[{"TitleName":"Cricket Captain","Publisher":"D&H Games","Author":"Adam Parker, John de Salis, Shaun G. McClure, Tony Huggard","YearOfRelease":"1988","ZxDbId":"0001149","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Sinclair Issue 67, Jul 1991","Price":"£1.95","ReleaseDate":"1991-06-13","Editor":"Andy Ide","TotalPages":68,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Andy Ide\r\nPregnant Art Editor: Sal Meddings\r\nNew Art Editor: Andy Ounsted\r\nGames Editor: James Leach\r\nStaff Writer: Linda Barker\r\nAdvertising Manager: Simon Moss\r\nProduction Coordinator: Melissa Parkinson\r\nPublisher: Jane Richardson\r\nPromotions Manager: Michele Harris\r\nPublishing Assistant: Tamara Ward\r\nGroup Publisher: Greg Ingham\r\nCirculation Director: Sue Hartley\r\n\r\nYour Sinclair, Future Publishing [redacted]\r\n\r\nSubscriptions: Computer Posting [redacted]\r\nDistribution: MMC [redacted]\r\n\r\nCover Illustration: Nick Davies\r\nISSN 0269 6983\r\nABC July-Dec 1990 60,368\r\n\r\nYS comes to you from the shed in the garden behind the building that produces (or that's got lots of little people inside it who produce) Commodore Format, ST Format, Amiga Format, New Computer Express, Amstrad Action, Classic CD, PC Plus, 8000 Plus, Sega Power, Amiga Power, Amiga Shopper, PC Answers & Needlecraft"},"MainText":"D&H Games\r\n£10.99\r\nReviewer: James Leach\r\n\r\nCricket is the ideal sport for lazy people. Just think about it - you get paid to stand around in the middle of a field for a few hours, getting a suntan and occasionally having to jog after a ball that gently rolls in your general direction. What a life! Every so often you have to make a bit of an effort and do some batting or bowling (or shouting \"Howzat!\"), but for the most part it's pure loafing heaven.\r\n\r\nSo what better game to convert onto your Speccy, eh? All you need to do is get an extension cable, go outside, then play this game in a suitable field - you can enjoy all the excitement as if it was the real thing. Hurrah!\r\n\r\nSUMMER NIGHT'S CRICKET\r\n\r\nAnd with a summer (of sorts) upon us, D&H Games thought a cricket game might be just the ticket. Better still, they decided to go for one with graphics (of other sorts). But hold on! Before I go any further I should point out that cricket and strategy games are, for many people, the 2 most boring things on the surface of this planet (so if you fall into that category then you'd better not read any further because you might die of utter tedium).\r\n\r\nRight. Now I've only got the interested people left,. Gather round. In Cricket Captain, you are (guess what?) the captain and manager of a cricket team. This consists of looking down on the pitch, with very small blobs representing the peeps involved. If your team is batting you just have to sit and watch as the bowlers chuck spinners at your guys. A line is then drawn from the bowler to the batsman, with another line showing where he hits the ball. If it goes through a fielder, you're caught. And if it reaches the edge of the pitch it's 4 runs. Easy-peasy stuff, but if you're a cricket fan you could get hooked.\r\n\r\nD&H have speeded up the action (phew!) so while every important shot is shown, the boring ones aren't, so the overs tend to zip by very quickly. It's a sort of highlights-only system. What it means is that a full Test Match takes about a quarter of an hour to play. During this time you can change your batting order and your bowlers, and also move the fielders around.\r\n\r\nWhat is impressive is the accuracy of the programming. It includes all the possible ways of being out, dozens of different shots to play and even silly things like dropping the ball when it should be a safe catch. And the way the runs are scored is also very similar to the real thing, so when your best batsmen approach their centuries (isn't that a bit old? Ed) you'll get more and more excited until you let rip with a huge 'Hurrah!\" when they make it.\r\n\r\nALL ABOARD, (CRICKET) CAPTAIN!\r\n\r\nSo really, Cricket Captain is for cricket fans only. Surprise surprise. It has the disadvantage of making you sit there with nothing to do for long periods, but if you watch cricket on the telly you'll be used to this kind of thing anyway (yawn).\r\n\r\nThere are 2 tournaments, as well as league matches and all the usual management-sim options that you'd expect from a D&H game (buying players, training, swopping, spying, bribing, you know the stuff).\r\n\r\nSo it's not all sitting there twiddling your thumbs - but a lot of it is. All in all, it's not that different from the real thing. If I were you I'd stand up, strap on your pads and go out and do exactly the same but in the sunshine instead.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"If you like management sim and cricket, this might 'bowl' you 'over', but the appeal is limited.","Page":"64,65","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"James Leach","Score":"67","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"Derbyshire are 'in'. (Er, this doesn't mean that they're trendy or anything - they're just trying to hit the ball.)"},{"Text":"The scoreboard, showing what stupid name cricketers can sometimes have (as well as who's in and out. Oo-er)."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Life Expectancy","Score":"73%","Text":""},{"Header":"Instant Appeal","Score":"61%","Text":""},{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"62%","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictiveness","Score":"64%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"67%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Sinclair Issue 52, Apr 1990","Price":"£1.7","ReleaseDate":"1990-03-18","Editor":"Matt Bielby","TotalPages":92,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Matt Bielby\r\nArt Editor: Kevin Hibbert\r\nProduction Editor: Andy Ide\r\nTechnical Consultant: Jonathan Davies\r\nContributors: Ollie Alderton, Robin Alway, Marcus Berkmann, Amanda Cook, Jo Davies, Jonathan Davies, Cathy Fryett, Mike Gerrard, Simon Goggin, Sean Kelly, Duncan MacDonald, David McCandless, Paul Morgan, Rich Pelley, Catherine Peters, David Wilson\r\nAdvertising Manager: Mark Salmon\r\nAdvertising Executive: Simon Moss\r\nPublisher: Greg Ingham\r\nProduction Manager: Ian Seager\r\nProduction Coordinator: Melissa Parkinson\r\nSubscriptions/Mail Order: The Old Barn [redacted]\r\nDistributors: SM Distribution [redacted]\r\n\r\nYour Sinclair is published by Future Publishing Ltd [redacted]\r\n\r\n©Future Publishing 1990. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without written permission."},"MainText":"CRICKET CAPTAIN\r\n\r\nThis, though, is another kettle of halibut entirely. Whole Grand Prix is broadly accurate (or at least accurate enough to stop you blanching at every inaccuracy), Cricket Captain is all over the place. It's pretty clear here that no-one knows too much about the game beyond the most basic there's-this-geezer-with-the-ball. Otherwise how could you explain the way the best bowlers are always the best batsmen, something that doesn't happen more than once a generation in real life? In choosing the statistics to hone in on, the writers have fundamentally misunderstood the appeal of cricket, and perhaps more important the appeal of the statistics themselves. The whole notion of the 'transfer market' too is completely inaccurate. And most frustrating of all, each team is full of those randomly generated names we all remember from Football Director II - W Bukby, J Lijten and so forth. I recognise that it's probably harder to do a decent cricket sim than any other - no-one has come even close on any computer - but this is well below D&H's usual high standards.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"Ridiculously poor - programmed by people who haven't a clue what they're talking about.","Page":"56","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Marcus Berkmann","Score":"38","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"The view for a plush penthouse overlooking Lords or just a crap cricket management sim? Mmm, right first time."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Life Expectancy","Score":"35%","Text":""},{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"12%","Text":""},{"Header":"Addictiveness","Score":"25%","Text":""},{"Header":"Instant Appeal","Score":"40%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"38%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Sinclair Issue 76, Apr 1992","Price":"£2.2","ReleaseDate":"1992-03-12","Editor":"Andy Hutchinson","TotalPages":68,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"MAD? US?\r\n\r\nWe are all born mad, and some remain so. Here at YS we've clung onto our insanity for as long as possible. So, what's your silliest possession.\r\n\r\nEditor: Andy (Battery powered latex hand) Hutchinson\r\nArt Editor: Andy (Clockwork rowing hippo) Ounsted\r\nDeputy Editor: Linda (Blue toy piano) Barker\r\nActing Staff Writer: Jon (Welded together Slinky) Pillar\r\nArt Assistant: Maryanne (Puddles the squeaky penguin) Booth\r\nAdvertising Manager: Cheryl (Badge kissed by Billy Idol) Beesley\r\nProduction Coordinator: Lisa (Groucho Marx slippers) Read\r\nPublisher: Jane (Her secret diaries) Richardson\r\nPromotions Manager: Michele (A pair of wild pig tusks) Harris\r\nGroup Publisher: Greg (Snuff Rock EP by Alberto Y Lost (sic) Trios Paranoias) Ingham\r\nCirculation Director: Sue (Teenage diary written in indecipherable shorthand) Hartley\r\n\r\nYour Sinclair (Inflatable Shark), Future (Kevin Hibbert) Publishing [redacted]\r\n\r\nSubscriptions: The Old Barn [redacted]\r\n\r\nCover Illustration: Nick (Cymbal playing monkey) Davis\r\nISSN 0269 6983\r\nABC July-Dec 1991 59,059\r\n\r\nYour Sinclair eats 15 packets of Wotsits and Ringos with these slurpy love machines: Commodore Format (1982 Thundercats album), Amstrad Action (Painted dough frog), Amiga Format (Inflatable shocking pink flamingo), PCW Plus (Padded bra), PC Answers (Stick of Spinal Tap rock), PC Plus (Boring suit), Sega Power (Frog in a rubber-ring sat inside a hamster ball that's half full of water), Amiga Power (Deflated inflatable black bat), Amiga Shopper (A 1/50th scale 1956 steam engine), Classic CD (Airfix snake), Needlecraft (Pele memorabilia), Mountain Biking UK (Four copies of the editor's own book on bike repair), PC Format (Maggie Thatcher glove puppet), Public Domain (Battery powered dolphin), ST Format (Lump of coal the dog dug up in the fields one morning), Total! (Self made dog poo) and Today's Vegetarian (Baby teeth in a little jar).\r\n\r\nBut what we really want to know is... how come all the girls you fall in love with never fancy you and how come all the ones you don't do?"},"MainText":"D&H Games\r\n£9.99 cassette\r\n[redacted]\r\nReviewer: Rich Pelley\r\n\r\nCricket, eh? The classic English past time, giving lots of elderly mad people a good excuse to fall asleep in deckchairs, occasionally waking up to mumble some half-hearted hurrahs. Anyway - the game. \"Ridiculously poor - programmed by people who haven't a clue what they're talking about\" unanimously concluded the late Dr Berkman in April 1990. Just to check that it wasn't merely Dr B who didn't know what he's talking about, I had a few goes and now, a few games the wiser, can safely ascertain that Cricket Manager really is, if you'll excuse the expression, a whopping great steaming pile of poo.\r\n\r\nThe game mainly falls down in two areas. Firstly, it's a management game, but I didn't actually think that being a management game would count as an 'area'. So firstly, it falls down on the programming. Boring lists, UDG defined graphics, unsensitive key presses, superfluous pauses even to draw up tables, no sound, predominantly BASIC - look wise Cricket Captain even out-craps the antique Football Manager, and at least Footy Manager was vaguely realistic. Cricket Captain isn't (area 2); the best bowlers are always the best batsmen (since when?), winning seems more like luck than skill and the whole idea of buying and selling players in a cricket game seems a bit dubious. Personally, I'd rather take a babe on an all-expenses paid holiday to Hawaii than play this boring, unoriginal and unrealistic management re-release.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"60","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Rich Pelley","Score":"24","ScoreSuffix":"%"}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"It was later ruled that Leicester had been playing at an unfair advantage when their captain equipped the team with laser rifles."},{"Text":"There was really nothing else for it - Buggins would just have to hit the thing."}],"BlurbText":[{"Text":"BLIM!\r\n\r\nThe game of cricket was invented in 1533 by Nobbin O'Thurb. His original idea was to have 22 men in a field for three days doing nothing. The ball was added later."}],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Overall","Score":"24%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Sinclair User Issue 124, Jun 1992","Price":"£2.2","ReleaseDate":"1992-05-18","Editor":"Alan Dykes","TotalPages":68,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Alan 'Serendipity' Dykes\r\nDesign: Yvette 'Africa' Nicholls\r\nSU Crew: Garth 'Manana' Sumpter, Steve 'Extensions' Keen, Ed 'Radion' Laurence, Pete 'Invoice' Gerrard, Graham 'Roadworks' Mason, Phillip 'Cray' Fisch, Tony 'Missing person' Navqi, Jules 'Faggot' Waisham\r\nAd Manager: Tina 'Highgate' Zanelli\r\nAd Production: Matthew 'Levis' Walker\r\nMarketing Man.: Mark 'Psychographic Segmentation' Swallow\r\nMarketing Persons: Sarah 'Polkadot' Ewing, Sarah 'Dublin' Hilliard\r\nPublisher: Mike 'V8 Supercharged' Frey\r\nManaging Director: Terry 'Just mingling' Pratt\r\n\r\n(c)1992 EMAP IMAGES\r\nPhone: [redacted] (is there anyone out there?)\r\nFax: [redacted] (Information at the end of your eyelids)\r\n[redacted]\r\n\r\nColour by Colourtech\r\nPrinted by Kingfisher\r\nTypeset by Altyp Inc\r\n\r\nAbsolutely no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in an electronic retrieval system or used to kill wasps and bumble bees this summer without the express permission of the publisher. Speaking of wasps and bees, have you seen the size of the blighters this year? Frightening! Special thanks to Wendy Spridgeon for putting up with Theo, I know this pleasure was all yours, and hello to Rob and Goodbye to George, erstwhile giant of the SU Towers post room, your witty reparice will be sorely missed."},"MainText":"Label: Cult\r\nMemory: 48K/128K\r\nPrice: £3.99 Tape\r\nReviewer: Tony Naqvi\r\n\r\nZzzzzzzzzz! Wha... oh.. sorry, must have fallen asleep. Where were we? Ah yes, Cricket Captain. Not being much of a cricket or sports management sim fan, I must confess I... I was surprised by this game.\r\n\r\nAs with all management sims, be they football or cricket or any sport you're the boss of an unlikely bunch with a duty to train them, pay them, transfer them etc. Then generally sit back and let them get on with it, hoping (in my case usually in vain) that they'll win a game.\r\n\r\nThe idea of this game is to win the J.P. & C.A. Leagues (??? Not named after anything obvious are they?) and the two associated cups. You must work your way up the league table, and come out on top with a perfect team to win, but naturally at the end of the day it's the participation, not the winning that counts.\r\n\r\nAs soon as the game is loaded, you are presented with a menu. The menu displays sub-menus which include: Game, Team, Bowlers, Scout, Injuries, Youth Team, Fixtures, J.P. League table, C.A. League table and Net Training. Using these menus, which regulate the squad. It's new, old and available members, it's rival teams strength's and weaknesses etc. It is up to you to try a make as good a team as you possibly can.\r\n\r\nAfter each match the game results are displayed along with the rest of the day's results and you can see how well you're doing by selecting the league table menus. In all of this the graphics are clear and text is readable. Screens take some time to update but the in match play sequences do look pretty.\r\n\r\nUnfortunately that's it though. Cricket captain is a lot prettier than many other management sims but the same old format has been repeated again. If you're REEAALLY into cricket, you might like this game, but otherwise I can't recommend it.","ReviewerComments":["Cricket Captain certainly didn't bowl this commentator over. However those who buy management sims usually know what they are letting themselves in for so fans of the genre who are also cricket maniacs could conceivably find it interesting.\r\nAlan Dykes"],"OverallSummary":"An initially bland cricket game, suitable only for cricket and management sim fanatics who want to take a break from more exciting games.","Page":"19","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Toni Naqvi","Score":"43","ScoreSuffix":"%"},{"Name":"Alan Dykes","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"JP League or CA League?"},{"Text":"Simulated cricket play."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":[{"Header":"Graphics","Score":"79%","Text":""},{"Header":"Sound","Score":"38%","Text":""},{"Header":"Playability","Score":"53%","Text":""},{"Header":"Lastability","Score":"40%","Text":""},{"Header":"Overall","Score":"43%","Text":""}],"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]