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EA Sports’ Rugby series returns. Despite the fact that Rugby isn’t very popular in the United States, EA has continued putting out new versions of the game on these shores. Like Rugby 2005 before it, this new version seemingly portrays the game accurately, and is pretty fun, once you get used to the quirks of the sport.
Rugby 06 includes a number of gameplay modes, as expected in a sports game. The game lets you play quick game, tournament, create-a-player, and a helpful practice mode. Quick game lets you pick any one of the teams, all of which are assigned rankings to help you differentiate between them. The game’s tournament mode is made up of nine different tournaments, up from six last year. You’ll find European Trophy, the Guinness Premiership, Lions Tour, Six Nations, Super 12, Ten Nations, Tri-Nations, and World Championship, among others. The different tournaments have different teams associated with them. For instance, you’ll find the USA Team in the World Championship tournament. The game also gives you the ability to play out real schedules from 1999, 2003, or 2007 or it can be random. The game’s create-a-player feature isn’t quite involved, but you should be able to make a decent looking player.
In the World Championship League, Rugby 06 mirrors the more established season modes of other EA Sports titles. You’re able to play over many seasons, taking on a Division 3 team and making the team the best it can be. The game tasks you with some goals though for the most part you’ll just be winning games. You’ll also have the ability to recruit and transfer players. If rugby is your cup of tea, you’ll be glad EA included this mode.
Like last year, practice mode deserves special mention because you’ll spend a good chuck of time early in the game in this mode. You’re able to see an introduction movie that gives you the gist of the sport. Also included are training sessions that let you practice the game’s main controls (like running, passing, and tackling) to the more involved ones. All in all, the practice mode does a great job of introducing you to the basics, and provides enough skills to be almost competent in game. I suspect that it will be more useful to those that have some background knowledge in the sport, but even newcomers should get the general picture.
Rugby 2005 includes a number of different plays for you to try to do. Actually completing these plays will take some dedication, as you get used to some of the sport’s unique traits. New this year is the off-load pass. Essentially, it lets you pass the ball while the defender brings you down. This prevents interceptions since a teammate is near you. This makes the game much more manageable and thus more enjoyable. Also included are three difficulty modes. Newcomers will want to pick the easiest one, as losing the ball will become more prevalent in the harder difficulty levels.
The on-field action is helped by this improvement and other minor ones. For instance, the players move around the field in a much more realistic fashion. Last year, they seemed to follow one another while this year they appear much more independent. Things aren’t perfect since the ball physics are a bit off sometimes, and other times it isn’t clear why you can’t do a move. It’s questionable, though, whether gamers in Europe have that difficulty.
The game’s visuals are respectable, but nothing out of the ordinary. The player models are decent, but unoriginal. They don’t really stand out amongst each other. This usually isn’t an issue when playing the game since the camera zooms out quite a bit. Nonetheless, some minor details like how the uniforms collect dirt makes the game more visually appealing than it was last year. The fields look decent, but again, nothing great. The animations are pretty varied and manage to capture the fast paced and hard hitting nature of the sport with its great frame rate.
The audio isn’t particularly great, but it works well enough. The commentary provided by Ian Robertson and Grant Fox is accurate and more engaging than it was last year. The sound effects are a little better. Tackles carry enough weight, for example. EA Trax provides the soundtrack, and you’ll find a reasonably varied soundtrack to play to.
Rugby 06 faces tough competition in the USA since the sport isn’t really familiar to Americans, thus playing it requires a bit more effort than the other sport games. In the off year, though, EA added some new controls that allow the game to more faithfully portray the sport. This makes for a more fun game that is more open to newcomers. The addition of real clubs and players will appease fans of the sport, which probably would have picked the game up anyway. If you’re looking for a fast paced new sports game, Rugby 06 might just be what you need. -- Adam Nunez, PGNx Media
---- Feb 25, 2006
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