Brian Lara International Cricket Xbox
 Let's
get things straight - a game should be fun, easy to
pick up; but not too easy to affect longevity and
good enough to forget you have a life, friends and
work! Brian Lara International Cricket from
Codemasters is one such game!
It's inevitable given the release
dates that the game would be compared to EA's Cricket
2005, fortunately for Codemasters they have a winner
on their hands with Brian Lara.
Now
I'm not the best gamer in town, in fact I'm one of
the worst, but fortunately I do know my cricket and
I love my games! After playing EA's Cricket 2005 for
a couple of weeks, I found the start level with Brian
Lara refreshingly comfortable and easy to pick up.
There
are four levels to Brian Lara, Village (easiest),
County, Test and Slog Mode. I haven't progressed to
Test level, mostly out of fear I have to say, Village
and County are fairly straight forward but not too
easy to make playing pointless! The game is easy to
pick up and as soon as you have decided on your competition
of choice, it's a matter of seconds before you're
throwing down bouncers or wielding the willow and
hitting sixes over square leg or down to third man.Buy
Brian Lara Now for Xbox and PS2!
You
can choose various competitive modes for example exhibition
mode (fictional names based on the real life models!)
that includes ODI's, Test cricket and the new Double
Wicket. The ICC is represented with the World Cup
and ICC Champions Trophy along with the World XI Series,
Double Wicket tournament and classic matches. Another
interesting option is that of the career player where
you create a player (up to three), choosing his representative
country, batting style and how much sun screen you
have to apply! Along with a training facility via
the nets, every angle is covered.
The game includes all the official
ICC One-Day International teams, with 16 players per
squad, plus stadia from around the world and I mean
all over the World! Rightly concentrating on the major
countries, Brian Lara Cricket manages to capture the
grounds in splendid detail, the lesser known countries
such as Bangladesh have to settle for just the odd
stadium!
Batting is straight forward and fun,
increasing with difficulty from Village to County
to Test as would be expected. All the shots are there
from hooks, pulls, straight and cover drives, edges,
forward defensive and cuts. The buttons used make
it easy to decide between attacking and defensive
shots or whether to leave the ball alone. One of the
great additions to this remake of Brian Lara cricket
is Hawkeye as seen on Channel 4 and Sky Sports.
Hawkeye
kicks in at the end of an over or following a leg-before
appeal and although on a track comes into its own
following the umpires decision. The ball's path and
trajectory is shown along with the reason for not
upholding the appeal, a nice touch.
 Bowling
is slightly harder to master, not so much the action
or decision of what type of ball to bowl, rather the
taking of wickets! I found it so much easier to take
wickets during an ODI or Twenty20 game over a full
blown Test match. You are rewarded when mixing the
deliveries up from straight balls to ones that seam
off the wicket or move through the air with late swing.
Variations in speed and bowling over and around the
wicket are there too, as are the special deliveries
once the confidence meter is full. The short pitched
delivery that takes a batsman's head off are fun,
although I would like to see an option where the batsman
has to retire following a couple of hits to the head!
There's also a curious FMV with the bowler giving
the batsman attitude when he plays and misses, rife
in today's game it does repeat time and time again.
In
Test mode, weather plays its part with play interrupted
by bad weather or the light offered to the batsman
when it gets too dark under cloudy skies. I like this
attention to detail and is certainly a realistic addition
to the game. Buy
Brian Lara Now for Xbox and PS2!
The Save facility offered between
overs is a huge bonus and to be frank a must in the
game. This is one area where Codemasters beats EA's
Cricket 2005 hands down, how they thought it was ok
to launch a game without the option frankly bemuses
me. Few have the time to play hours and ours on end
without taking a break just so that the innings is
completed at Test level. It just doesn't work.
My favourite part of the game has
to be the replay. The shots look great, fluid and
just how they should look - that's all you can ask
for. Brian Lara doesn't have the in depth stats that
EA's game offers and although it isn't everything,
more stats would have been nice. My major gripe with
the game is the lack of opportunity to throw the ball
direct at the stumps or the choice of ends, you can
only throw to the wicket keeper throughout.
Comparing
the two games as I have to, Codemasters is the game to buy, EA's is slick and stats driven
but the game play is incredibly hard. At least with
Codemasters the entry level is obtainable straight
from the off and as you improve, the levels sustain
the challenge and interest. At least I made it to
3 figures on my first attempt!! For me, there's only
one Brian Lara !!! 8 1/2 out of 10
- More stats next time guys ! Buy
Brian Lara Now for Xbox and PS2!
Back
to Book Review Index
334notout.com blog: Deep Fine Leg - Latest Posts
| 
