Continuing their boasting of owning the next month of game sales, Namco Bandai have released the launch trailers for Ashes 09, for both the PC, PS3, Xbox 360 platform and Wii.

Like the aforementioned DiRT 2, this is another game we've been slogging it out on and can tell cricket fans looking for the definitive Gentleman's Game experience, Ashes Cricket 09 is well worth your time.

Stay tuned for our full review soon, but for now, check the launch trailer right here (and Wii here).

It's available on Steam for PC too since 20th August: http://store.steampowered.com/app/12860/

BTW this game is dev'd by Transmission Games in Melbourne, which is pretty impressive. It's been number one top-seller in the UK charts for the last two weeks. I think it has a Metacritic score of ~75

Worth checking out for cricket lovers.

How does it play on the Wii?

i heard bad

Almost threw my xbox controller at the tv, I was fine against fast bowlers then just got smashed from edging to the keeper from spinners just about every ball. It was almost as bad as having to watch the ashes.

Can't we stop talking about the Ashes already?

Hahah, trog. Tell me about it. Ricky Ponting copping a ball in the face was a highlight for me.

I puchased the steam PC version of this game. My machine is well above minimum and recommended specs, but this thing is unplayable. It played fine for 10 minutes, crashed, and now is a continual slideshow. Turning all settings to low and crowd/effects off makes no difference. Check the forums. I am not the only one. There are lots of cheesed off people who paid money for a game that they can't use.

That's s***, RottenRobot. Hope they release a patch for you. Presumably you've tried all the obvious stuff like update drivers and anything like that.

Thanks Pinky. If you check the Ashes 09 web site you will see my postings under the Forums/Technical Help section. I am Rotten Robot on that site as well. I am an avid PC gamer and built my machine specifically for that purpose. I can tell you that the PC version of this game is a buggy basket case. Please check the forums to see how many hours peple are wasting trying to figure out what they are doing wrong. It looks like this thing was rushed to market to maximise sales during the cricket season, without being properly tested and bug fixed.

I can tell you that the PC version of this game is a buggy basket case

Confirmed.

Hired it on the ps3 and its much more playable. I figure they just cant port the game. Also my xbox 360 controller plugged into the PC isn't automatically used as default controller when i jumped into the game, so i had to play an entire 20 20 using a keyboard and the controls are like: control moves to back foot, shift moves to front foot, wasd moves the direction of where to hit the ball, up down left and right are what stroke to play and q and e are to move left and right of the wicket.

So you line up a shot, the bowler changes his bowl at the last second you move left while pressing q to shift into position, you press d to change where you want the ball to be played to, you press ctrl to change your footing and before you press left down or right the guys stumped you from behind because there are too many f***ing buttons to press and you were out of the goddamn crease.

luckily it plays better on the gamepad, but it would be nice when using it to not be told to press control to change front or back foot when its left triggers...

The game is basically half assed.

I finally gave up on the game altogether after an hour of playing, a sound got stuck then the game locks up.