Played it? Review it!

[Inertia]

I've played a couple of games now and I like it. It's not the rugby sim of the century but it's fairly fun, it's much better than WCR.

The AI gave me a penalty resulting in a 3-0 win over scotland on normal mode. I got beaten 12-0 by france (they even missed a conversion from the side!).

It's not an easy game to score on, will take some skill, and it doesnt appear you can jump for the ball (there are jump animations in the drop out from a half start.

I like the maul system and the scrum system, it's quite good and feels like you get a chance if you can put some skill into it.

The rucks are very much determined by who has the ball initially and how many players you can get in there fast. Passing out to the winger can result in a lost ruck if you aren't careful.

Drop goals, up and unders and grubbers- i've not had much chance to get accustomed with yet.

You certainly can't win games by chucking it left and right constantly.

Offloads seem possible and have managed to get a few good ones going, while the sidestep is a bit tricky, certainly doesn't work every time.

The menu options, challenges, bonuses etc, cannot be knocked there's plenty there to keep you going if you get into the game play.

So far so far good. I'm much more impressed on the 2 games i played in normal mode over the one i played on easy.

 

[sanzar]

Originally posted by Ride The Cliche+Jan 20 2006, 07:54 AM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Ride The Cliche @ Jan 20 2006, 07:54 AM)</div>

<!--QuoteBegin-knowsleyroader

@Jan 20 2006, 03:53 AM
Think those giving it a miss will be missing out on a great game. For the record my review was honest, as was Lox's and SHRLFC and Boy's. Because we said it was good, does that make it less honest ?

FWIW Cant wait to get my hands on this game.

No ones being dishonest, however I do think there is a difference between what major rugby union fans want from a "rugby union" game compared to what predominately league fans may be after..........even in an unashamedly "arcade" style game.

As an example someone else mentioned that someone like Locks (no offense intended) may be less concerned about such things as how rucks are decided, as long as play isn't held up too long and the ball moves quickly into the next phase. A rugby union nut would however see the ruck as one of the core elements of a rugby union game, and the gaming experience could be ruined if they felt they had little/no control over how possession from the ruck is decided.
[/b]

This is sorta what I've been thinking as well... No offence to locks and knowsley, but as they generally loathe the sport of union, they won't want as much out of a union game as a genuine fan of the sport would, and as such their reviews have to be scrutinized just a tad more.

 

[loratadine]

sounds good - are there handoffs?

 

[coughas]

i've played one game on xbox on normal difficulty and was wonderin if anyone else noticed this.....when i made a breakaway down the wing the opposing fullback would just run back rather than tackle me. a bit like WCR. Its hard to explain but basically he was a good 10m ahead of me but rather than trying to tackle me he just runs back and i score easily.
other than that still getting to grips with it all. cant wait to play multi. any questions feel free to ask.

 

[Paddy]

whos the best player in RC2006?

 

[Wally]

So far it looks like I'll be picking up Rugby 2006 over Rugby Championship 2006. I just can't afford to buy a game that plays like Cartoon Network.

 

[CeeJay]

When are the rest of u kiwis expecting this game? The gamesman has it as the 27 of february for release.

 

[knowsleyroader]

Originally posted by sanzar+Jan 20 2006, 12:01 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (sanzar @ Jan 20 2006, 12:01 PM)</div>

Originally posted by Ride The Cliche@Jan 20 2006, 07:54 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-knowsleyroader

@Jan 20 2006, 03:53 AM
Think those giving it a miss will be missing out on a great game. For the record my review was honest, as was Lox's and SHRLFC and Boy's. Because we said it was good, does that make it less honest ?

FWIW Cant wait to get my hands on this game.

No ones being dishonest, however I do think there is a difference between what major rugby union fans want from a "rugby union" game compared to what predominately league fans may be after..........even in an unashamedly "arcade" style game.

As an example someone else mentioned that someone like Locks (no offense intended) may be less concerned about such things as how rucks are decided, as long as play isn't held up too long and the ball moves quickly into the next phase. A rugby union nut would however see the ruck as one of the core elements of a rugby union game, and the gaming experience could be ruined if they felt they had little/no control over how possession from the ruck is decided.

This is sorta what I've been thinking as well... No offence to locks and knowsley, but as they generally loathe the sport of union, they won't want as much out of a union game as a genuine fan of the sport would, and as such their reviews have to be scrutinized just a tad more. [/b]

I wouldnt argue with that at all. The only time rucks concern me is when I feel im losing them because of the difficulty setting and nothing to do with how many men I got there etc.

Thats what I liked about RC2006, the rucks seemed to be determined by the bodies in there not by the difficulty. It was harder to score not harder to get the ball on higher difficulty settings.

 

[sanzar]

Originally posted by knowsleyroader+Jan 20 2006, 07:55 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (knowsleyroader @ Jan 20 2006, 07:55 PM)</div>

Originally posted by sanzar@Jan 20 2006, 12:01 PM

Originally posted by Ride The Cliche@Jan 20 2006, 07:54 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-knowsleyroader

@Jan 20 2006, 03:53 AM
Think those giving it a miss will be missing out on a great game. For the record my review was honest, as was Lox's and SHRLFC and Boy's. Because we said it was good, does that make it less honest ?

FWIW Cant wait to get my hands on this game.

No ones being dishonest, however I do think there is a difference between what major rugby union fans want from a "rugby union" game compared to what predominately league fans may be after..........even in an unashamedly "arcade" style game.

As an example someone else mentioned that someone like Locks (no offense intended) may be less concerned about such things as how rucks are decided, as long as play isn't held up too long and the ball moves quickly into the next phase. A rugby union nut would however see the ruck as one of the core elements of a rugby union game, and the gaming experience could be ruined if they felt they had little/no control over how possession from the ruck is decided.

This is sorta what I've been thinking as well... No offence to locks and knowsley, but as they generally loathe the sport of union, they won't want as much out of a union game as a genuine fan of the sport would, and as such their reviews have to be scrutinized just a tad more.

I wouldnt argue with that at all. The only time rucks concern me is when I feel im losing them because of the difficulty setting and nothing to do with how many men I got there etc.

Thats what I liked about RC2006, the rucks seemed to be determined by the bodies in there not by the difficulty. It was harder to score not harder to get the ball on higher difficulty settings. [/b]

Well that's sort of my point... you're satisied with rucks "that are seemingly determined by weight", whereas if you were actually a fan of rugby union you wouldn't be satisfied with that alone, and possibly even be irritated that not one rugby game has had a ruck system that involves the player being able to compete for the ball actively...

 

[knowsleyroader]

Originally posted by sanzar+Jan 20 2006, 10:19 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (sanzar @ Jan 20 2006, 10:19 PM)</div>

Originally posted by knowsleyroader@Jan 20 2006, 07:55 PM

Originally posted by sanzar@Jan 20 2006, 12:01 PM

Originally posted by Ride The Cliche@Jan 20 2006, 07:54 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-knowsleyroader

@Jan 20 2006, 03:53 AM
Think those giving it a miss will be missing out on a great game. For the record my review was honest, as was Lox's and SHRLFC and Boy's. Because we said it was good, does that make it less honest ?

FWIW Cant wait to get my hands on this game.

No ones being dishonest, however I do think there is a difference between what major rugby union fans want from a "rugby union" game compared to what predominately league fans may be after..........even in an unashamedly "arcade" style game.

As an example someone else mentioned that someone like Locks (no offense intended) may be less concerned about such things as how rucks are decided, as long as play isn't held up too long and the ball moves quickly into the next phase. A rugby union nut would however see the ruck as one of the core elements of a rugby union game, and the gaming experience could be ruined if they felt they had little/no control over how possession from the ruck is decided.

This is sorta what I've been thinking as well... No offence to locks and knowsley, but as they generally loathe the sport of union, they won't want as much out of a union game as a genuine fan of the sport would, and as such their reviews have to be scrutinized just a tad more.

I wouldnt argue with that at all. The only time rucks concern me is when I feel im losing them because of the difficulty setting and nothing to do with how many men I got there etc.

Thats what I liked about RC2006, the rucks seemed to be determined by the bodies in there not by the difficulty. It was harder to score not harder to get the ball on higher difficulty settings.

Well that's sort of my point... you're satisied with rucks "that are seemingly determined by weight", whereas if you were actually a fan of rugby union you wouldn't be satisfied with that alone, and possibly even be irritated that not one rugby game has had a ruck system that involves the player being able to compete for the ball actively... [/b]

Definately take your point and understand that the rucks are a huge part of the game to big RU fans. From that point of view Ea06 or RC06 will probably get a few marks less from someone like you than it would from me or Lox.

I do wish they would improve the lineouts as well as I just end up pressing down on the D pad all the time to take the ball. I find them boring and in fact wish there was an option that would allow quick lineouts all the time even from the CPU.

That would be nice.

 

[esoj]

seem like this game is too acradey for most unions fans and maybe worth missing in favour of r2006 whichs seems to be shaping up quite nicely. defintely singleplayer is looking good to go for r2006 over rc2006 at the moment. this game was certianly hyped up a fair bit on this forum and it seems to be lacking due to the arcadeness of the game. I don't know might wait for more review before deciding on which game to get

 

[raziel_eire]

Altho RC2006 comes in at a much better price then EA's R06... I'm getting mine from play.com for £17 or so, while R06 is at leadt £30 in most online stores, probably around the £35 mark in actual highstreet stores

I'll be getting both, it would be hard to give RC2006 a miss at a good price for a good game (not perfect, not simulation, arcadey - but still good)

 

[gjohn85]

I have managed to play on Rugby challenge 2006. Here is my quick review of the game.

Firstly my (now) best mate is a game tester and he invited me over his place to play on RC06.

After spending a good few hours (that turned into days) playing on single player & multiplayer, I thought I'd share with you my (brief) thoughts on the game. I was gonna do a in-depth review but I couldn't be arsed to do one. So instead I done a bullet point of the good & the bad points about the game + a score out of /10.

The Good

* Its a huge improvement over WCR!

* The big guy is in the game (you know who!)

* Fast action paced
* General field kicking is superb
* Grubber kicks are awesome
* Handoffs & sidesteps work. You can repeatedly hand off players
* Tackling is fun & great to see
* Single player is the best mode to play the game on
* Unlocking new teams, stadia cheats etc
* New features for scrum & mauls are a nice touch #
* Offloads are great. Its 50-50 whether you risk an to offload to another player, cos alot of the time, the ball goes to ground or you loose the ball.


The Bad

* Commentary is appalling
* Hard to kick the ball away (mainly in multiplayer) u always seem to get tackled
* Apparently the are penalties on the game (very rare u get caught offside)
* Animations get faulty at times
*** Sprint bar needs to be eradicated! (it frustrates the hell out of me when you get a break or an interception & u run out of speed. Then waiting for the meter to refill to the top until u can sprint again

)***
* # Even though the new scrum & mauls features are a good idea, I tend to find that i spend my time concentrating to get the spinning dot in the red or yellow zone each time it spins around too much & forget I can got ball & I can pass the ball out.
* You can't (or I haven't found) dive on the ball over the try line
* You can't kick on a bouncing ball (i.e from a grubber kick)
* Multiplayer doesn't have much of a lifespan
* Tend to score the same tries (from about the 22, due the the annoying speed meter)
* Can't understand why they have got random names for unlicensed teams, would of been better if they used similar name to the real life name (e.g. D. Carter could be D. Carts)
* No support play for the ball carrier.

That about all I could think of at the moment, I will add more when I remember.

Finally the score, Even with all the bad points I give it;

7/10

Summary

Its a good game but the sprinting side of the game is a MASSIVE let down. If Swordfish was making another, I'd hope they would get rid of (or an option) to turn off the sprint meter.
I found that it lacks the x factor in multiplayer, but in single player it really excells.
All in all a well worth a purchase, but Its not quite there yet. Needs a few more sequels to improve the series, but that could be highly unlikely.

EDIT: almost forgot, any questions, feel free to ask me, either on this thread, or pm me.

 

[lemon]

Originally posted by CeeJay@Jan 20 2006, 05:03 PM
When are the rest of u kiwis expecting this game? The gamesman has it as the 27 of february for release.

GP Store has RC2006 at Jan 27th
and EARugby06 at Feb 23rd.

 

[-JJ-]

I emailed GPStore today to tell me when they can confirm that date. Hopefully they'll get stock in the next few days and we'll know then.

Just disecting gjohn's "The Bad" comments...

The Bad

* Commentary is appalling
- I'm not worried about that. I usually get bored with commentary and just have TV sound anyway.

* Hard to kick the ball away (mainly in multiplayer) u always seem to get tackled
- Tis lame.

* Apparently the are penalties on the game (very rare u get caught offside)
- Tis lame.

* Animations get faulty at times
- At times? Hopefully that means occassionally and won't effect me too much.

*** Sprint bar needs to be eradicated! (it frustrates the hell out of me when you get a break or an interception & u run out of speed. Then waiting for the meter to refill to the top until u can sprint again tete-cog.gif )***
- Tis lame.

* # Even though the new scrum & mauls features are a good idea, I tend to find that i spend my time concentrating to get the spinning dot in the red or yellow zone each time it spins around too much & forget I can got ball & I can pass the ball out.
- Meah.

* You can't (or I haven't found) dive on the ball over the try line
* You can't kick on a bouncing ball (i.e from a grubber kick)
- Lame but we've only had these feature's in R05 and sort of in RL2 so I can survive without them.

* Multiplayer doesn't have much of a lifespan
- Really? I thought that multiplayer would be a big positive for this game.

* Tend to score the same tries (from about the 22, due the the annoying speed meter)
- Tis lame.

* Can't understand why they have got random names for unlicensed teams, would of been better if they used similar name to the real life name (e.g. D. Carter could be D. Carts)
- Yeah. My thoughts exactly.

* No support play for the ball carrier.
- Tis lame.


It makes me really want to play it though. I'm quite curious about this game. Not really sure what to expect.

 

[CeeJay]

Damn It!!!!!! I thought that stupid speed meter was gone, gutted. It prevented runnaway tries in WRC, and it will to the same here. Fancy that, and arcade rugby game that has no runnaway tries.

No support play for the ball carrier? They had support in WCR, why would they remove it?

Im a little dissapointed buy some of this recent info, but i will buy the game no matter what. Im just sick of hearing bad news.

 

[lazy_chesnut]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div>

* You can't (or I haven't found) dive on the ball over the try line
* You can't kick on a bouncing ball (i.e from a grubber kick)
- Lame but we've only had these feature's in R05 and sort of in RL2 so I can survive without them.[/b]

And Rugby 2001....damn that game could have been good given another year or so.

Using similar names would have ended up with Swordfish in court.

Sprint stamina will hopefully be something we can edit.

Nice small installation size too, which suggests that it might be pretty easy to edit.

 

[raziel_eire]

Cheers for the info gjohn... seems a fair assessment by yourself, the list of good things seems good enoughto out way the bad for me... here's my take on some of it ->

The Good

* Its a huge improvement over WCR!
-> was hoping so!
* Fast action paced
-> sounds like a good pace to the game... fast paced generally, but presumably we can slow it down as much as we want if we decide to keep it with the forwards
* General field kicking is superb
-> excellent, I was waiting on further confirmation of this
* Grubber kicks are awesome
-> same as above
* Handoffs & sidesteps work. You can repeatedly hand off players
-> again excellent, should really help the game last if we can actually break the line with these options as opposed to "spread wide & repeat"
* Tackling is fun & great to see
-> everyone likes a good tackle!
* Single player is the best mode to play the game on
-> excellent, most of my mates and brothers are not big Rugby/gaming fans, so this will get a fair amount of Single Player time
* New features for scrum & mauls are a nice touch
-> waiting to see how this works out
* Offloads are great. Its 50-50 whether you risk an to offload to another player, cos alot of the time, the ball goes to ground or you loose the ball.
-> great, didn't want something too easy or a percentage too high that practically ensured each offload would work, will make us think about oing it now

The Bad

* Commentary is appalling
-> expected
* Hard to kick the ball away (mainly in multiplayer) u always seem to get tackled
-> hopefullt plenty of practice and learning when it is possible and when not will help this
* Apparently the are penalties on the game (very rare u get caught offside)
-> bit of a bummer really
* Animations get faulty at times
-> hope this is an exception as opposed to the rule
*** Sprint bar needs to be eradicated! (it frustrates the hell out of me when you get a break or an interception & u run out of speed. Then waiting for the meter to refill to the top until u can sprint again
-> expected this... gonna have to deal with it, tho it will help the defending team, which might be a good thing in single player?
* # Even though the new scrum & mauls features are a good idea, I tend to find that i spend my time concentrating to get the spinning dot in the red or yellow zone each time it spins around too much & forget I can got ball & I can pass the ball out.
-> time and experience would eventually cut this out
* You can't (or I haven't found) dive on the ball over the try line
-> bum deal... unless its hiding in there somewhere?... still a bum deal tho
* You can't kick on a bouncing ball (i.e from a grubber kick)
-> not too worrying - i presume the player just picks the ball up if you run over a loose ball then?
* Multiplayer doesn't have much of a lifespan
-> if you get too guys fanatical enough would it help?
* Tend to score the same tries (from about the 22, due the the annoying speed meter)
-> time, experience and expertise with the game might allow you more of a chance to express yourself with different types of try?
* Can't understand why they have got random names for unlicensed teams, would of been better if they used similar name to the real life name (e.g. D. Carter could be D. Carts)
-> can understand this
* No support play for the ball carrier.
-> really, is there none? thats a bum deal

Finally the score, Even with all the bad points I give it;
7/10
-> thats seems a fair and realistic score to me, and with the game selling at a bargain price who can say no?

 

[CeeJay]

Have you played it?

 

[raziel_eire]

...me? no

gjohn? ...yes