As well as the ICC Cup, last year's ICC Champions Trophy event held in India also gets its own dedicated mode, and once again features all eight teams that were involved. The game's flagship mode is the actual ICC Cricket World Cup tournament itself, which features all of the 16 finalists' teams as playable (and arrayed in their real-world tournament groupings). While you're given the option to play one-off Test Matches complete with the requisite two innings per side, most of the modes in International Cricket 2007 revolve around the One Day experience. Limited overs encounters form the crux of International Cricket 2007 (better known as Brian Lara International Cricket in the UK). You'll be hitting boundaries aplenty within minutes of picking up International Cricket 2007. The game's lack of comprehensive Test Match or Tour options as well as real player names only appearing in the World Cup mode may irk cricket tragics, but others looking for a more accessible game to play with friends will find plenty to enjoy. With its focus on easy playability and simple controls, International Cricket 2007 certainly feels more like the limited overs version of the sport-quick, exciting, and with a focus on big hits and high scores. The timing is apt, and not only because of the game's official World Cup licence. But if you're expecting a spot-on simulation of the sport, you'll find yourself stumped.Just as EA's Cricket 07 was released late last year to capitalise on the then-upcoming Ashes Series, Ricky Ponting International Cricket 2007 (or Brian Lara International Cricket 2007, if you live in the UK), from UK developer Codemasters, is being unleashed right in the middle of another major tournament: the ICC Cricket World Cup currently being held in the West Indies. Maybe I'm being a little tough on BLIC07 - it's a reasonably effective swing at a cricket game, with a nice range of shot and bowling types, which suggests that it might find its mark in the multiplayer sector. Helpfully, the Al does its best to balance things out by inexplicably missing simple catches and placing fielders in silly positions, so racking up a bunch of fours and sixes is actually pretty undemanding.
Too often, you find yourself dropping catches you'd expect a five-year-old with no fingers to make, because you couldn't predict when you should be readying your 'catch' button. First, it feels like the controls were designed with the console versions in mind, then shoehorned into a mouse/keyboard mode - the keys are all over the place.
It's also one of the prettier cricket titles out there, at least when it comes to animations - when Freddie Flintoff rubs his arm after receiving a 'wayward' Brett Lee thunderbolt, you find yourself wincing along with the bestubbled porker.īut once you start playing, things start to look rather less dazzling. The gaming world's second most popular Lara returns to the crease, and BLIC07 certainly makes a good opening impression by flaunting its real-world tournaments (the ICC Champion's Trophy and World Cup), accurate player likenesses and commentary from the likes of Gower and Greig.