Brian Lara Cricket is a series of six

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

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). According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED''), the term ''West Indian'' in 1597 described the indigenous inhabitants of the West In ...

cricketer

Brian Lara Brian Charles Lara, (born 2 May 1969) is a Trinidadian former international cricketer, widely renowned as one of the greatest Batting (cricket), batsmen of all time. He holds several cricketing records, including the record for the highest in ...

and published by

Codemasters The Codemasters Software Company Limited (trade name: Codemasters) is a British video game developer and former publisher based in Southam, England, which is a subsidiary of American corporation Electronic Arts and managed under the EA Sports ...

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

. It was developed by Audiogenic and published by

in 1994 for

DOS DOS (, ) is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible syste ...

and then a year later in 1995 for the

Mega Drive The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Sys ...

and

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International, Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-b ...

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 game, video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of Home video game console, home video game consoles produce ...

and

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

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 cricketer. He was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, and educated at Uppingham School. He is nicknamed "Aggers" and, less commonly, "Spiro" – the latter, ...

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

Brian Lara International Cricket 2005

Developed by

Swordfish Studios Swordfish Studios Limited was a British video game developer based in Birmingham founded by Trevor Williams and Joan Finnegan (wife of Paul Finnegan, former managing director of Rage Software Limited) in September 2002. History Swordfish Studio ...

for

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

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October, in Europe on 24 Novembe ...

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of four main home video game console lines, as well as application software, applications (games), the streaming media, streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox networ ...

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. The ...

. 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 2 ...

. The game was available for the

and

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the Xbox (console), original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was officially unveiled on MTV on May 12, 2005, with detail ...

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 High definition or HD may refer to: Visual technologies *Blu-ray Disc, the universal optical High Definition disc format *HD Photo, former name for the JPEG XR image file format *HDV, format for recording high-definition video onto magnetic tap ...

widescreen Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratio (image), 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 ...

. 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. An all-rounder who batted left-handed in the middle order and bowled slow left-arm orthodox, he has won 7 Player of the Se ...

International Cricket 2007''. It was also the second game in the

Ricky Ponting Ricky Thomas Ponting (born 19 December 1974) is an Australian cricket coach, commentator, and former player. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen of all time and is the most successful captain in international cricket history, ...

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 is 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'' for the

C64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness Wor ...

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'' was scheduled to be released for the

and

Atari ST Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the company's Atari 8-bit computers, 8-bit computers. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985, and was widely available i ...

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

charts. A PC version followed a year later. In 1994 Audiogenic identified an opportunity to capitalise on the success of

, who had broken two long-standing world records, and rebranded World Class Cricket game as '' Brian Lara Cricket'', initially for the

but also later for the

. A year later Audiogenic licensed '' Brian Lara Cricket'' for the

Sega is a Japanese video game company and subsidiary of Sega Sammy Holdings headquartered in Tokyo. It produces several List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises for arcade game, arcades and video game cons ...

. 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'' 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 is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...

console was released in 1998. In 2005 Codemasters released '' Brian Lara International Cricket 2005'' for the

console, released on 21 July to coincide with the start of the 2005

Ashes Ashes may refer to: * Ash, the solid remnants of fires. Media and entertainment Art * ''Ashes'' (Munch), an 1894 painting by Edvard Munch Film * ''The Ashes'' (film), a 1965 Polish film by director Andrzej Wajda * ''Ashes'' (1922 film), ...

series. The game received high ratings. Off the back of this success, Codemasters has developed '' Brian Lara International Cricket 2007'' which was released in March 2007, to coincide with the

Cricket World Cup The ICC Men's Cricket World Cup is a quadrennial world cup for cricket in One Day International (ODI) format, organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). The tournament is one of the world's most viewed sporting events and consid ...

. '' 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'' 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'' on in June 2010 as a sequel to the '' Ashes Cricket 2009''. 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 Video game franchises introduced in 1994