First of all, I must say that Rugby 06 and 08 have provided me of countless hours of great fun. Anyhow, I do think there are several issues that must be fixed. I'll go by parts:
1) The competitions: If this game is going to be uo there with the biggest sporting games, it must have lots of competitions and cups you can play in.
I'd like to see the World Cup, Quad Nations, Six Nations, Lions Tour, Barbarians Fixtures and Churchill Cup, the Aviva Premiership, the Magners League, Heineken Cup, French Top 14, Super 15, ITM Cup and the Currie Cup.
In addition you could get the Anglo Welsh Cup, the Shute Shield, the British & Irish Cup and the Challenge Cup.
2) The gameplay: Sometimes it felt in past rugby games as if you were playing some pre-determined game between two teams made up by robots. So:
Re-formule all the field position stuff, so you can play positively with your bak three, send your back row to cut down the opposition fly half, make new defensive features like the draft or blitz defence, make a multiple attacking kicks list of options (grubbers not that easy, chip kicks, dummy kicks), make it so your entire team doesn't go after the ball and run away like a band of headless chicken. }
Make the movement more fluid, every time you make a hand off or sidestep a rival, it's the exact same movement all over again. Maybe create a FIFA like bag of tricks, with your right stick?
3) The tackles: Make much, much more tackle options and animations (you could get tons from the Madden games). so that you have like 100 different tackle options, like it's supposed to be. Maek some type of tackle-o-meter so when it's full (by momentum) you can put in a big, big hit.
4) The breakdown, scrum and line outs: Make them more of a challenge, and less of a lottery. The momentum bar in the scrum is a good idea, but bad developed. There must be some kind of lineaout-calls editor, so you can really mix them up. And in the breakdown make it less of a lottery and let the rucks be more realistic. I know it's hard but it's the core of our game.
5) Animations and players: Although some players were incredibly well reproduced in recent rugby games (Umaga, Wilkinson, Carter, Mortlock, Tuqiri, O'Gara), the vast majority of them were model faces (David Strettle was bald and Dan Parks is a black guy), so taking the time to ensure mot players look the ay they are in real life would be just awesome. And maximize the potential of the PS3 in terms of graphics.
In the animations topic, it's fair to say that the more animations available, the more realistic the game becomes. FIFA 10 features all new goal keeper animations and that makes it really realistic, and things such as the 360° control feature makes a good game a great one. I think these idea could be succesfully applied to Rugby 2012, so that the player with the ball is really free to decide what to do next.
And, last but not least, is the player likeness and reality topic. Make sure you get the right animations for, say, kickers (Quade Cooper, Jonny Wilkinson, Morné Steyn, Chris Paterson, Ronan O'Gara, Matt Giteau, Andy Goode, Dan Carter, Mirco Bergamasco, Francois Trinh-Duc, Morgan Parra, Dan Biggar, Stephen Jones, Romain Toulet "the robot", Stirling Mortlock, Gavin Henson, Felipe Contepomi, Francois Steyn, James O'Connor, Tovy Flood, and many more).
Also, keep the rosters updated, maybe via the internet, and make sure the player ratings are correctly assigned. No star players please! Rugby is a team sport, whether real or virtual.
And, finally, the stadiums! Make them as atmospherical as you can. Give the fans a big issue!
My big desire is that you guys take this really seriously and produce a great game. Take your time to develop it and I'll buy it as soon as it's out!
Keep up the good work and real, real thanks for what you are doing!
Cheers.
EA have managed to destroy the Rugby video game legacy by either ignoring the sport or rushing the games and making it look bad. If I was to make any suggestions it would be along the lines of make the game worthwile and add depth to the game.
