Wow, where has the year gone? With the scorching summer but a distant memory, and with Halloween and now Bonfire Night having passed, surely it can’t almost be the Christmas holidays…shudders (to cries of “HUMBUG” from the office)…
This time of year is also awards season you may have noticed, and not wishing to blow our own Codemasters-branded trumpet too much (well, maybe a little…) we were so proud of our CEO, Frank Sagnier, winning the prestigious “Leadership Award” at the recent TIGA Awards, not to mention the awesome F1® 2017 winning “Best Racing Game” too.
With all of that in mind, this recent ‘Game Awards’-related tweet prompted a large wave of nostalgia at Codemasters with regards our fondly-remembered Brian Lara Cricket series of games.
Brian Lara Cricket https://t.co/KF1XZRJgrr
— Greg James (@gregjames) November 3, 2018
Those of us of a certain age at Codemasters are veterans of both playing and working on some of the best cricket games ever made in our humble-yet-expert opinion. I am old enough to have had the pleasure of many sleepless nights playing Brian Lara Cricket ’96 on the SEGA Megadrive, also Brian Lara Cricket ’99 on the PSOne, then working on the PlayStation2 and Xbox revival in 2005 with Brian Lara International Cricket 2005 (what a summer for cricket that was!) and then Brian Lara International Cricket 2007 too. Codemasters seemed to have the magic touch when it came to creating authentic yet accessible cricket games, whilst the legendary name of “Brian Lara” gave the series huge global appeal.
As a reminder, Brian Lara is our favourite Trinidadian former international cricketer, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest batsmen of all time. He topped the Test batting rankings on several occasions and still holds several cricketing records, including the record for the highest individual score in first-class cricket; with 501 not out for Warwickshire against Durham at Edgbaston in 1994, which remains the only quintuple hundred in first-class cricket history. Staggering stuff really.
That amazing 501* innings is actually subject of a forthcoming film ‘501 Not Out’, and is scheduled to be released next summer, to coincide with the 25th anniversary of it happening.
Codemasters is proud to support the film as it retells Brian Lara’s world-record breaking innings and the wider impact Brian Lara had on the sport and beyond, including of course on videogames and Codemasters ourselves.
Full details here, including the trailer and how you can get involved: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/501-not-out#/
