Rugby Challenge 2006 Review

By Nic Linnear Published 22 February, 2006

Six nations, two rugby games, one choice. And it's not this one.

Version tested: Xbox

Rugby: it's a lot better than football, isn't it? You can drink in the stands, play doesn't halt every five seconds for a petulant team riot against the referee and England are still World Champions (just about). If you don't agree with that then you're a) stupid, b) a hooligan, or c) probably both. (And if that doesn't kick off some healthy debate in the forums then we've pretty much proved that porn really is all the internet's good for.)

The other thing about rugby is that it's clearly nowhere near as popular as football, mostly because it's about a million times more complicated. So the fact that we've got not one but two new rugby games to coincide with this year's Six Nations tournament could be seen as something of overkill. After all, the population of rugby fans who also own consoles is going to be marginal at best.

Still, if you ARE a rugby fan - and this particular correspondent is - you've probably gone orgasmic over the current crop of digital egg chasing. So much so that it's now less of a case of "is Rugby Challenge 2006 any good?" and more a question of "is it any better than EA's Rugby 06?" And the answer to that is a crushingly emphatic no.

On the plus side, at least they've made Rugby Challenge 2006 easy to play. If you're going to give developer Swordfish Studios credit for anything, it's that it's taken the most convoluted ball sport known to man and turned it into a videogame that just about anybody can pick up and play.

'Rugby Challenge 2006' Screenshot 1'Rugby Challenge 2006' Screenshot 1'Rugby Challenge 2006' Screenshot 1

Not the sort of chap you'd want to meet down the back of a long dark alley.

You pick up the ball, you pass down the wings using the trigger buttons, you dodge the incoming tackles and you cross the line for a try. It's literally as simple as that. There are a few handy tutorials to get you into the swing of things, but providing you know how to hold a joypad the right way up you'll get a good, flowing game of rugby in no time at all.

Given Swordfish's long and impressive rugby heritage (this is the development team responsible for the legendary Jonah Lomu Rugby on PSone) you'd expect a fun, easy game, and that's what you get. The issue here is that it's too simple and as a result totally lacking in the depth.

The fact is, very little has been done to improve things since Swordfish's last rugby effort (the reasonably entertaining World Championship Rugby, released nearly two years ago just in time to miss the whole England World Cup furore). By altering the scrum and maul controls from button-bashing to reaction tests Swordfish thought it must have made things infinitely more tactical, but it's completely missed the point. It's not the technical rugby aspects that needed improving (they're far too involved to properly recreate in a game); it's the running, passing and kicking areas that needed work and virtually nothing has been done to better them. Where are the shimmying runs, the hand offs, the tactical kicks into touch and the up-and-unders? Yeah, you can kick the ball in Rugby Challenge 2006, but next to just recycling the ball out to the wings it's virtually redundant.

'Rugby Challenge 2006' Screenshot 2

he tackle animations are good. All five of them.

The other big problem with Rugby Challenge 2006 is that it's hands-down one of the ugliest sports game ever to appear on this generation of consoles. Getting thirty-plus men to move smoothly on screen at once is always going to be a challenge, but did it have to be at the expense of so much player detail? Seriously, it looks like half the players were baptised in the chip shop by mistake. The audio isn't much better either, John Inverdale's commentary amounting to nothing more than a few perfunctory observations at best. This really is aesthetics by the numbers.

At least there's plenty of content to Rugby Challenge 2006, far more so than ever appeared in World Championship Rugby. The World and European club competitions are still there, obviously, but it's the addition of the Premiership, Celtic and Super 14 teams to the scrum that really add weight to the package, especially if you're a regular rugby watcher (it's like FIFA suddenly remembering to include Arsenal if you're after a football analogy). There's a decent range of cups and leagues to plough through, a throwaway "classic match" mode and a passable take off of PES's Master League for those looking to indulge in some long-term gaming. Not groundbreaking, but you gets your money's worth, certainly.

Whether you'll want to physically play it all depends. Once you've figured that the best way to score is still simply a case of getting the ball out to your fastest winger it kind of takes the 'challenge' out of Rugby Challenge 2006. Even two-player games are a let down, with most matches decided by a combination of who has the stronger pack and the swifter backs. It might be a great title for those who never played a console game before, let alone a rugby console game, but this lacks too much of the real sport's depth and complexity to be anything other than a five minute distraction. If I were a rugby bore, I'd probably finish with some pithy comment about kicking this one into touch.

Damn it, I have.

6 / 10

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About Nic Linnear

Read more articles from Nic by visiting the Nic Linnear archive page.

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Comments (23) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • superdelphinus #1 6 years ago

    What came first - the egg chaser or the chicken?

  • afray #2 6 years ago

    So where's the EA review? IGN's was gushing, but said the same stuff about last year's effort, despite everyone else slamming it.

  • Tweakmonkey #3 6 years ago

    Where is the online in both these rugger games?

  • gazareth #4 6 years ago

    That doesn't look like Steve Thompson :(

  • DUFFMAN5 #5 6 years ago

    Hello one and all
    Totally off subject being as Rugby is PANTS. I want to buy a pc period (.. ....please! ) strategy/war game as in Toal War/Age of Empires, I have never played one being a console junkie, can anyone recommend a good one to get into first.
    Thank you for your time and thoughts
    Duffman
    Edited by 1 at 22/02/06 @ 12:23

  • megastar #6 6 years ago

    i cant even say the word without falling asleep, watch:

    Rugb..ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

  • reality_cheque #7 6 years ago

    @Duffman5: Try asking on the forums, you'll get a much better response. But I'd recommend Total War as it kicks arse (I prefer the Medieval version, but Rome is also good)

  • DUFFMAN5 #8 6 years ago

    Cheers Reality_cheque
    I will do that.
    DM

  • Stickman #9 6 years ago

    It seems rugby and cricket are simply beyond game developers.

    Don't start posh_geordie! Lara was OK, but that was it!

  • Kostabi #10 6 years ago

    Without a review of Rugby 06 it's hard to know why this game isn't better.

    I don't fancy going out and buying 06 only to find it's a slightly more polished turd than Rugby Challenge.

  • Ace_McCloud #11 6 years ago

    Lets all go and play Jonah Lomu again.... Infact they should release that bad boy on Xbox live arcade, then: good times!

  • Soul_quake #12 6 years ago

    As a game I was hoping they had fixed the issues of WRC but I guess that this sport is just too complex to fully capture in a game. Oh well, let us hope that perhaps on the next gen systems they will have slightly smarter AI for my fellow team mates.

    um, I would say that lawn bowls, personally, is worse than rugby. Also football - that is watching not playing football. Playing great, watching = yawn (eg. Liverpool vs Benfica) mostly.

  • Triggerhappytel #13 6 years ago

    Oh look, an EA Sports game which is selling well is... wait for it - actually shit!!

    I'm terribly shocked.

  • Scientist #14 6 years ago

    "Oh look, an EA Sports game which is selling well is... wait for it - actually shit!!"

    It's by Ubisoft. The reviewer clearly states that the EA Rugby '06 is better than this.

    Shoot first, think later?

  • Triggerhappytel #15 6 years ago

    "It's by Ubisoft. The reviewer clearly states that the EA Rugby '06 is better than this.

    Shoot first, think later?"

    Ha ha, you've got me there. I'm gonna go and hang my head in shame in a darkened room...

  • Stickman #16 6 years ago

    Don't worry. The EA one's shit too!

  • SUPANORM #17 6 years ago

    Rugby is a quality game just never been interested in playing it on a console, just doesn't seem right. Rather play it for real.

  • reality_cheque #18 6 years ago

    I'd rather play it on a console than in real life, but I still don't want to play rugby games :)

    If I want to get touched up by burly men, I'll become a professional wrestler - at least that way I get my own ring babe.

  • driptray #19 6 years ago

    For all people stating either "Rugby is shit" or "I've no interest in rugby games": what are you adding to the debate exactly?

    I like Rugby. I also think Jonah Lomu Rugby proved that rugby games CAN work, and am looking for a game to top that (currently none have).

    Equally I don't like tennis OR tennis games, but I don't post "Tennis is shit" and "I've no interest in tennis games" on any of those forums because it would be pointless to do so.

  • Scientist #20 6 years ago

    "Howz about a virtual game of the worlds most boring sport, Cricket "

    A) cricket games already exist.
    B) some people find cricket fascinating, including me. It is an incredibly deep, tactical game to watch and is also fun to play, in my opinion.

  • reality_cheque #21 6 years ago

    blackdog has obviously never watched that game where they lob horseshoes at tent pegs.

  • Dirtie #22 6 years ago

    Rugby and cricket are both fun and ejoyable to play both on the field and on consoles (for the most part; Rugby 2004 is somewhere on my worst games ever list) - get lost you rugby trolls.
    Now soccer, there's an incredibly boring, stupid sport. I mean, all anyone does is trip over trying to get a penalty, and there is what... an average of 1 goal per game? Fascinating.
    Edited by 2 at 22/02/06 @ 21:07

  • andrewfromdoncaster #23 6 years ago

    "but providing you know how to hold a joypad the right way up you'll get a good, flowing game of rugby in no time at all."

    A flowing game of union?

    So you pass it to the fattest forward nearby and he drives at the feet of a defender, before the ball gets lost in a pile of fat bodies for 30 seconds. If it's longer than that then we get a set play that invariably collapses and has to be reset a couple of times, therein wasting another 3 or 4 mins

    Rinse and repeat! ;)


    Any chance of a review of Super League Rugby 2?