And on that note, it turns out to be a pretty decent egg chasing game.
Jonah Lomu Rugby Challenge, (Steam). The challenge being getting him to run nine yards without his arthritic knees snapping in two.
It’s from a Kiwi game developer and has excruciatingly bad commentary, featuring that lovely pause as the sound engineer pastes in a pre-recorded word, so that you get lots of
“That was a great move for… England… they are really stepping up the pressure.”
“Yes. There’s only one favourite for this game and that is… … … England.”
The “colour” commentator is especially bad and sounds like all of his words have been read individually and then taped back together - he literally has no inflection.
The game itself though is pretty handy and is comfortably the best facsimile of the silly sport - the passing can be a bit stilted, but works well with the likelihood of a pass going astray increasing depending on how close you are to being tackled… kicking comes in all appropriate varieties, from the long punt to the up and under to the little grub kick and drop goals are available. One excellent touch is that the game goes into super-slow-mo bullet time when you press a kick button so that you can position your crosshair to where you want the ball to go, which is excellent for little rolling kicks when you’re about to be tackled - the players are still moving though, so you still can’t afford to take too long.
Scrums are a function of the ability of the pack and then a timing game - like the classic swing-meter in golf games, two lines start from the outside of a semi circle and move toward the middle and you need to stop both in a certain area to gain push. If you continually stop the two lines in slightly different areas then the scrum will twist and you can give away a penalty.
The ruck is nicely done, giving you a choice to add heavy or light bind players to win the ball, but the more players you commit to the ruck, the fewer passing options you’ll have when the ball comes free. Heavy binds provide more push, but they also release off the ruck more slowly than light binders.
If you commit a ton of players to the ruck and the opposition still wins the ball, then they have very sudden overloads and multiple passing options.
Running with the ball features the expected sidesteps, feints, dummy passes and power options, but the AI does a very good job of determining what’s likely. If you throw a dummy pass when you’ve no one in support then the AI isn’t going to buy it. Similarly, if you try a Barry Sanders-style spin with a Prop, then everyone points at you and laughs.
If you try to get into a loose maul with a Hooker then [your punchline goes here].
The game does do a good job of portraying a grinding style, which I didn’t expect - I played out a rough 12-6 win over France last night by keeping the ball in among the props and locks and smashing ahead and winning rucks. Eventually enough French would be committed to the ruck that I could fling the ball outside and belt down the wings.
On the 70 minute mark there was one prodigious French stand where we mashed away at them under their posts five or six times without managing to crack the try line, which was a lot of fun. We pounded into their line trying both rucks and little last-second outlet passes and shuffled play all the way from left to right and back again without getting in, before giving away a penalty for knock on in something like our seventh phase. The French then punted the penalty out of play to get out of their 22 and then won the lineout, played the ball off the top and then bounced a kick out, showing the AI understands legal kicking.
In an earlier game against Romania I sauntered across the try line, but then got tackled and held up so I couldn’t get the ball down for a try. Later, a Romanian came in with a wrestling-style flying clothesline of a high tackle and got sin binned.
Weather also affects the game, with handling worse in the rain, meaning you need to modify your style to the conditions a bit.
The game doesn’t have a license for anything other than the All Blacks, I think, so the players are fictional, but that’s unimportant to someone like me who isn’t a huge rugby fan. The pack look suitably tubby, the props look like well fed basketball players and England even feature a stocky fly half with stupid TinTin hair who looks like he’s crapping himself in his kicking runup.
On easy mode the game could be played by a Skinner-box Pigeon randomly pecking the buttons, but Normal represents a noticeable shift, as scrums become properly awkward, especially if you didn’t get the put in, lineouts are easily lost if you don’t get it right and AI breakaways become very dangerous if you don’t tackle properly.
I played four games into a world cup as England last night on normal - beat Romania 33-0, lost 19-7 to Wales, lost 12-5 to Ireland and beat Uruguay 19-3. Up next… New Zealand. I’ll just put it back on easy for that.
