Game Review - Rugby World Cup 2011

Game Review - Rugby World Cup 2011

Rugby World Cup 2011
Released on Platform : PS3
In case you hadn't noticed, there's the small matter of the Rugby World Cup currently on the go.
As the whole nation heads descends into rugby madness, it's certainly a contagion which is infecting the gaming world as well with the latest tournament now being released onto the consoling world.
Well, I say the latest tournament but to be honest, this one is lacking a little Kiwi action with the All Blacks being signed up exclusively for another game, meaning this tournament feels a little lacking in the current action.
You have choices to make on many levels in this - be it on the team front, strategies, penalty kick choices, tournaments or one off games, there's certainly enough options to keep you busy.
Enlisting in a tournament means you have to go through the process of progressing through stages and how far you go, will all depend on who your opponents are. The earlier stages are of course easier and when you get to the finals, as you'd expect, there's a possibility of a real fight on your hands.
As for gameplay itself, well, to be fair, it's a playable affair - if an unspectacular one.
As ever with these kind of games, the crowd background adds very little to the atmosphere because they're sort of blurred out and relatively undefined.
Coupled with a generic commentary, the signs are there for a bit of a yellow card to be honest given these factors fail to immerse you deeply into the game.
On the pitch itself, the players are glimpsed mainly from the back of the head and on the rare occasion when they do face camera, the graphics are fairly blandly put together and look akin, in places to Mr Potato Head.
Thankfully, while these niggles aren't ideal, they don't detract too much from the game play itself which, even the most inept and uneducated to the sport will be able to grasp.
Overall, this official game is a bit of a disappointment; it's certainly one to wile away the hours in between watching the coverage on TV ONE and on tvnz.co.nz but it's not quite worthy of a placing in the upper echelons of essential sporting console games.

Rating: 6/10