First, you get to decide where you want to hit the ball, meaning that on the easy setting only a fool would make a duck.  Well, only a fool and someone still coming to grips with the whole game.  The down side is that you only seem to have three ways to hit the ball, and only one of these ever seems to produce anything for me.

This is both good and bad.  Good as in anyone can pick it up and hit a few balls.  The downside is that it can get a tad repetitive after a while.  There is of course the possibility that I’m missing something,

Once you’ve hit the ball, you get to decide if you’re going to run, and then whilst running you’re presented with other options, all visually displayed by yellow dots, in the same layout as the MULTI-COLOURED buttons on your controller.  Sure, once you get used to it, you won’t hit the yellow button just because all the options are yellow, but to begin with I was needlessly being run out because I was hitting the wrong button due to the lack of colour coding.

Then there’s the bowling.  This is nowhere as easy as the batting, and is where the game falls down for rank amateurs and people who really don’t like cricket.  Whereas it’s fun hitting the ball for six, and seeing the TV style graphics show you just where you’ve placed your last 6 boundary shots, it’s not quite as rewarding when you seem incapable of bowling a decent ball.

Practice makes perfect, so they say.  I’m sure that there are many people out there that will absolutely love International Cricket and want to put in the time it may take to nail every aspect of the game.  But I’m not one of them.  I’m not going to penalize the game just because I don’t like cricket, but I will warn you that if you’re not a fan of the sport, you probably won’t like the game.

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Ah, cricket.  The gentleman’s game.  The long, drawn out game where you mostly get to stand around.  It’s not a sport that I’m particularly fond of.I have however played Codemasters’ previous cricket game, so I have a little experience with the genre, at least in the gaming sense.  Not that I can remember too much, except it was overly complicated and I couldn’t hit the damn ball.

Fortunately, along with crisper graphics, Codies have designed a batting system that actually makes sense to a complete idiot like me (in the cricketing sense). 

First, you get to decide where you want to hit the ball, meaning that on the easy setting only a fool would make a duck.  Well, only a fool and someone still coming to grips with the whole game.  The down side is that you only seem to have three ways to hit the ball, and only one of these ever seems to produce anything for me.This is both good and bad.  Good as in anyone can pick it up and hit a few balls.  The downside is that it can get a tad repetitive after a while.  There is of course the possibility that I’m missing something, Once you’ve hit the ball, you get to decide if you’re going to run, and then whilst running you’re presented with other options, all visually displayed by yellow dots, in the same layout as the MULTI-COLOURED buttons on your controller.  Sure, once you get used to it, you won’t hit the yellow button just because all the options are yellow, but to begin with I was needlessly being run out because I was hitting the wrong button due to the lack of colour coding.Then there’s the bowling.  This is nowhere as easy as the batting, and is where the game falls down for rank amateurs and people who really don’t like cricket.  Whereas it’s fun hitting the ball for six, and seeing the TV style graphics show you just where you’ve placed your last 6 boundary shots, it’s not quite as rewarding when you seem incapable of bowling a decent ball.

Practice makes perfect, so they say.  I’m sure that there are many people out there that will absolutely love International Cricket and want to put in the time it may take to nail every aspect of the game.  But I’m not one of them.  I’m not going to penalize the game just because I don’t like cricket, but I will warn you that if you’re not a fan of the sport, you probably won’t like the game.