Product Description

Brian Lara International Cricket 2007 expands the series trademark fluid, dynamic gameplay mechanics to deliver a thoroughly entertaining and competitive game that captures all the tension, skill and intensity of world-class international cricket. Thanks to the official ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 content, Brian Lara International Cricket 2007 features licensed players, including world cricket stars Andrew Flintoff, Ricky Ponting, Mahendra Dhoni, Muttiah Muralitharan and of course, Brian Lara himself.
In addition to players, the game leads with a dedicated ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 mode featuring all the official teams, stadia, kits and equipment of the tournament. Further modes include a fully licensed ICC Champions Trophy competition and exhibition matches including One Day Games, Test Matches and exciting 20-over run fests. When you want to get competitive for real, Brian Lara International Cricket 2007 delivers online competitive play on PC (LAN and online) and Xbox Live.

Brian Lara International Cricket 2007 adds extra depth to the series complete batting, bowling and fielding experience whilst retaining its trademark accessible playability. The acclaimed batting play sees the introduction of subtle edges, sweepshots and the ability to use your feet to dance down wicket and smash the ball over the boundary for six.

Bowling sees a much-improved set of delivery types, thanks to changes in the way the ball swings in the air and reacts off the pitch, showcasing Shane Warnes huge variation of spinning deliveries and Steve Harmisons raw pace and even reverse swing as the ball degrades. In Fielding, theres a new reflex-testing slip catch system and players can now be run out at both ends and be stumped by alert wicket keepers.

A striking advancement is the photo-realistic visuals; with hundreds of real player likenesses being modelled in high detail, complete with animated facial expressions to capture the

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7453 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Codemasters
• Released on: 2007-03-23
• Rating: To Be Announced
• Platform: Windows XP

Manufacturer's Description:
Brian Lara International Cricket 2007 expands the series’ trademark fluid, dynamic gameplay mechanics to deliver a thoroughly entertaining and competitive game that captures all the tension, skill and intensity of world-class international cricket. Thanks to the official ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 content, Brian Lara International Cricket 2007 features licensed players, including world cricket stars Andrew Flintoff, Ricky Ponting, Mahendra Dhoni, Muttiah Muralitharan and of course, Brian Lara himself.

In addition to players, the game leads with a dedicated ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 mode featuring all the official teams, stadia, kits and equipment of the tournament. Further modes include a fully licensed ICC Champions’ Trophy competition and exhibition matches including One Day Games, Test Matches and exciting 20-over run fests. When you want to get competitive for real, Brian Lara International Cricket 2007 delivers online competitive play on PC (LAN and online) and Xbox Live.

Brian Lara International Cricket 2007 adds extra depth to the series’ complete batting, bowling and fielding experience whilst retaining its trademark accessible playability. The acclaimed batting play sees the introduction of subtle edges, sweepshots and the ability to use your feet to dance down wicket and smash the ball over the boundary for six.

Bowling sees a much-improved set of delivery types, thanks to changes in the way the ball swings in the air and reacts off the pitch, showcasing Shane Warne’s huge variation of spinning deliveries and Steve Harmison’s raw pace and even reverse swing as the ball degrades. In Fielding, there’s a new reflex-testing slip catch system and players can now be run out at both ends and be stumped by alert wicket keepers.

A striking advancement is the photo-realistic visuals; with hundreds of real player likenesses being modelled in high detail, complete with animated facial expressions to capture the intensity and emotion of international cricket. Stadia, including all eight official World Cup venues, have also been created with a new level of textured detail and they make use of proprietary shader technology for realistic, subtle and changing lighting effects, such as time of day and weather.

Customer Reviews

Wide!
If I was a game `test pilot' and Codemasters presented me with the `Brian Lara Cricket 2007' disc on the premise that it was a prototype still in development, I would be inclined to deliver a charitable verdict and say that whilst the AI needs a LOT of improvement before the product becomes truly playable, the game has the potential to be fairly decent. However, given that this game has been released by Codemasters as the finished product and with an asking price of between £20-£30, my verdict has to be somewhat less than charitable: BLC 2007 is, I'm afraid, crap.

The terminal failing of the game is found with the AI and it seems that Codemasters have seriously misconceived what people who buy video cricket games actually want the game to do. The fact that the default setting over length for ODIs is a mere 6 per team should immediately alert gamers to the fact that the AI is geared toward playing `commando cricket' and appears almost entirely incapable of modifying this approach to a level appropriate to a game of longer duration. If you elect to play a full 50 overs ODI or a four innings test match, you'll find that the game quickly deteriorates into a total farce. The ludicrously aggressive nature of the AI means that on the first over of a test match, computer controlled batsmen are attempting to hook you into Row Z on just about every delivery and frantically dashing between the stumps on the slightest nudge or nurdle. Needless to say, about 40% of deliveries pitched at the wicket will send stumps and bales flying in the air whilst run outs occur at the rate of about one every three overs. End result: It's literally child's play to dismiss even top national sides in about twelve overs and for less than a hundred runs. Even putting the game on the optimum `Test' difficulty level makes little discernible difference to proceedings.

The one positive of the game is that when you are playing as the batting side, the game simulates the difficulties of batting fairly well. Direction of shot is controlled by mouse movement whilst timing and selection of shot are controlled by a combination of hotkeys and mouse buttons. The combination allows the gamer to play a full range of authentic strokes as well as enabling very precise shot placement. Batting is further enhanced by the fact that each batsman receives an on-screen confidence metre which can rise and fall with each delivery. If a batsman attempts to play an inappropriate shot, plays and misses, or is struck by the ball, the confidence metre will quickly reach a low point and this in turn makes perfect timing more difficult. The intricacies of the batting set up are however rendered entirely irrelevant by the fact that your computer opposition is completely incapable of setting you decent totals to chase or knocking off a score of more than a hundred.

Beyond the AI issues, the general production values of the game are very poor and the product just reeks of minimal effort World Cup cash in. The menus look like they have been designed as part of a GCSE IT project and have unnecessarily fiddly access routes. There is one song on the `soundtrack' and it's a looped extract of a reggae number which becomes immensely annoying after about ten minutes. Statistical features beloved of cricket fans are entirely absent, scoring wagon wheels are only displayed when a player reaches a half or full century, and even individual scores for batsmen at the crease and required run rate appear on screen only momentarily at the start of each over. But then given the ridiculously brief length of games, had such features been included, they would be all but meaningless.

In summary, to call this game a simulation of `cricket' is verging on breech of the Trade Descriptions Act: if Codemasters re-titled the product `Brian Lara's Larrup-And-Leg-It 2007' or `King of the Swingers' and knocked the asking price down to a tenner, it would be fair description and pricing of a game that has far less entertainment value than Wisden's Almanack.

A Major let down
After being annoyed by the many problems with the 2005 edition, I longed for an update with would provide a far more realistic version. I hoped this game would provide the same fun in batting and playing the various versions of the game, but with a far more 'intelligent' AI. Unfortunately I was met with a mix of new annoyances along with a new graphical presentation.

Starting with the graphics: Whilst it is nice to see more realistic graphics, the reality is without a super computer you find yourself having to settle for second-to-third rate, somewhat fuzzy graphics. Even then unless you are one the lowest level, the bowlers run-up and is often slowed, making it difficult to time your shots. The best update in graphics comes with the stadiums, which are far more realistic and up to date. Unfortunately due to the time taken to develop these, half the world stadiums are missing, meaning that the game does not include a world tour mode.

The leads me on to the games playing options. It appears that the makers have concentrated so much on developing the international tournament modes; they have done the rest of the game somewhat halfheartedly. The lack of the world tour means that you cannot compete in test or one-day series that make up the backbone of the real game. This to me is totally unacceptable. To go along with this, only the international tournaments have the real player names, and you cannot change them!

One change to this game is the fielding requirements; you can no longer rely on the computer to take certain catches for you - you have to do it for yourself. What makes this difficult is the lack of reaction time. If you are not concentrating for a moment you will often miss slip and keeper catches. As an example, after competing something like 20 over's, I had dropped at least 8 slip or keeper catches. This brings me on to my next point - realism.

To give you an idea of the realism contained in this game, in my first over of a test match McGrith (at the game calls him) conceded 11 runs, and the second 22 runs. The players don't seem to know how to block - leading a succession of drives and most notably - lots of catching chances. All this came on test mode - hardly realistic! Also the keeper kept on missing easy throws, leading to extra runs- arguably the most annoying part of the game. On the good side batting is more difficult and the tail-ends can now bat to some degree. At least on the batting side the game is now more realistic.

As a summary this game should only be bought by people with high end computers - especially in the memory department. There are so many problems and limitations to the game I certainly will not be playing it for long. Having been annoyed by the previous titles limitations, I find myself running back to it just happy to see some slip catches taken!

What's it like?
I'll write a review on this game if I ever get passed the shortcut icon. Unfortunately I have run up against the 'emulator software detected by the Starforce Security system' so beloved of Codemasters. The text that is then produced to deal with the situation, and allow access to the game, is less than helpful.