By Kieron Gillen on July 7th, 2008 at 10:51 am.
It’s a big day for fans of the bat-to-ball game. The ever-amusingly named Xplosiv have made available a demo of their International Cricket Captain 2008 for download. It appears to be a fully functional version of this management game, but time-limited to two days, after which you have to pay to continue. Which seems terribly cricket of them. It features fully-animated versions of the match highlights and – er – management options.
I actually attempted to play the thing to give some impressions, but it didn’t make a lick of sense.
Does it not make any sense because you don’t like/understand cricket or because it, you know, sucks?
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I dunno if it sucks, but it doesn’t explain itself in any way, so a bit of both. There’s no pop ups to explain what the statistics mean, for example, and without the game-based knowledge of each could be, I’m guessing.
And it’s cricket, which is a sport, so RPS never do well there.
KG
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It doesn’t explain itself because they don’t want oiks like you understanding teh crickets, obviously.
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Cricket fans, based on my subjective experience, tend to be the drunkest of all sports watchers due perhaps to the length of the games. Might it make more sense to write the preview plastered?
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Don’t give me ideas.
KG
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How do they manage 90% of the cricket experience: the ‘tea and sandwiches’ stage? Presumably some sort of six hour long quicktime event.
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This is reminding me of some cricket game on the Amiga, can anyone put me out of my misery and tell me what game I’m thinking of?
(go on, you like a challenge)
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phuzz: most likely it was Brian Lara’s Cricket. I prefer “Owzat” for the spectrum myself – it still makes no sense though.
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I’m actually a big fan of this series, I’ve been playing it for years (although it was only last year that they upgraded to 3-D match views) kinda think…football manager but with cricket, and you get some idea
And yes, you need a basic working knowledge of cricket!
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You know, I was actually really excited when I saw the title for this post. After becoming completely engrossed in Worldwide Soccer Manager 2008 (as Football Manager is known here in the States), I actually wanted to try out a cricket game to get inside another sport not popular in the US that I will never be a fan of.
No, seriously.
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Just in case you thought they couldn’t make cricket any drier and more boring.
I kid, I still enjoy watching cricket. Just not when my home nation is playing. They have an alarming tendency to beat everyone. It gets boring after a while.
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I don’t like cricket…
I love it. But not as much as the bats do, apparently. You’re a dirty boy Kieron, even with the funny.
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“How do they manage 90% of the cricket experience: the ‘tea and sandwiches’ stage? Presumably some sort of six hour long quicktime event.”
As already hinted at, it’s ‘beer and sandwiches’, surely? A minigame that has the benefit of being even more fun if you LARP it.
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Heh. I know the bloke behind this series. He used to go out with a friend of mine then dumped her horribly. So don’t buy it. That’ll show him.
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The previous version was actually really quite good, and I only have a passing interest in cricket. The match engine in this one is a great touch.
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If I was ever playing cricket that game would be a way more interesting for me ^^
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After playing this game for a good few hours, I can report it’s actually pretty addictive. Quite buggy, and could do with some way of sorting names for when you are picking your squad, but it really manages to capture some of the excitement of a Test Match. The system seems to fall apart slightly in the shorter forms of the game, but the balance is just right for the Test Match.
BRB, just come back 1-1 in the series with New Zealand, time to finish the Kiwis off!
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The only cricket game worth playing
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Doesn’t beat Stick Cricket.
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