A huge disappoint unfortunately, this game is nowhere near ready to be released with many broken features

User Rating: 2.2 | Brian Lara International Cricket 2007 PS2
I quite enjoyed the 2005 edition despite the various bugs and blemishes that were fairly well known and accepted by the developers. In the build up to the release of 2007 they promised to fix these problems and make several improvements to the game. The only new features that have been implemented are the ability to sweep the ball and charge. Sweeping works ok (although sweeping the ball over the bowlers head for six seems a little odd?) and charging which can only be performed at full confidence doesn't really add anything to the game.
Aside from these features the game has taken a turn for the worse in nearly every aspect. The somewhat broken stat tracking system from the previous game has been fixed by way of not including any stat tracking what so ever. You still can't leave a ball. The promise of improved AI was a flat out lie, the ball constantly dribbles past fielders who just don't react in anyway, the fielding side always attempts to run you out even if you are safe by miles and then appeals to the umpire, it's a little strange when you have to watch the umpire contemplate a runout decision every time you run no matter how safe it is. The introduction of edges means that even a perfectly timed ball has a random chance of finding the edge of the bat and being caught behind so you can't really be good at this game you just get lucky, that said even in the harder difficulty modes hitting boundaries is pretty simple and if you connect with the ball at all it tends to go to the boundary most times. The create a player section has been changed so you can make up to 16 players who have to be added to a custom team, the process of creating this team takes over an hour and since there is no stat tracking it seems pretty pointless. There are licensed names used in the world cup competition but in normal games u still have to play with fake names and the models don't look anything like the real players.
The commentary doesn't even remotely relate to the action in the field, the very first ball i played in this game went soaring past me and the wicketkeeper for 4 byes and the commentators applauded my marvellous strokeplay, unfortunately this example is not uncommon.
The presentation and graphics in this game are horrendous, while the facial models offer a slight improvement over the previous version the overall game just looks awful, close ups of the crowd reveal that the crowd are rendered from about 20 pixels and player animations look clunky and unnatural.
This game is simply not of a standard which should be released to the public and the developer is clearly trying to cash in on the names of Brian Lara and Ricky Ponting. Don't waste your time or your money on this rubbish.