Taking the guts of the gone-but-not-forgotten Brian Lara Cricket series of games, Codemasters seems to have had better luck in producing a game based around this time of The Ashes than last.

Its first attempt - under Brian Lara branding - was released close to the 5-0 whitewash that England suffered at the hands of the Aussies back in 2006. But at least with its 2009 tie-in game there was more of a fight going on, and far more interest in the series itself.

And it's useful too, because Codemasters has fixed some of the faults we encountered with its last Brian Lara title. Chief among them is the fielding mechanic, which has gone from really quite tricky to really quite straightforward.

Nowadays, most of the fielding is actually handled for you, and all you need to do is tap a button at the right moment to execute a catch when directed. That's easier said than done, but Codemasters has nonetheless managed to find a more comfortable half-way house between challenging and unfair.

The rest of the game falls into similar form. Wrapped up with a series of options that point you towards fighting for The Ashes, but actually give you plenty of other options you can tackle (including 20-20 and one day cricket), The Ashes 2009 also boasts a training segment that it'd be wise - if you want to play the game on something above the easiest difficulty level - to spend some time with.

That's partly because the jump between easy and normal is the difference between having your bowling slogged round the park and restricting your opponents to 150, with a similar contrast when you take the bat.

That niggle aside, however, The Ashes 2009 is a good, solid representation of the sport of cricket, and it's a bit more sophisticated than it may at first appear. Both bowling and batting offer you, on the surface, a timing exercise to complete, as you look to press the right button at the right time. There's also, when batting, the small matter of aim to consider, and just what kind of shot to play.

More advanced options allow you to take control of whether you're on the front or back foot for your shot, and after a little bit of fiddling to get used to things, you soon appreciate that Codemasters has actually made this level of control really quite accessible.

The bowling is the same, although far more likely to be punishing in our experience. There are straightforward balls you can deliver, for which you still need to time the delivery, set the pitch and arrange your field (a simple affair, thanks to a generous selection of easily interchangeable presets).

And then there are the collection of more advanced deliveries, including leg cutters and reverse swing. The better the bowler, the more chance they have of delivering the more sophisticated ball. Get it wrong and the boundaries will keep coming. It'll have you tearing your hair out at times, but things do get better with practice.

Overall, the game glues together well, complete with professional presentation and some smart visual work. It has the odd problem (we can't imagine, given the average run rate of most games that we've played, that it's actually possible to make a test match span five days, for instance), and it can still be mightily irritating when things aren't going your way and the game is being particularly ruthless about it. But this is the most successful simulation of the game of cricket we've yet seen. It's no masterpiece, but it still comes recommended.

Verdict
A solid move forward for Codemasters' cricket engine, and a fine recreation of the sport of cricket. The result of the actual Ashes competition only adds to its appeal this year.

Company: Codemasters

Tags: codemasters brian lara england playstation 3 games video games xbox 360 sony