Commentary is provided by Grant Nisbett and Justin Marshall The delivery can be a mixture of acceptable to insufficient, depending on the situation on the field. It’s reminiscent of the sports games on the Playstation One with it sounding like it was recorded in a cardboard box. The sound quality of commentary during games is shoddy. This is really annoying as you want to be able to play a quick and free flowing game of rugby it's the positioning of your team mates that cause issues. The most annoying issue is when players stand offside during or after a ruck and make no attempts to move into the correct position The backs will be perfectly lined up when there are scrums or lineouts, instances when play has stopped and been reset.īut in rucks and mauls they will be all over the place, even if you leave plenty of reasonable time for them to line up. Yet the computer controlled players of your team can at times be completely devoid of any intelligence of their positions.
You will have a lot of fun playing it, but there will be instances where you will be raging at the screen due to the title's AI.ĭon't get us wrong - when the AI is behaving correctly the game is a joy to play and matches are full of tension, strategy and excitement. However, if you are a rugby fan looking for a game, this is the best you can get. There are issues with the gameplay and learning the sport that will stop it from being easily accessible for all gamers. It’s a good Rugby game but lacks the level of polish that EA and 2K sports games have. Rugby Challenge 3 does not break into either of these categories. There have been some games that have broken from solely being purchased by sports fans, to being a part of any respectable gamer's collection - such as Brian Lara Cricket on the Megadrive and Jonah Lomu Rugby on Playstation One. There is a valid argument that with each release these games bring nothing new for players, as they predominantly feature minor graphical upgrades and a new roster.
In the last ten years sports games with an illustrious presence in the market have dwindled to Madden and NBA2K for the United States, FIFA and Pro Evo for the rest of the world. In the past, there was a major game for nearly all sports. Throughout the history of video games, sports games have always been a mainstay.