Cricket and video games are a combination that has so far failed to convincingly gel, so it's to the credit of Codemasters' Brian Lara International Cricket 2007 that it gets closer than most. Released to coincide with the Cricket World Cup, it's unsurprising that a mode to recreate the tournament is present and correct from the off. There are other competitions you can set up too, and multiplayer options are prevalent, but the option we'd suggest you choose is the practice nets. Here you'll be schooled in what you need to know to get going in the game and we found it time well spent. Both batting and bowling are relatively simple to execute in principle, but in the spirit of all good sporting games, the trick lies in the little nuances, the details and the timing. Frequently you'll find that's the different between hitting a ball to the covers and smacking it straight back to the bowler.   Once you've done the practice work it's off to the matches proper, and a tough test they are. Yet for the most part it's a fair challenge, and we thoroughly enjoyed both the bowling and batting sides of the game. Sure, once we notched up some experience, the game perhaps overbalanced a little too much in the player's favour, but given the lethargic, uninteresting cricket titles that lie in gaming's graveyard, Lara 2007 is something of an achievement. What lets the side down - and it really, really lets the side down - is the attempt to do something new. Cricket games on the whole have marshalled off the fielding aspects of the game to artificial intelligence, but the developers here have had a stab at giving you a bit more control over matters. Bluntly, it doesn't work, involving two confusing meters that control the retrieval or catching of the ball and throwing it back to the stumps. It's very, very frustrating, to the point of being blatantly unfair, and it's the one major stain on a copybook that's otherwise steered clear of the traditional failings of the genre. If you can see past that, and don't mind screaming at your screen every now and then in sheer and utter frustration, then Lara 2007 is a very good sporting game. It looks good, is fashioned in all the official regalia (with official players in there too, and not looking too shabby), and is arguably the most successful attempt to bring the sport to gaming machines to date. It's a dreadful pity, then, that it's let down by a gamble on Codemasters' part with the fielding aspects of the game, and it's a gamble that's comprehensively lost, dragging the game a little down with it. Still, this game is nonetheless worth seeking out for the large proportion of things they managed to get right.  5 MB