With all the deeply sad news surrounding this year’s Cricket World Cup, it would be nice to have a videogame that allowed the escapism you need in order to forget about Bob Woolmer’s untimely death, and play something that stays as true to the game as possible, but at the same time being incredibly fun. Up steps Brian Lara then (or Ricky Ponting, for the Australians), but is the game something fans will enjoy, or will the game have it’s own set of horrors?

As soon as the disc boots up, a great sense of happiness will surround you, as the chirpy theme tune kicks in with a neat intro, suggesting that the game is full of life and flair. Many will probably leap into a quick game of cricket, desperate to see the visuals and see how the game plays. Doing this will result in immediate disappointment; the controls don’t come naturally, hence why there is a pretty extensive “Tutorial” mode available for budding batsmen to tackle before leaping into a game. The tutorial covers everything required in a game of cricket: how to bowl, how to bat and how to field. The controls that once seemed so perplexing before the tutorial are suddenly dead simple, with little practice required before you get the hand of the game. They actually aren’t that complex, and in time will be second nature to you as you smash balls out of the ground easily.

There are a whole host of different modes available to play in. Having just learnt the controls, you might want to quickly retry that ODI with a maximum of ten overs, just to get a feel for the game. During your ODI, you have he chance to test the controls just learnt from the tutorial, so you’ll probably immediately try and hit a ball for six. Unfortunately, regardless of difficulty setting, it’s not nearly that simple. The game, just as real cricket does, demands that timing is spot on for the best result. Hitting the ball too late or too early when going for a big hit will give the opposition the perfect chance to catch you out, losing a precious wicket. As such, each and every ball requires concentration, effort and focus. Pressing B will result in you swinging for the ball and going for the big hit, but you could play it safe by pressing A which results in the batsman hitting the ball along the floor. X is simply a block shot and you’ll score few if any runs from this type of shot, with Y making the batsman leave the ball, and not playing a stroke. There is little help in the game on getting your timing right, something you have to adjust to and learn on your own; again, just like real cricket.

When starting a ODI, or any other game mode, there is a coin toss to decide who gets to bat first and who gets to bowl first. Something very simple, but something distinctly lacking in other sport games, most notably any football series. Obviously the whole point of cricket as a batting side is to rack up as many runs as possible, leaving the opposition with a mountain that is hopefully too tall to climb. This can be done by hitting boundaries or, if the ball was hit well but the timing was just a split second out, running between the wicket. Once the ball has been played, pressing Y will result in both your batsmen running to the other end. You can do this as many times as needed before the ball is returned; being run out is not what you want to happen. To aim, you simply move the left stick in the direction you’d like the ball to go, then position yourself. The system works excellently, with a Picture-in-Picture mode being activated once the ball has been hit. With this, you can see the position of your batsmen in the little window in the top left hand corner, whilst the main screen shows the ball travelling and any fielders that might be getting closer to throwing the ball back, allowing you to decide whether or not running for another run is worth it.

Once all your wickets have fallen, or if you won the toss and elected to field first, you will need the other skills you learnt: how to bowl, how to take catches and how to get potential runouts. The bowling aspect of the game is probably the harder part of the game in comparison to batting, especially against the CPU. When first starting out, it will seem like no ball you bowl will ever force a mistake, as you get whacked for fours or sixes repeatedly. When you begin experimenting more and trying new things, you’ll soon be able to force the error, giving you a breakthrough. Whether it be with the slower ball (Y), or by spinning the ball one way or another (X and B), you’ll get the hang of it eventually. Combine that with making the ball move in the air with the use of LB and RB, and wickets will be falling all over the place in no time.

One extra thing that both batsmen and bowlers have is a Confidence rating. If the Confidence bar located in the bottom left of the screen is maxed out, then special shots are available, and special deliveries are available. The bowler can deliver a Yorker and a Bouncer, creating difficult times for the Batsmen. The Batsmen themselves have the ability to “Dance down the wicket”, where they charge towards a shot for extra power, but has extra risks attached. It’s great fun experimenting, finding out what you can and can’t do. Confidence can be gained by hitting the ball and scoring runs as a batsman, and by hitting the batsman as a bowler or taking a wicket. Similarly, if the bowler gets smashed for six Confidence drops, and a batsman that gets continually hit by the ball will lose confidence.

When the ball is hit into the air and a fielder is underneath it, you’ll see a bar appear above the fielder’s head with another bar running from beginning to end. This magic bar determines whether or not you make the catch. Ideally, you press A when the bar is in the middle. The camera moves into a perfect position to give you every opportunity to get it right. Get it right and you’ll take the catch, but get it wrong and you’ll drop it. You will have to react quick, or else you won’t get a wicket. Lastly, the bar reappears when fielding a ball that is hit into the open. Your fielders naturally run after the ball, and you can determine which end you through it to, be it the Wicket Keeper’s end or the Bowler’s end. LT and RT determine your choice, and the closer to the sweet spot, the more accurate the throw. When bowling, there is a massive array of different fielding tactics that you can deploy, with the ability to edit a fielding formation to suit your wants and needs accordingly.

Whilst this might seem complicated to read, in practice it is pretty simple if you stick with it. Eventually you will get more confident and want to explore some of the other game’s features. Naturally, there is the World Cup 2007 to be played, the ICC Champions Trophy 2006, Custom Test, Custom 20 Over Match and of course the Custom ODI. All modes can be well modified. For example, in ODIs you can determine how many overs are played, whether fielding restrictions apply and so on. The World Cup and Champions Trophy modifications allow you to determine at what stage you enter the competition at. However don’t think you can try and beat the Achievement the easy way by just playing the final of the World Cup, as that doesn’t work.

Unfortunately, if you step away from the two licenced tournaments, then you will discover that none of the players have their real names. It’s disappointing, but the full names do at least feature in some part of the game. The kits are also not licenced outside of the two main competitions.

There is commentary throughout the game and, by and large, Codemasters have done a good job. Provided by Jonathan Agnew, David Gower, Ian Bishop, Bill Lawry and Tony Greig, they say pretty much the same thing, but it is nice to have different voices to mix it up a bit. However, there is a general lack of atmosphere on the crowd’s part. Admittedly, cricket isn’t as wild as traditional English football, so chanting wasn’t expected. But is it too much to ask that when a wicket falls, more than 15 people cheer? Home or Away, it makes no difference, and this is disappointing.

What about mates then? Well you can play offline or online with up to four people. However, that four for online includes two local players for each team. Therefore it won’t be four online players, but you and a mate against two other friends. Still, it’s a nice addition and works quite well. Once in the game, nothing is left out, including the commentary. There is also no lag whatsoever, which is just as well considering the game is all about timing. There aren’t a great amount of people playing the game unfortunately, so it’s not always easy to find a game, but out of four games that I played, no-one quit once. Cricket is the true gentleman’s game even on Xbox Live. It takes a little longer than single player because you do have to wait occasionally, those kind of people who love to watch replays slow it down a bit. But nonetheless, the game is great over Live, and is exactly the same as the single player.

Apart from the lack of a crowd atmosphere, there are other small niggles that irritate a little bit. Seven times out of ten, when the ball is thrown back to the Wicket Keeper, he will knock the bails off. This results in a cutscene back to the umpire shaking his head. Only minor, but irritating because the runout was never on in the first place. The occasional overthrow will occur from time to time, and whilst realistic, you won’t understand why the fielder didn’t move; it looks a bit silly. Overall the visuals themselves aren’t groundbreaking, but you can tell who is who as the player likeness is pretty much spot on. There are also a couple of glitches. More often than not, when a batsman is bowled, the ball will pass straight through him. Close inspection of the replay clearly highlights that. Again it’s disappointing. However there are some nice touches elsewhere, such as all the unlockable kit that you can get. Ranging from Batting trophies to Bowling Trophies, and new bats and pads, there’s stuff to keep you going for a good while. There is also the ability to create you own team and your own player. The creation is somewhat limited when compared to any of the the WWE games, but it does the job well enough.

When it comes down to it, the game is great for any cricket fan. In recent years other offerings haven’t been as great, but this one certainly breaks the mould. You might be wise to question the longetivity of the game, but if you love Achievements, enjoy unlocking new kit and photos, creating your own character and team or have a mate who you like to play Test series with, then it’s a game to keep. The game isn’t perfect by any means; the Wicket Keeper problem will grate, and you’ll be bitterly disappointed with the lack of an atmosphere in a game that truly deserves one. However the game has decent commentary, provides a challenge that few other games do at the moment, and is a lot of fun over Xbox Live with a mate. There isn’t another cricket game out there at the moment, so it’s easy to get carried away, but the game is worthy of any fan’s time, and is a lot more fun than just watching the game.

Final Score: 8 out of 10 - Good (How do we rate games?)