership records etc.

When you play the game you have lots of control over what you see - you can choose to see individual runs, fours and plus, or none - You can view ball by ball, or if you are in a rush you can just view the wickets.

You can also choose the field positions of each player, where you bowl the ball, whether you bowl round the wicket or not, etc.

The animation when you view the players playing is more or less a top-down view, and the graphics aren't brilliant but they are fine.

The sounds are mainly the commentary, and the sounds of the audience, the players, and the sound of willow on leather.

Commentary is provided by Jonathan Agnew, and it is accurate and appropriate.

Weather and light affects the game, and each cricket match is very realistic - although they can be very long, and tedious.

When you have an LBW shout, you can look at the animation and you can pretty much see if it is LBW or not, the animation is not repeated very often.

This is a sound game, although I never have the patience to get through a season, and the game can be a bit slow, but the game is statisically perfect, and cricket lovers will LOVE this game!

Summary: