Just some quick thoughts on Rugby Challenge.
I came into the game with very high expectations. Many things I was hoping for I guess I got. Was it a third generation game? Yes. Did it look visually impressive? Yes. However the negatives for me outweigh the positives. In Rugby Challenge they have more control of the players than in previous Rugby Games, with the animation being considerably more impressive when you do a fend or sidestep or dummy, and it's done so it's pretty smooth unlike Rugby 08. The field and stadiums looks better and the player models also look good. With that in mind, that's all the positives for me.
Game play is messy. Really messy. Scrums halfs will always miss all players and pass to the ground when I press R1, so I always have to pass to flyhalf (R1+R2) or to the winger miles down the field (hold R1/R2). When playing anything other than end-on from very far away, I can't for the life of me see the players outside that I'm passing to. I play Rugby 08 with out this problem. The fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter how far away he is, because my pass is either going to be an amazing cross field pass that will end up to him perfectly, or it will go **** off all the way down the field towards my own ingoal line or touch. It's just messy, there doesn't seem to be any kind of structure to it other than pass and hope it lands. When you get tackled, you'll almost instinctively offload, and then you'll either score an amazing try or you'll offload to no one and everyone on the field will try and scramble. Easy is super easy, normal is easy but frustrating and anything above normal is just frustrating (though you can still usually win with amazing botton mashing at rucks).
What I think annoys me most about the game play, is that you can't do anything of any use with your flyhalf. You can't put him in the pocket, run a set piece or even charge onto the ball. It's just this rush. Half the time the flyhalf isn't even standing in the first receiver position so it goes to my fullback, 2nd 5/8th or any other player at random it seems. The kicking from hand is actually poor animation and the slow motion thing doesn't sit well with me, as the time it takes to actually aim the thing, it may as well be running much quicker. Chip kicks seem to never go where I want them to go, so you have to bomb it just to aim it. When you do a chip kick you'll likely get tackled off the ball anyway as the ball goes at right angles from where you were aiming.
Forward play is totally useless in the game. Not that forwards are useless as I score 80m tries with Victor Vito, Jerome Kaino, Brad Thorn, Kevin Mealamu and even Will Chambers when I decided to play him at blindside flanker (lol), however picks and goes, or passing to a forward near the ruck (which is suprisingly hard to do) has almost no merrit compared to doing amazing crossfield passes or passing it through the hands to your winger who depending you're playing with or against, may end up putting Hosea Gear (speed 88) against the poor old German fullback who's running at what seems like 55 speed. Even when you're playing on the hardest difficulty, a strong and fast winger will almost guarentee you'll win a game, especially considering you can pass the ball from mid field to the wing in a few seconds to score in the corner every time.
Despite this, I'd be happy with the game, if it met the second part of my criteria. Now there were always going to be players from South Africa not licensed. I got that. I've come to terms with that. And for the people on the forum who are saying "I can't work out who from South Africa is who" here's a hint: Look for the players first letter of their first name and the first letter of their second name. It's that simple. There is no hidden subtlety to Sidhe's getting around player names. I can even appreciate that the players from South Africa have faces made by the create-a-player function. What I do object to, and it's probably the killer for me, is that players from Ireland, England, Wales, France, Italy, Fiji, Germany, Argentina, Japan etc, etc don't have players faces that are made in detail. Some of them resemble the players, but when you have forked over the money for licensing their clubs and leagues, I would presume that player likenesses would perhaps be some what of a big drawing card. The ITM Cup and Super Rugby are brillaint, but when you're playing with the splitting image of Jason Rutledge against some player that resembles Brian O'Driscoll or Johnny Wilkinson, you feel kind of cheated. What adds insult to injury is when your playing against a national team with a custom team and the only player in the entire team that looks like that person is fricking Mario Wynands (who funnily enough is the only custom face in team SIDHE, although not foolling anyone playing fullback
).
The biggest pull to TRF over the years has been kits and faces for Rugby 08. It seems to me that if there are people on this forum willing to spend long periods of their time for free, to make hundreds of detailed faces for the game (with a mix of NH and SH faces), that it would be an indication of just how much unique and quality faces mean to people. Even if it was only 20-30 faces for each of the top 15 playing countries, it would make the game infinently more enjoyable form me. I can appreciate that licensing has stopped getting the kits for most national teams, but I put the lack of unique faces down to laziness, and I can't understand how someone from England will enjoy playing this game with a picture perfect Australian and New Zealand team and the rest of the world looking generic. What most amazes me is that USA is totally licences with no custom faces! What the heck!
I'm pleased I bought this game, as I do think it was a step in the right direction for a new generation rugby game and any money that goes towards that will potentially mean better games are created. With that in mind I'd be willing to pay an additional $20 for a lot more unique faces to be added to the game in dlc. I'd also happily buy the next version of this game providing the gameplay is more structured and that there are more licenses and unique faces. There is just so much effort that has been put into this game that it seems like only a few moderations to gameplay and quite a bit more time in modeling, would make the game absolutely brillaint. However with out these changes, I think I'll enjoy a few more Rugby 08 games.
