Jonah Lomu Rugby Challenge

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I am a fan of rugby games. I have never played any game other than the ones that EA sports has published. I like how rucks works. It's less of a lottery and the outcome can be tipped on your favor by committing more players or forwards.

I played as new Zealand on career mode and a season boils down to playing a quad nations tournament and the equivalent of a world cup (every for years). There is no player progression, which takes away from career mode.

Also lacking is the ability call set plays. Kicking after winning the ball in a ruck can be challenging since you can't make the fly half get deep to give enough time to launch the kick, so goal line defense can be frustrating.

The game is still enjoyable, and I hope this company continues to further improve the game in its future releases.

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As a die hard rugby fun I've owned and played every rugby game EA Sports ever made and so was devastated when I knew they wouldn't continue the franchise. So when I heard of Rugby Challenge I was thrilled, to say the least, but sadly this game is an insult to us. The worst thing is that when asked why the game is very flawed, the answer from the developers is "sorry, we didn't have the time nor the money to take care of that", even though they waited four years to develop the game and they still charged you $50 for it! Up next there's avreview from my experience playing the game, I hope it's useful.

Licenses

First of all there's the license issues. Although they have an impressive amount of licensed clubs -Premiership, Top 14, Magners (hate to call it "Rabo"), ITM Cup and most of the Super 15 teams are in, except for the South African franchisesthe only two licensed international teams are New Zealand and Australia, which automatically makes it no fun at all to play international games other than Bledisloes.

Gameplay

Then there's the gameplay. First of all, the passing and offloading systems are: a joke, terrible, frustrating, clumsy, nonsense, stupid... For example a prop that is tackled can throw a 20 meter back hand offload, in either direction, so no matter how much you tackle if the computer wants to make life impossible to you it will. On the other hand, the general passing is very clumsy: if you create an overlap and have numbers on the attack, many times the player will throw the ball to the ground or anywhere but to the supporting player. This makes the game very frustrating and cuts most of the attacking moves.

Handling errors and injuries

Then there's the handling errors issue. Knock ons and forwards passes are awarded randomly and became very, very annoying because one second you are really pulling off a great move and then a harmless five meter pass between a centre and a winger ends up in a knock on or a forward pass. Then there's also the issue of injuries (when you are playing a competition). I played the ITM Cup with Manawatu and would have an average of 2-3 injuries per game, as well as countless knock ons and forward passes. This all took me to turning off injuries, knock onms and forward passes, as it made it impossible to play the game.

Tackling

Then there's the tackling issue. Tackle animations are good and offer variety, but the physics are awful. For example, the opposition makes a break and you only have your fullback to make that try saving tackle, you approach the ball carrier and press the tackle button but you go THROUGH the other player, or you start running circles around him, or if he dummies you just run past him and let in an easy score, or just stop five metres shy of him and keep still. Also, when tackling from behind, rarely will the tackler reach the ball carrier, no matter how close you are. Tjis all makes the defending experience a real headache.

Set pieces

Moving on to set pieces, the scrum is fine but if you are playing in hard and the opposition get the upper hand on just one push then no matter how well you fare from then on it's a lost issue. It's also very bad that the number 8 can't get up from the scrum. The lineout is ok unless you are playing with a not so good team, than becomes a nightmare as it's very hard to hit those balls well. And sometimes even if your timing is perfect the opposition will steal the ball just because the computer wanted so.

Rucks

One of the good feats these game was supposed to have was the new and re-vamped rucking system, which was going to be less arbitrary than those in the EA games. You have two options, light bind or heavy bind, to secure the ball. Problem is no matter how many people the opposition involves in a ruck, sometimes you'll have to get up to five players in a ruck to secure possession, and then you have no people to play out wide. Also sometimes you can have tons of players in it but you just won't secure possession whatsoever. In the end it's pretty arbitrary anyway and doesn't work very well.

Defending

Defense from set pieces can be very frustrating as your players start defending on the most bizarre spots so when the opposition start attacking your line they have a free 30 metres to run before you can get a player to tackle. They also tend to go in any direction so the opposition finds it wasy to find holes and gaps in your defence.

Physics

The pshysics in general combine good and bad situactions. For example the players running lines and animatikns while stepping or fending off are good but sometimes, like when catching a high ball, your player will look as if he catched it -arms up, then picking the ballbut the ball would have fell elsewhere, thus you automatically lose that player to vie for the ball and give the opposotion and advantage.

Overall

Well that would be it, overall, it's a frustrating and dissapointing game as it's filled with flaws. It's got potential though and I really hope they make a sequel that fixes this problems and make up for a great rugby playing experience.

I hope this review was helpful. My advice? Buy it so that the developers have enough money to make a worthy sequel.

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This game has so much potential but there are so many holes that the feel is incomplete and frustrating! The only two international teams with registered kits and the real player names are NZ and Australia... all the rest are some made up names and the northern hemisphere teams are horrendously under rated, for example wales are rated 80 out of 100... they won the grand slam this year and narrowly missed out on the world cup final in 2011 and have a lower rating than teams like Ireland!!

For example players are so rarely in the position they're meant to be in you end up with your props in the centre... the fly half is probably most guilty for this as he often feels the need to become a winger for the majority of the game (even on set plays?!?)

Passes randomly drop for no reason, a dummy pass by the computer stop your players from moving within about a 5m radius for a few seconds so if they are close to the line it's an automatic try! Non-straight line outs are called as penalties by the commentators... i could go on for days!

I've completed several tournaments on Pro, however this setting doesn't make the game any harder in the sense that it's a challenge.. it just means all the players on the opposite team can offload from every tackle and their hooker can outrun your centres!

Overall: this game has great potential but the people who made it seem to know nothing about rugby at all! Stick with rugby 08 die hard rugby fans (yes a game made over 4 years ago is better than this). Resist the temptation to smash your tv screen!!

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this is by far the best rugby game i have found. i wanted to learn the game and play on my local D4 team, and i knew that a video game would help me see and grasp some aspects of the game that words have a hard time painting. anyways, this game is a ton of fun, but, like most sports games, after a while it loses its excitement. i mean you can only do the same tournaments and "career" mode so many times.

the game play is smooth and the physics and graphics are all very solid. i really enjoy this game. it plays much like a "madden" title football game or a FIFA soccer game. highly recomended for anyone looking for a virtual rugger game!

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If you are looking for a better Rugby game this is it good graphics and the rosters are a lot better