Nudge one off the leg stump
The Cricket World Cup is the premier international championship of one-day international cricket. Defensive batting strategies are thrown out the window as players attempt to notch up as many runs as possible in the short space of time allotted and bowlers pull out all the defensive stops in an attempt to reduce damage limitation before they take their turn at the crease. The combination of attack minded batting play and defensive bowling strategies means that, in the world of cricket, it’s about as exciting as the game gets.
Brian Lara International Cricket 07 is the first and only cricket game for the Xbox 360. It attempts to replicate the intensity and excitement of one day cricket through its accessibility, arcade style gameplay and dedicated ICC Cricket World cup mode. The main videogame competitor in the cricket scene is EA’s Cricket 07 (not released on Xbox 360) which has a wealth of options and fairly slow feel to the gameplay, but Brian Lara Cricket 07 is different in so many respects. It does lack the polished presentation that we’ve seen in EA’s cricket title and doesn’t have the abundance of options that it offers, but Codemaster’s effort on the pitch more than makes up for its shortcomings.
Click for larger imageThe success of a cricket game doesn’t rely on excellent presentation or fancy graphics, but relies heavily on getting the three main aspects of the game right: batting, bowling and fielding. Of course, we’d all like to see a game that combines all of these things, but neither of these cricket games has got it completely right. But, if it’s an exciting game of cricket you’re looking for then Brian Lara Cricket 07 is certainly the best option of the two, not to mention the only option on Xbox 360.
Click for larger imageNow, one thing I do remember from my short time playing cricket at school was that batting was always far more exciting than meandering around the pitch scratching my nuts in the hope that the ball might head my way, so with this in mind, I jumped straight into a quick match between England vs. West Indies to test out my batting technique.
