International Cricket Captain (series)

International Cricket Captain, often known as ICC for short, is a series of cricket management video games by Empire Interactive. It rose to popularity in 1998 following the release of the first PC-based game in the series. The most recent version of the game is International Cricket Captain 2010.

The concept for International Cricket Captain was the brainchild of Chris Child, who programmed the original game engine as a university project. The player takes control of an English County Cricket squad with the aim of leading them to success in the domestic competition and ultimately being asked to take up the position of England manager. There is also an added option in later games in the ICC series to take control of one of the other Test playing nations.

Taking inspiration from the hugely successful Championship Manager series of games, most aspects of a management sim are present in ICC, with the ability to coach players on their individual skills, scout opposition and buy and sell players at the end of each season. There are also comprehensive statistics available in the form of career stats pages for each player and team. Graphs and charts help the gamer to select the strongest team possible against particular opposition.

Transition to console
Although mainly a PC based series, there have been console cross-overs, most notably for ICC 2001 which appeared on the PlayStation. However the PS version was limited in features compared to its PC cousin and as a result was not very successful. Aside from the lack of on-line play capability, gamers noted that the transition to the console meant for longer loading periods and a slightly more tedious controller-based interface.

Game engine revamp
ICC III was released on 6 July 2007 including a new algorithmic method of calculating player performances and a 3D match engine with motion captured shots. These changes are arguably a result of the competition that International Cricket Captain now faces from the popular Cricket Coach series, developed by Rockingham Software. The new engine replaces the original graphic highlights which were retained for each of the previous versions of the game, save minor cosmetic tweaks.

Criticism
Over recent years, a common criticism from games reviewers is of the perceived lack of progress in terms of the game's functionality, with the obvious change between versions tending to be limited the updated players and statistics. However, the most recent editions of the game have been released at a price noticeably below that common for new PC titles.