I must confess that I've never really been into cricket. This is likely due to me being Scottish and the fact that our cricket team is really crap. So are our football and rugby teams of course, but we all support them regardless. Despite my lack of affinity with cricket, I really do enjoy the Cricket World Cup. For a start, it's a series of one day games so you find out who's won in a relatively quick fashion instead of having to sit through ten days' worth of 'action' before the final whistle blows. Secondly, it's something sporty to watch on telly every night when there's little on except the Champions League. So it was for these reasons that took on the new Brian Lara International Cricket 2007 for review, the series debut on the Xbox 360. I'll watch cricket during the day, I thought, and then I can play cricket online at night - perfect!

For any of you who find the prospect of playing a cricket game quite daunting, the game has a very helpful and enlightening tutorial. Whether you're a massive cricket fan or not, I'd recommend that you start here, because if you jump straight in you might find the controls a little tricky. As you play the tutorial you'll see that the realism is very much apparent as, just like actual cricket, the control system is all about tactics and skilful sleight-of-hand movements. Try smashing every single shot for six and you'll soon come undone! The tutorial not only teaches you the very basics but it also provides advanced training, such as telling you how to bowl down the crease or hit the batsman with a Yorker. This might seem hugely complicated for novice players, but the tutorial makes it easy to comprehend.

When you begin your first match on the Easy setting you'll find it very easy to knock the ball about and bowl some wickets in no time. You can even continually bowl straight balls without even trying to flummox your opponent and, 8 times out of 10, you'll get him out. On the lower difficulty settings the AI has been programmed to help you out, so you'll see them missing catches or bowling you particularly easy balls. This is fine when you're starting out and helps to ease you into the game. The beauty of this game however is that when you ramp the difficulty setting up a little bit it all really kicks in. Brian Lara 2007 really captures the skilful side of cricket - spinning the ball into the opponents' stumps, clipping the ball behind with your bat for six, diving to make a seemingly impossible catch - and because of this it really stands out from the crowd. Everything you can do in real cricket you can do here, apart from getting pissed and falling out of a pedalo with Freddie Flintoff at three in the morning!

Simply whacking the ball won't win you the big trophies at a top level and neither will bowling it straight at the batsman time after time, never putting him under pressure. Instead you have to use spin shots when bowling or adjust your position when batting. It's imperative that you keep adapting your style and thinking out of the box when you play this game - it's not easy, that's for sure. To get to this level you have to keep playing and playing so that you grow in confidence with the controls. Repeat visits to the tutorial is the perfect way to do this, as everything you need is in there. You can also visit the practice nets to hone your bowling and batting skills. This is most important with bowling, which really is the most technically difficult skill to master, both in this game and real cricket. You have to get used to all the different bowling styles available to your team, from fast bowlers to slow spinners. The two styles are so hugely different that it takes time to work out how each can be best utilised in the match against which batsmen.

To completely master the bowling it's all about putting in the hours. You need to analyse the different speeds you can throw the ball, where best to place it, how much bounce you want it to have and whether you should make it spin on the bounce. It really is an absolutely excellent simulation of real life bowling, my only criticism being that if you don't take the time to learn how to play then you're not going to get as much out of this game as someone who does. The batting simulation in the game is much easier to master and in my opinion much more fun. I played cricket at school and whilst I hated bowling and fielding, I loved the chance to bat so I could try and tan the ball into the distance. More often than not I'd be out on the first ball. The batting in Lara is exceptional and really very, very satisfying indeed. There's nothing quite like seeing the opposition bowl a dud ball that sits up perfectly so you can smash it into the stands, seeing all your handiwork in the training nets come to fruition.

Unfortunately this is where it starts to go a little downhill. The fielding in Lara is pretty damn awful and not as it's billed on the back of the box - "Realistic Fielding". Although they've tried to make it really accessible so you can quickly switch between fielders at the click of a button, it's the actual catching where they've screwed up. As a catch comes down towards your fielder, just before it reaches his hands a slide rule appears with a bar moving across it. To catch the ball you need to press the A button just as the bar reaches the middle of the slide rule. This sounds relatively straightforward but the bar appears and disappears so damn quick that you can only make maybe 1 out of every 10 or so catches. This means that you often have to rely on bowling out your opponents because you know your fielders will probably drop the catch. The slide rule also appears when you go to throw the ball back to the wicket keeper or bowler and again when you inevitably don't hit the slide rule in the centre, whoever you're throwing the ball to will drop it, missing out on running out the batsmen in the process. This is hugely frustrating and makes for lots of missed seconds as time after time, you keep watching your players fluff the ball.

Brian Lara 2007 does not in any way look like an Xbox 360 title. If anything, it could pass for an Xbox or even a PS2 title. As with the massively disappointing 360 version of Pro Evo last year, no attempt has been made to polish this game up to next-gen standards, which is quite frankly criminal. That said, it all looks pretty good, with nicely recreated stadiums and players plus the ball physics are spot on. An unobtrusive commentary from David Gower, ex-England cricketer and former They Think It's All Over team captain helps keep the matches plodding along with the odd humorous aside. Everything also sounds like real cricket, with the screams of 'Howzat' and the drunken roars of the crowd when it's upheld, so in that department I doubt anyone could complain.

Whilst I'm not blown away by Brian Lara International Cricket 2007, it is very entertaining. There's the makings here of an all-time classic, particularly in the ball physics and the depth of tactical core gameplay available here. My two big complaints are that this game doesn't look anything like a 360 title and that the appalling fielding really detracts from the overall enjoyment. However, for big cricket fans this really is a must, particularly with the Cricket World Cup in full swing. It will be interesting to see the next iteration of this title, because if they solve these two problems that I and practically every other reviewer have mentioned, Brian Lara 2008 could be something pretty special.

Reviewed by Ross Alexander for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).