Online play marks the next in the Brian Lara series as a something to watch. What with the Cricket World Cup underway in the West Indies at the time of the game's release, and being shown at a reasonable hour; and with Lara's Windies doing better than had previously been expected, the chance to go online and play with cricket fans worldwide has never been more enticing.

Because the game is tied into the International Cricket Council (ICC) you're not going to have to make do with players c ... more >>

Online play marks the next in the Brian Lara series as a something to watch. What with the Cricket World Cup underway in the West Indies at the time of the game's release, and being shown at a reasonable hour; and with Lara's Windies doing better than had previously been expected, the chance to go online and play with cricket fans worldwide has never been more enticing.

Because the game is tied into the International Cricket Council (ICC) you're not going to have to make do with players called Ferdie Flintlock or Richie Pounding when you can play with the real player names - and their skill-sets (excluding pedalo-tipping).

Once you've played a few games - either online or off - using the new in-game camera system, you can then start to refer to the in-depth player stats. These, as any real cricket fan knows, are the heart of the matter. Decent stats enable you to select the form players and the up-and-comers, to exercise your judgement to drop those under-achievers or one-hit wonders who might otherwise infect a perfectly good Test or ODI team.

Gameplay itself has been tweaked and tested (as has the AI) enabling closer and more immediate control of fielders during the over. Bowling also sees the addition of several new techniques (since the Ashes, swing and reverse-swing are much more in the public eye, and now in your control, for example).

Once you've got your placings and players sorted out, there's the newly upgraded training aspect to really hone those skills - or in the case of the novice, a glossary of cricket terminology. Added to all this, we get commentary from the Test Match Special frontman, Jonathan 'Aggers' Agnew among others...and bring on the first ball. << less