It’s all a bit of a no-contest at the moment. Until (and perhaps beyond) the next time EA flexes its sizeable cheque book, Brian Lara International Cricket 2007 will become not only the best cricket game on 360, but the only one. Rest assured, anyone interested in the none-perverted use of willow on leather has found an enjoyable, consistent friend. Everyone else though, may find the handful of animation problems and other conceptual issues as immersive as a bat to the face, as you play.

For starters, the series has, of late, been guilty of giving its players just a little too much information. When positioned at the crease, each virtual batsman is fully aware of both the square inch of ground on which each ball will pitch, plus the exact amount of spin it’ll exhibit once it does so. True, there are specialised variants on offer, such as yorkers that disguise themselves until the very last second before release and the small degree of swing applicable via the bumpers, but a panicked stab of the conservative shot button always sees said threats off. A great part of the real-world game is about judging which balls to leave completely due to the chance of edging the ball onto your stumps or into the hands of a fielder. After all, with such a reliable range of safety shots in your armory, you’ll find yourself much more inclined to play outright defensive or ground strokes. Consequently, when the umpire raises his incredibly swift finger it’s normally due to an ever-so-slightly mistimed swing of the bat, rather than any true error of judgement. While it’s a real joy to feel secure enough at the crease to deliver majestic lobs over square men, we’d argue that having such a fine line between wicket-losing buffoonery and ball-losing magnificence seems a little unrealistic (not to mention self-defeating).

Wouldn’t it be fantastic, for example, if the pitch-point crosshair disappeared a split-second before movement becomes forbidden, à la International Superstar Soccer’s penalties or damn near every baseball title? Or even if the landing zone was still marked but spin was denoted by colour, in a similar vein to Rockstar’s bizarre table tennis outing? Anything to bring your own ability into question once you’re trudging back to the pavilion, bat in hand, would be a good addition in our eyes.

So, we’ve established batting is balanced a little too attackingly, but does anything else sour the milk? The long and short of it is ‘yes’. Fielders’ movements appear to have been programmed from a number of stock animations; a fact that leads to a hilarious mess if something relatively unexpected happens. If, for example, a shot is executed that has just enough force to reach the boundary, chasing fielders will sprint after it, jog to a stop once the code tells them the ball’s moving slowly enough to pick up, then start moving again through their collection routine. Trouble is, such nonsense will have allowed enough time to pass for the boundary to already have been breached. Mathematically, that course of events has already happened once the ball’s left the bat, which would be okay if you didn’t have to view such a farce as fielders merely pretend to chase the ball. The same phenomenon occurs reasonably frequently elsewhere too, giving the impression runs are being lost, even though that may not actually be the case in reality.

Despite these flaws though, you can still spend many a pleasant hour trying to improve our national side’s dismal fortunes. Several more welcome changes have been made to the fielding mechanics, including a closerange catch (which momentarily puts proceedings into slow motion) and the ability to throw to a specified end of the pitch using the triggers, rather than just the one. It still takes quite an eye to run someone out in this fashion but it’s reassuring to actually have the option. Though 20-20 matches fall victim somewhat to the ‘slight mistiming’ school of dismissals, as slogs are attempted left, right and centre, test matches can actually scale some rather tense heights. Here, you’re at greater liberty to choose your shots and, while you’ll seldom leave anything outright, the potent safety stroke leaves you free to carefully pick off more careful deliveries, lobbing them right over despairing fielders in full knowledge that you’re not in danger. A similar degree of excitement can also be drained from bowling and fielding, though experimenting with spin proves much more amusing than the ‘offstump or bust’ tactics you must use with everyone else.

Ultimately though, with Brian Lara 2007 it’s the same old sporting story, we’re afraid: anyone interested in the game will curse its faults but find fun nonetheless; anyone who doesn’t care will remain of that mindset at the end of any session. Somewhat predictable we know, but clichés are only clichés because they’re true…

Dave Shaw