Brian Lara Cricket is a series of six

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

video games that are endorsed by the

West Indian A West Indian is a native or inhabitant of the West Indies (the Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago). For more than 100 years the words ''West Indian'' specifically described natives of the West Indies, but by 1661 Europeans had begun to use it ...

cricketer Brian Lara and published by

Codemasters The Codemasters Software Company Limited (trade name: Codemasters) is a British video game developer based in Southam, England, which is a subsidiary of American corporation Electronic Arts. Founded by brothers Richard and David Darling in Oct ...

Games

As of 2007, there are six games in the Brian Lara Cricket series on eight video game systems, spanning thirteen years.

Brian Lara Cricket

''Brian Lara Cricket'' is the first game in the series to be endorsed by Brian Lara. It was developed by Audiogenic and published by

in 1994 for

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

and then a year later in 1995 for the Sega

Mega Drive The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master System. Sega released it in 1988 in Japan a ...

and

Commodore Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

systems.

Brian Lara Cricket '96

Also known as ''Lara '96'', this game is a new version of Brian Lara Cricket on the Mega Drive with updated player names and statistics. It is the final game in the series to be developed by Audiogenic and was published by

in 1996.

Brian Lara Cricket '99

Released in 1999, this was the first 3D accelerated game in the series. It was the first fifth generation game in the series, developed and shipped by

for the

Sony PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divi ...

and

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

platforms with commentary provided by

Geoffrey Boycott Sir Geoffrey Boycott (born 21 October 1940) is a former Test cricketer, who played cricket for Yorkshire and England. In a prolific and sometimes controversial playing career from 1962 to 1986, Boycott established himself as one of England's m ...

and

Jonathan Agnew Jonathan Philip Agnew, (born 4 April 1960) is an English cricket broadcaster and a former professional cricketer. He was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, and educated at Uppingham School. He is nicknamed "Aggers", and, less commonly, "Spiro" � ...

. This game was also branded as ''Shane Warne Cricket '99'' in Australia and New Zealand.

Brian Lara International Cricket 2005

Developed by Swordfish Studios for

, ''Brian Lara International Cricket 2005'' is a 6th generation console game for the PlayStation 2,

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the ...

and

. It was released to coincide with the

2005 Ashes series The 2005 Ashes series was that year's edition of the long-standing cricket rivalry between England and Australia. Starting on 21 July 2005, England and Australia played five Tests, with the Ashes held by Australia as the most recent victors. ...

. BLIC 2005 builds on the 3D environment that was first introduced in Brian Lara Cricket '99 and enhances it with rendered crowds and detailed stadia. It was released in Australia as ''Ricky Ponting International Cricket 2005''.

Brian Lara International Cricket 2007

Off the success of ''BLIC2005'', ''Brian Lara International Cricket 2007'' was developed. Using the same release date tactics as the previous game, it was shipped during the

2007 Cricket World Cup The 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup was the ninth Cricket World Cup, a One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament that took place in the West Indies from 13 March to 28 April 2007. There were a total of 51 matches played, three fewer than at the ...

. The game was available for the PlayStation 2 and

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...

consoles, as well as for

. This version includes many graphical as well as gameplay improvements. The Xbox 360 version is the first console port in the series to be in high definition

widescreen Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than t ...

. Gameplay improvements include analogue direction control when batting, this allows the player to attempt to hit the ball in any direction. In India, it was released as ''

Yuvraj Singh Yuvraj Singh (born 12 December 1981) is a former Indian international cricketer who played in all formats of the game. He is an all-rounder who batted left-handed in the middle order and bowled slow left-arm orthodox . He has won 7 Player of ...

International Cricket 2007''. It was also the second game in the Ricky Ponting international series.

Brian Lara Pressure Play

''Brian Lara Pressure Play'' is a PSP-only version of the game, released in 2007.

History

In 1985, Michael McLean at Audiogenic, a subsidiary of

Supersoft Supersoft was a software and computer game developer and publisher founded in England in 1978. It was founded by Peter Calver and Pearl Wellard to develop and publish software primarily for the Commodore PET. History The earliest Supersoft catalo ...

wrote ''

Graham Gooch's Test Cricket ''Graham Gooch's Test Cricket'' is a 1985 cricket game released for the Acorn Electron, BBC Micro, Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum by Audiogenic. It was later reissued by budget label ''Alternative Software'' as ''Graham Gooch's Match Cricket''. Game ...

'' for the C64 computer system. The game sold well and received high ratings, and so Audiogenic followed it up with '' Graham Gooch's All Star Cricket'' in 1987. The game that was to become ''

Graham Gooch World Class Cricket ''Graham Gooch World Class Cricket'' is a cricket video game developed and published by Audiogenic in 1993. It is endorsed by former England cricketer Graham Gooch and is available for the Amiga and PC computer systems. Gameplay The player can ...

'' was scheduled to be released for the Amiga and Atari ST in 1991, but development was delayed to ensure quality. When it did eventually appear in 1993 it was a huge success, reaching No.1 in the Amiga charts. A PC version followed a year later. In 1994 Audiogenic identified an opportunity to capitalise on the success of Brian Lara, who had broken two long-standing world records, and rebranded World Class Cricket game as ''

Brian Lara Cricket ''Brian Lara Cricket'' is a cricket video game, the first in the '' Brian Lara Cricket'' series. It is endorsed by Brian Lara. ''Brian Lara Cricket'' was released on the PC in 1994 for DOS and Sega Mega Drive and Amiga in 1995 by Codemasters ...

'', initially for the

but also later for the Amiga. A year later Audiogenic licensed ''

'' for the Sega

. It was successful and spent 10 weeks at No.1 in the UK video games chart during the summer of 1995. ''

Brian Lara Cricket '96 ''Brian Lara Cricket '96'', known as Lara '96 and ''Shane Warne Cricket'' in Australia and New Zealand, is the sequel to ''Brian Lara Cricket'' and the second game in the Brian Lara-endorsed series of cricket video games. It was developed by A ...

'' was released the following year in 1996 also by

, and it too got to No.1 in the charts. In late 1996

acquired the Audiogenic development and '' Brian Lara Cricket '99'' for the PlayStation console was released in 1998. In 2005 Codemasters released ''

Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 ''Brian Lara International Cricket 2005'', known as ''Ricky Ponting Cricket'' in Australia and New Zealand, is a cricket video game from Codemasters, available on Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Windows platforms, released on 21 July 2005, which was the ...

'' for the PlayStation 2 console, released on 21 July to coincide with the start of the 2005 Ashes series. The game received high ratings. Off the back of this success, Codemasters has developed ''

Brian Lara International Cricket 2007 ''Brian Lara International Cricket 2007'' is a cricket video game from Codemasters available on PlayStation 2, Personal computer, PC and Xbox 360. It is endorsed by West Indies cricket team, West Indian cricketer Brian Lara. It is the sequel ...

'' which was released in March 2007, to coincide with the Cricket World Cup. '' Brian Lara Pressure Play'' followed in August for the PSP, reaching No.1 in its first week on release. With Brian Lara's retirement from professional cricket in 2007 Codemasters moved away from using Lara in the title. The next cricket game released by the publisher was ''

Ashes Cricket 2009 ''Ashes Cricket 2009'' is a cricket video game developed by Transmission Games and published by Codemasters in the UK and by Namco Bandai in Australia. It has been released for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows. A Wii version, dev ...

'' in August 2009, which continues with the same playing style as the Brian Lara series of cricket games.

has released the latest ''

International Cricket 2010 ''International Cricket 2010'' is a sports association cricket simulation video game developed by Trickstar Games and released by Codemasters. It was released in the United Kingdom and India on 18 June 2010 and in Australia on 21 October. The ga ...

'' on in June 2010 as a sequel to the ''

''. The Cricket series is moving on after Brian Lara's retirement and re-branding of the video games series.

References

External links

Official Audiogenic cricket game catalogueOfficial Codemasters website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Brian Lara Cricket (Series) Electronic Arts franchises Cricket video games Video game franchises Lara, Brian Cricket (series)