International Cricket Captain Preview
Cricket isn’t a sport well served for gamers. There are several reasons for this, but the main one is that cricket isn’t a huge sport in some of the world’s biggest gaming markets – namely the US and the Far East.
International Cricket Captain 2014 fits the bill for those cricket fan gamers who enjoy the management side of the game in particular. This is the 17th version of the series. Produced by “Childish Things” the game builds on previous incarnations in the series with updated stats for the world’s major players.
Interestingly, version 13 followed other sports gaming themes by introducing an “All-Time Greats” feature. This is very much the current trend in sports gaming across multiple different sports. With International Cricket Captain 2013 onwards, gamers can now put together teams made up of many of the legendary names of cricket from all around the world – and from different eras.
Also, there’s a “Classic England versus Australia” function, which enables you to replay any one of five all-time classic test matches from England vs. Australia from history.
International Cricket Captain in all versions is, in the main, a management simulation game. Players effectively become the captain of their chosen team and lead that team to the best of their ability. This makes it more appealing to lovers of the thwack of leather on willow in real-life than games based on other sports, which may be more action – orientated and so have a greater generalized appeal. At the same time, it’s perfectly possible to understand and really get to enjoy International Cricket Captain from a starting point of zero knowledge of cricket. And this is testament to its excellent design.
Nevertheless, it has to be said that its main appeal is with real cricketing aficionados. Whether you’re able to steer your chosen cricket team to international domination or completely the other end of the spectrum, then, is all down to you.
The additional features that International Cricket Captain 2013 and 14 brought with them are welcome but, it has to be said, they aren’t all that earth shattering. In particular, the afore-mentioned All-time Greats feature is, well… great! It’s particularly welcome for those of us who love cricket and who understand its history and remember the great players of the past.
So whether its Australia’s Don Bradman or Dennis Lillee, or England’s Ian Botham, Sir Jack Hobbs, Geoffrey Boycott or Alastair Cook – or the West Indies’ Clive Lloyd or Viv Richards, or India’s Sunil Gavaskar – they’re all in there. The game also allows players to re-run five classic Australia versus England Ashes matches. Depending on which side of this great cricketing divide you sit – you may be able to re-write history to your liking if you’re up to the task as team manager.
In real-life cricket, the last Ashes series down-under was a complete whitewash with the home side making it five from five. England will be determined to put the record straight in the summer of 2015 on home soil. But at the moment, the cricket betting doesn’t favor it as Australian are marginal favorites with both the exchange Betfair and the country’s major bookmakers. Most markets have Australia somewhere around even money whilst the home nation England are around the 6/4 mark. The draw, meanwhile (which would mean that Australia would, de-facto, retain the Ashes is a very interesting c. 11/2 chance).
With International Cricket Captain players could, of course, re-create the 2015 Ashes Series in advance – but making a wager on this basis is certainly not recommended.
Another one of International Cricket Captain’s key features which warrants a special “mention in despatches” is the player’s option to choose which teams to captain. So instead of captaining a team in all the different formats (such as T20 games or limited overs or test series etc.) the new version of the game gives you the option to choose your preferred format and then to play only with that.
There are also additional options available when you’re selecting teams for different formats – and you may even select the opposing cricket team which brings a welcome twist.
The stats are excellent and have been radically improved but they still fall a little short of the Cricket Coach game. The graphics, on the other hand, haven’t been particularly improved, but as previously stated, this isn’t a game about action and startlingly good graphics; that isn’t what it’s trying to be.
At the same time, the game simulations have improved with each version of the game and number 14 is no different.
Overall, on the credit side of the account, the game has a much improved match engine, there are some interesting new features, the matches are far more realistic and there are better options such as better player selection options.
On the debit side of the account, there aren’t leaps forward in graphics.
But if you love cricket – you’re sure to warm to International Cricket Captain 2014.