Empire's International Cricket Captain brings yet another sports management game to the PC - attempting to emulate the successes of soccer management games such as Championship Manager and FIFA Soccer Manager. ICC, as it shall now be known, is packaged as a complete cricket management game and as a cricket fanatic myself, I looked forward to beginning my career as a county cricket manager.

The instant feeling you get is that this is in no way an in-depth management simulation. The options of arranging a few training sessions, selecting your team, and controlling the player's aggressiveness throughout a match doesn't exactly give you the feel of being a cricket manager, or should I say captain? The game is certainly immaculately presented and features some visually impressive animation modeled on actual cricketers. ICC could well be described as more of a FIFA style of management game than Championship Manager.

Having taken charge of Middlesex, studied the squad's strengths and weaknesses, and arranged the training, I moved into my first match as captain of the team - a four day county championship match against the mighty Kent. I was somewhat annoyed with the fact that the pitch report was displayed directly after selecting my starting eleven. Having chosen three seamers and one specialist spinner, I was now informed we would be playing on an average pitch which would start to turn later in the game, with that information I would have chosen the extra spinner. Of course, in real-life the captain gets to inspect the pitch before naming his eleven, so why should it be different with ICC?

Having lost the coin toss, our computer opponents chose to bat - a good choice considering the wicket was likely to deteriorate during the next few days. After our two main strike bowlers managed just the one wicket, I decided to bring on our young inexperienced seam bowler. I chose a defensive style of bowling for him along with a defensive field and in only his second over he forced an error from the batsman. You certainly enjoy the moment when your untried seamer bags his debut first-class wicket. This is where the animated action comes into its own, the graphics and commentary work wonderfully well in bringing you the feeling of success when the crucial moment of that partnership breakthrough occurs. You soon realize that ICC manages to recreate that moment of uncertainty that has made Championship Manager such a massive hit with want-to-be soccer managers. Is your batsman about to smash Curtly Ambrose for four, or will his stumps be shattered forcing him to make that somber journey back to the pavilion? All you can do is sit on the edge of your seat and wait for the action to unfold, just like a real manager has to suffer.

Importantly, all the in-game highlights can be configured to suit your tastes giving you the choice of watching complete ball-by-ball action or just the boundaries. Unless you're planning on recreating the entire length of a cricket match in real-time, you'll probably want to configure the action depending on whether your side is batting or bowling. If you don't want to watch your fifth bowler being hit all over the park, just select the view wickets and chances only option.

Back to the management side of things, ICC allows you to set your very own fields and, with the option of looking at which areas a particular batsman has been scoring his runs, you can soon place your fielders in the correct positions to restrict his particular strengths. Other bowling options include the ability to set for fields for both batsman at the same time, not just the batsman on strike, the bowlers line, and his aggressiveness. Bowling outside the off stump is considered to be the most defensive, bowling at middle and off is normal, with middle and leg considered to be the most aggressive. Somewhat strange is the missing feature of having the ability to set the bowlers length, as any cricketing expert will tell you, bowling to the correct length is absolutely crucial to the success of any side bowling.

Having bowled Kent out for a total of 223, we now set about the task of building a solid first innings lead. Batting options are somewhat less in-depth than the bowling, basically you are given the ability to set the aggressiveness of each batsman between overs and then hope they do the business. Of course, you should know each batsman's strengths beforehand. ICC includes all you need to know about each player and remembering to keep a regular check should help ensure your strong players of spin don't throw their wickets away against the quicker bowlers. This is where the option of locking aggression to a particular bowler comes into it's own - ensuring you aren't required to make continuous aggression changes between overs. Batting can be a frustrating affair. There are definite occasions when you feel you have no control over the collapse of your top order. You just have to learn to persevere, take those bad scores on the chin, because even the best teams are prone to the odd batting disaster.

My first game as a cricket captain ended in sweet success. Having amassed a huge score of 466 in our first innings, a lead of 243 runs, we bowled Kent out for 282, knocked off the target of 40, without loss, to secure an impressive ten wicket victory. Not a bad debut as a cricket captain, eh? Sadly things didn't continue in the same vain. The very next day we lost the one day match against Kent and have since struggled to mid-table in both league competitions and have been knocked out of the B&H cup.

ICC is surely a must own title for any cricket enthusiast. Whilst it does indeed lack a few features that could have turned this good game into something very special, it is about as in-depth as a cricket management game can get. The game does suffer from a few bugs and the odd inadvertent crash, most of which have been fixed by a patch recently released, which can cause you to scream when just as your side put in a solid batting performance the game decides to lock-up. So whilst it's not perfect, it is a highly addictive management simulation that gives cricket fans their long awaited chance of taking charge of their favorite county sides.