• PS3

by Arcee on 09.12.11

You don’t have to guess at how much experience I have with Rugby from that title. (And if you do, well then, what hope is there for you? Just saying.) To admit to being a noob isn’t something I do often. I like to think of myself as a well versed person who has a solid knowledge of most things out there. However, there are certain things that one never really comes across in their life. That just happens to be the case with me and Rugby. I have heard of the game, I am familiar with the basics and that there is an international body that governs a World Cup championship… but that about ends my knowledge of the game. Still, I was very excited to get a chance to play Rugby World Cup 2011 (developed by HB Studios and published by 505 Games) on my PlayStation 3 and get to familiarize myself a little bit more with the game and its rules. I just wish that the learning curve wasn’t so punishing.

Do not take that last statement to be a slam against the game. Not by a long shot. In the end, I had a real fun time playing the game. My problem was that since I was very unfamiliar with the sport’s rules it took me a while (and several embarrassing losses) to really start to get a grasp of the game. This would have been lightened a bit if there had been some kind of Tutorial Mode set in the game, but it is lacking in the game. (Perhaps because the team behind the game was banking that only fans of the sport would be buying this game.) Nevertheless, trying to figure out what you are doing on the go is one way of learning, but I can see where other Rugby noobs would be thrown off by this.

That being aside, I had very few other complaints against the game (which I will touch on later). For the most part, I was excited to be playing the game. Playing as the US national team, I went through the Warm-Up Tour, which I started off playing against the Pacific Island’s Tour, facing off against Tonga, Samoa and Fiji. I was in pretty good spirits after squeaking out a win against Tonga on a lucky last minute score, but that was short lived as Samoa handed me my ass and more in a lopsided match. Things got even worst as I faced Fiji and I was even more humiliated. As I said before, my unfamiliarity with the sport led to a huge learning curve against the AI opponent. I played the tour four times, and took a quick course on the rules online (thanks to Rugby Union Rules), before I started to match up better with the AI. Yes, it took me a while to get it, but now that I had, the game presented before was a far more enjoyable one than had I not gotten to familiarize myself with it in the first place.

Getting through the Warm-Up Tours, I decided to try my luck in the Tournament Mode and compete for the Rugby World Cup. As of this day, I am still managing to make it to the semi-finals but still have yet to capture the Cup. Playing through the pool and advancing is quite rewarding in itself as a noob, but I won’t be satisfied until I can capture that damn world title. With that being said, I think that is most of my excitement with the game in that it is new and different to me, yet still fairly familiar. It’s not too unlike American gridiron football to be excluding, but enough like it that I could play through when I first got the game and managed a win. So far, the excitement of playing the game hasn’t quite worn off, and I am not sure how much longer I would play the game when it does. But for now, I am really having a blast with the game.

Back to something I mentioned earlier, Rugby World Cup 2011 does have some flaws; mostly cosmetic flaws, but still something that should be addressed. My second complaint about the game (after the lack of tutorial) is that the game looks a bit dated. Comparing it to other sports games I enjoy, Rugby World Cup 2011 looks like it should be called “Rugby World Cup 2006.” The game isn’t ugly by any means; it is just not quite as polished as some other established sports games out on the market. Thirdly, I have an issue with the camera angles in the game. I wish there would have been something a bit more close-up and dynamic, but you are given a view that takes you quite a bit away from the play on the field. This also would have been welcomed when it comes to replays of scoring drives. The replays don’t offer the excitement factor as other sports games have in their offerings. Lastly, there is not much more content in the game aside from the four modes and online play. I am not sure why leader boards were omitted from online or why there are no tournament modes online either. Also, it would have been more fun had there been maybe like one or two offline modes for players to fun around with. These small concerns do not really hurt the overall feel of the game, but they are there and could easily be addressed.

Rugby World Cup 2011 is a fun game, though. Issues aside, the game is a nice representation of what Rugby is like, in my noob opinion, and could really garner a few more fans to the sport because of its playability. However, the big detractor to most new players would be the difficult learning curve from the onset of the game. I would have played the game a bit more myself had I better understood it at the start, but learning offline on my own and implementing that into my gameplay certainly helped turn that around. But honestly, how many gamers out there are going to go that extra mile to learn a whole new sport just to play a video game? A little help in that area would make the game exponentially better and much more enjoyable than it already is. I had fun with the game, but others may not be as patient as I was.

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