It’s really “Childish”! – Cricket Captain 2009 Review

History

International Cricket Captain Series has achieved a lot of popularity as it provided the gamers to experience being the captain of the team or a coach. ICC III was one of the best releases of this series and was on the top list in UK.

In the year 2009, the game was not expected to be released after Empire went into administration but luckily it was released and published by the Childish Things after gaining the copyrights.

Graphics

At first look, the graphics are not so eye catching. There is not a big improvement in the graphics from ICC 2008. However, the good thing is that at the main screen there is the Tips section which will help you to play better. Each time you will start your game or will go to the Main menu, you will be able to see new tips.

Though the graphics of the menus are not so good but the in-game graphics are quite good. There is an improvement in the graphics of 3D previews. The players with their matching hair colour and skin colour according to their nationalilities, the stadium graphics and the motions are really improved. Though you may not like the bowling actions as they are a bit jerky but you will surely enjoy watching the realistic shots.

The best part is the Hawk-eye prediction. You may be able to see it in more than one angle.

Sound/Music

The sound is not bad but it can be improved. The sound of crowds in stadium is not realistic. You may not get the environment in the stadium like you expect. However the sounds of the shots are quite good.

Gameplay

Coming to the gameplay part, the game is still not impressive. In T20 mode, it was surprising to see that the scores were really fluctuating. After two overs, it was 23/1 and after 20 overs it was just 72/4. It’s quite strange to see that with 6 wickets remaining, players were really too defensive and not even taking risks. The good part in this was that there were some early breakthroughs for the team on fielding. Another strange thing is that you may be able to see two maiden overs in T20 mode which seems to be unrealistic.

There were more strange things like team batting just at run-rate around 3 per over with 9 wickets left, David Warner playing at strike rate 52.8 and also no risky shots in the death overs which is really not impressive at all for the hardcode gamers.

If the game is compared to another simulation and management cricket game Cricket Coach 2009 then this year it is not able to beat Cricket Coach 2009 and in fact the game was not a big improvement over the 2008 version whereas Cricket Coach 2009 is a big improved game with new features.

Customizability
The most disappointing thing is the lack of patching ability. The game can’t be edited at all rather than just changing the player names and initials. However, Childish Things has provided an update and will be providing updates for the game.

Buy it or not?
I would be recommended you to try out the game first before buying as this is not the best work of Childish Things. There are some good points too like the 3D preview which is not yet available in any other cricket simulation game and also the ability to view the preview of any ball just by clicking.