International Cricket Captain
2000

Published by Empire Interactive/Xplosiv range
Designed by Empire Interactive
Platform: PC CD/ROM
Price £9.99 Released: Out Now

System requirements
Windows 95/98/98SE/ME
Pentium 133 or better
16MB of RAM

While football management games have been aplenty over the last 16 years, cricket fans have had to wait very patiently until Empire Interactive released International Cricket Captain. The game became popular amongst cricket fans and its popularity ensured that sequels followed. International Cricket Captain is one of those sequels and the amount of features it is laden with, makes the original ICC look comparatively empty.

ICC 2000 lets you play as a county or international side (or both) and gives you the option of playing in the World Cup (internationally speaking) or a two division county championship (with the cup competitions) on the county side of things. If that wasn't enough there is also a handful of historical scenarios which include some of the greatest cricketers ever. The icing on top of the cricket cake is the ability to take part in an online league which can only add longevity to the already feature filled game. Full statistics are supplied for a huge number of cricketers and the use of the Wisden Cricket Almanac ensures a great deal of authenticity is maintained.

The gameplay is very easy to learn and you can make all manner of decisions. You can alter the behaviour/style of the batsmen and the bowlers. Highlights can be seen and are highly configurable. Anything from only viewing fours/sixes/wickets to viewing every ball is possible. You can even save mid-game so the length of a test match is no problem.

The only part of the game which does not provide text feedback is the match commentary by Jonathan Agnew but to be honest this in no way detracts from what is a very good cricket management game. International Cricket Manager 2000 is an absolute must for cricket fans everywhere.

Recommendation: Highly Recommended. A must for Cricket fans.
Suitability for deaf gamers: Very Good. Most info is textually presented.