The cricket world cup is over, and despite the abundance of one-sided matches and dead rubbers, some of those of us who endured the whole thing are already getting withdrawal symptoms.

Luckily, that's where Brian Lara comes in. Not literally, of course, but the new edition of the game to which the great batsman put his name is now out on the Playstation 2.

The intention was to tie in with a final last hurrah for Lara, and a decent finish for the West Indies. Neither of those things happened, but the game remains. It's very much more of an 'arcade' cricket game than its rival, EA Cricket 07. Both batting and bowling are easier in BLC than in EAC, and there's even a 'slog' mode if you can't be bothered to sit through the boring bits of matches.

It's certainly fun to begin with, because it's extremely easy to pick up batting technique. The system is slightly simpler than EA's version, which does mean there's less control over exactly what the batsman does, but makes it simpler for newcomers. Bowling, likewise, isn't hard to pick up, and the special balls that can be bowled when the bowler's confidence is high enough, are able to flummox batsmen.

The computer opponents, like most computer opponents in sports games, are too easily beatable, so playing against a friend is the best option - there's no network play mode, though. There is, however, a decent training section that allows players to hone their skills, although this isn't really necessary – on our first outing, we were able to take England to the World Cup final, for instance. If only Duncan Fletcher had had access to this game back in March.

Brian Lara Cricket 07 is the official rights-holder for this year's world cup, which means that if you play in World Cup mode, the players are the ones who took to the field in the West Indies last month. Annoyingly, the game's makers had no rights for other games, so the players are given comedy names (Flantiff is England's all-rounder, while the team is captained by someone called 'Vorner'), which is a little distracting.

There are a couple of small bugs such as the game's insistence that Monty Panesar should open England's bowling, but they're easily overcome. Graphics are good even if the players don't really resemble their real-life models, but the sound is a let-down.

One major annoyance is the constant playing of the game's theme tune, Groove Armada's 'But I Feel Good'. It's a decent tune, but not when it's playing for the fourteenth time in a day.

Fielding in BLC is an interesting business – while EA Cricket uses automatic fielders, this game involves the player, who has to tap a button when the on screen progress bar reaches a certain point. It's harder than it sounds and makes the process of playing as the bowling team a lot more involved. The computerised wicket keepers don't seem to have got the memo, however, and will remove the bails literally every time the ball is thrown to them, which quickly becomes tiresome.

This new Codemasters simulator is unlikely to sway devotees of EA Cricket, but computer cricket newcomers and those who have found themselves frustrated by the tricky batting and bowling in that game will find that this one has more to offer.