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Rugby Challenge 3 Review

The_Wol

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My Copy of the game has arrived.

Packaging - The standard cover of RC games, though this time it seems slightly more professional than say the RC2 metal case edition

Install time on xbox one - Took roughly 6 minutes for me to install. Not a bad install time at all however a quick install means a small game so my guess is the game is only around 6 - 10gb in size (Most likely the "HD" textures).

Game Menus - Presentation wise it looks similar if not the same to Rugby Challenge 2.

Gameplay - I was presently surprised by the difficulty being a major step up from Rugby Challenge 2. While there are still ridiculous instances of passes going across the field and those crazy passes that happen as you get hit (Yes even if you get hit in your right side you can still throw a perfect pass to the man to your right) The key to the new difficulty is in the ruck system. In rugby challenge 2 they implimented the heavy bind, light bind and stealing of the ball. Now these options are far more important as two light binds can easily turn the ball over against one heavy bind, or two heavy binds can easily turn the ball over against a light bind that go there earlier. The trick that Wicked Witch have added is the AI now use the binding tactically to counteract your bind choices. So if you spam light bind (as I did in RC2) you are going to have a bad day as the oppositions cavalry arrives.
The addition of harder rucks means the opposing team now actually has the ball in hand. I haven't played a game yet that as in RC2 showed the stats of my team having 90% of the ball. Which is a welcome addition as the opposing team now attacks with more venom.

The wings and centres seem to shut down your ourside players better and with more success than RC2, so scoring tries can be more of a find a gap in the middle and flick it to a flanker to try and bust through. The AI kicking seems far more tactical (on the odd occasions they do kick) as in RC2 they used to just punt it down the field and hope for a hurricane to push the ball into touch.

Be a Pro - So far I am in love with this mode I created a winger named Wolby Ioane in one game and a flanker named David Wolcock in another.
The winger has simple goals i.e Score a try, enter two rucks ect
While the flanker has goals like enter two rucks, make two line breaks, steal the ball.
The more goals you complete the quicker you cement your role in the team/become captain.

The game play is a lot harder than controlling the whole team, as you have no say in their attack other than call for a pass or a kick (Which if you aren't the captain are liable to be ignored) and the growth of your player is fun to watch as you turn into a superstar.

Character Editor - There are a lot of tattoos on offer other than that it is essentially RC2 editor. Though tattoo's are a nice addition.

Career mode - I haven't had a lot of time to play career mode, but out of the few games I have had with the Reds I can tell you the rosters for each team are terribly outdated. The player likenesses are closer than in the RC2 where they seemed to have just randomly generated players and given them licenced names. (RC 1 Liam gill had dreadlocks? lmao).
There is NO player stat changes throughout the season. This could be added in a patch depending on how much Wicked Witch care about the community (They probably care more than Tru Blue).

Sevens - I have never really cared for Sevens in a game, and it's essentially the 15 man mode with 7 players on the field. It's not great, it's not bad. It's just Sevens.

Commentary - I turn it off an play music. I'd rather have Rugby 08's commentary and have Grant Fox tell me as I go for a 75m goal kick into 30 knot winds that "as a goal kicker you love it when they're easy ones" cheers Grant.

Graphics - They are certainly higher resoloution than RC2, the step up from XB360 to XBone is easy to see, though they could have put some more effort in overall.

Overall Playability - It's a step up from Rugby Challenge 2. It's not a huge step up, but it is a step in the right direction. I'll play a lot more tonight and see if I can really see any big changes, I'm hoping they will continue to patch the game and increase it overall.

Rating on the Woldog O-Meter - 6.5 out of 10.
To put that rating in perspective RC1 was a solid 8 out of 10 for its time, and RC 2 was a 6 out of 10.

Unless you are interested in Be a Pro, Sevens and tattoo's in your editor there is not a lot more to offer in RC3 than RC2 or 1. I'd recommend buying it, playing it and if you don't like it take it back in the 7 days you still can (EB Games offers than in Aus, not sure about anywhere else).
Luckily for me I was buying it for Be a Pro and Tattoos.
 
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My main question is this, as I have rugby challenge 2 and am not interested in 7s at all, is this worth £50?
 
My main question is this, as I have rugby challenge 2 and am not interested in 7s at all, is this worth £50?

If I were to answer that now I'd say - No, unless you are interested in modes like Be a Pro there isn't much new on offer, however I'll have a look to see if the defense has changed at all in game. As of now from what I've seen the rosters are vastly outdated Be a Pro only offers NRC, Currie Cup and unlicenced France tier 2 as starting places no ITM cup which is a bit confusing for me. As ITM cup would be the perfect place to start a career for a Kiwi player.

So far the graphics seem to be of higher resolution but we'll see how it looks on my 80inch TV compared to RC2 on the 360. I'm hoping on XBOX one for a lot shorter load times and for slightly enhanced graphics.

But as of now there doesn't seem to be a lot on offer from RC2 if you aren't interested in sevens or Be a Pro mode.
 
is your release date 22nd? if so how come your getting it so early, im jealous haha
 
As of now from what I've seen the rosters are vastly outdated Be a Pro only offers NRC, Currie Cup and unlicenced France tier 2 as starting places no ITM cup which is a bit confusing for me. As ITM cup would be the perfect place to start a career for a Kiwi player.

You must be looking at the Be a Bro feature by mistake :D
 
is your release date 22nd? if so how come your getting it so early, im jealous haha

The game is already for sale here in NZ at the warehouse and other outlets i guess. Saw it yesterday but not sure how long it has been out for.
 
The game is already for sale here in NZ at the warehouse and other outlets i guess. Saw it yesterday but not sure how long it has been out for.

I can confirm I bought my copy from mightyape and had it shipped express through DHL
 
@Woldog - after playing this game, what would you suggest the people who haven't bought it yet, should do? Let's make it a multiple choice question:

A ) Buy it, It's every cent worth!!
B ) Don't buy it, rather use that money to buy UFC2
C ) At least the cover can be used as a doorstop
D ) Play RC, save £50 and rather watch Marvel's Captain America: Civil War
 
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@Woldog - after playing this game, what would you suggest the people who haven't bought it yet, should do? Let's make it a multiple choice question:

A ) Buy it, It's every cent worth!!
B ) Don't buy it, rather use that money to buy UFC2
C ) At least the cover can be used as a doorstop
D ) Play RC, save £50 and rather watch Marvel's Captain America: Civil War

I've got UFC2 and found that dreadfully easy, managed to go 52 - 0 in my career. 52 wins by tko/ko.

I'd say it's worth it for My Pro, but worth the full price? Probably not. I'm just typing my review up now. :)
 
A question for general licensing Waldog;

Did they go to any effort to create more 'real faces' (like what Carter/McCaw etc look like); as in the licensed images of the players; or did they just reuse the few faces they made from the previous two games? (So do players like Aaron Smith actually look like Aaron Smith, or the vaguely brown potato looking create-a-player that most of the players resemble?
 
A question for general licensing Waldog;

Did they go to any effort to create more 'real faces' (like what Carter/McCaw etc look like); as in the licensed images of the players; or did they just reuse the few faces they made from the previous two games? (So do players like Aaron Smith actually look like Aaron Smith, or the vaguely brown potato looking create-a-player that most of the players resemble?

They have certainly made an effort to create more real faces, if they did so using the ingame creator or not I do not know but they certainly have a few more faces in the game.

I orignally though they had done a better job of pairing ethnicity with last names as several of the imaginary african players looked like africans, I thought it was going well until I saw a white irish player called Vana Multiali'ito or something to that effect.
 
They have certainly made an effort to create more real faces, if they did so using the ingame creator or not I do not know but they certainly have a few more faces in the game.

I orignally though they had done a better job of pairing ethnicity with last names as several of the imaginary african players looked like africans, I thought it was going well until I saw a white irish player called Vana Multiali'ito or something to that effect.

Uhhh, yeahh, but I more mean....

You see that Daniel Carter and Richie McCaw and a bunch of other players have faces which have been clearly created by the studio by carefully rendering their images, as opposed to say Aaron Smith (from previous games, not sure about this one), whose face was made by the in-game editor...Like, if you go and try to customize McCaw's face it will say "customization is unavalible for star players" or some such stuff...if there more of those faces (the last game included some of the players on the Lions tour as an example...).
 
Uhhh, yeahh, but I more mean....

You see that Daniel Carter and Richie McCaw and a bunch of other players have faces which have been clearly created by the studio by carefully rendering their images, as opposed to say Aaron Smith (from previous games, not sure about this one), whose face was made by the in-game editor...Like, if you go and try to customize McCaw's face it will say "customization is unavalible for star players" or some such stuff...if there more of those faces (the last game included some of the players on the Lions tour as an example...).

To be honest the majority of created player faces from 1 & 2 were of Kiwi players. (Who half the time I don't know what they look like in the first place unless they are legends), I haven't looked in detail at the faces yet, but I will in about an hour or so when I go home at lunch. I'll whiz through some teams and check them out.
 
To be honest the majority of created player faces from 1 & 2 were of Kiwi players. (Who half the time I don't know what they look like in the first place unless they are legends), I haven't looked in detail at the faces yet, but I will in about an hour or so when I go home at lunch. I'll whiz through some teams and check them out.

Well yes and Australians. The first one had Cipriani and Lipman and that was only because they were at the Rebels.
 

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