Rugby League 3 AU Review
The League of Extraordinary Rugby?
by IGN Staff
Australia, March 7, 2010 - When a misinformed parent scoops up 'Rugby League 3' on Wii, at worst, they might associate it with spear-tackling, drug allegations and ill-fated sexual shenanigans. Conversely, a misinformed gamer could pick up the same title and imagine three decidedly worse things: waggle mini-games, a Mii representation of Willie Mason's head and the general grabastic nonsense that'd rename the game to 'Wugbii Wiigue Fwii'.
Thankfully, the sum of all fears is based upon bad arithmetic - both groups would be dead wrong in their assumptions. Rugby League 3 is a genuine step forward for the franchise with meaningful additions to the formula as opposed to being a hospital pass at the casual gamers. The only real mystery veiling it is why this PS2 fixture has only seen a release on the Wii? We have no official answers for you there, sports fans - only questions of our own.
Rugby League 3 has seen a massive amount of code additions this time around, including; the NRL Competition, State of Origin, City Country, Trans-Tasman Tests, World Cup 2013, World Cup 2017, Four Nations Tournaments and the Toyota Cup (i.e. the under 20s competition the superstars of the future).
Competitions and teams galore!
Also, for our English cousins who tend to get shafted off the field, just as much as on they've included Super League and the lower-tiered Championship and Championship One divisions. Plus, if you're lucky enough to unlock them, you can play the Great Britain Lion's Tour, The Kiwi's Tour of the UK and the Australian Tour of the UK. All up, you're looking at a staggering eighty licensed teams, as opposed to the fifty odd in the last Rugby League game.
The AI has also witnessed a noticeable overhaul. Your CPU nemesis will now substitute fatigued players more readily and look for gaps in your defensive line if your guys are too shuffled in one particular direction. It's also very strategic in its kicking; if it recognises an opportunity it'll kick on the fourth instead of the fifth, and it'll employ a variety of kicks too, including chips, grubbers and bombs. If it is behind on points and the clock is ticking it'll get more aggressive to get an equalising try - or it'll go for the seedy field goal to piss on your parade proper. All in all, very impressive.
Other gameplay enhancements include a new 'cycle strategy' button which lets you select four offensive and four defensive AI behaviours for your team. Kick Strategy gets your playmaker to move into the pocket to give you plenty of time to better set up for a strategic 40/20 or a bomb. Full Line makes your fullback come up into the line to create an extra man to potentially take (nonsexual) advantage of any overlaps. Attack Deep once again has your fullback moving forward and your team mates will look a bit harder for gaps in the defence. Lastly, the Field Goal strategy is for when there's ten seconds to go, scores are tied and you need some extra points; your playmaker is given a lot of time to line up the kick.
Cycling through strategic options adds depth to the game.
On the opposite side of possession, you also have four defence strategies to mess with. Defend Kick gets your winger and a fullback to drop back in anticipation of a kick. Full Line is convenient in that it does exactly what you think it does. Cover Defence gets both of your wingers to drop back a little bit to defend any breakthroughs. Lastly, Aggressive is similar to a blitz in Gridiron; your guys will be a lot more zealous when trying to stifle an enemy kick, or to force an error.
By and large, these new strategies definitely add more depth, and the ability to effectively set up for a specific play makes Rugby League 3 a richer, more tactical experience than its predecessors. However, due to a lack of available buttons on either of the control schemes you can only cycle through a strategy sequentially. It works after some dedicated practice, but it isn't exactly ideal. This does not represent the end of the control issues. We'll get to the rest in a minute.
In addition to the strategies, onscreen UI has seen slight improvement too. Certain players in your team now have one of three opaque icons located at their feet: a shield, a football and some wings.
The shield represents the team mate who has the best tackle ability and break-tackle ability. The football represents the playmaker you has the best passing and kicking stats. The bloke with the wings represents the player who is sponsored by Libra Fleur. No, not really. He's your speed and agility man if there's daylight ahead of him, there's a fair chance he'll score a try. These visual cues work wonders in letting you instantly ascertain who should have the ball - rather than randomly passing the ball around until Vossey identifies who is who.
The real guts of the game is Franchise mode. It has increased from ten years to twelve and the masochists among you can now enable 'firing' (basically, if you're exceptionally rubbish, your team will soon advise you to avoid the door hitting your arse on the way out). As per usual, you can choose what you want automated for you, including player trading, player training and squad selection and whether you want to simulate or play your matches.
It's looking like a touchdown, I mean basket, I mean goal, I mean try.
It's a similar set up to the previous iterations of Rugby League; you'll need to monitor your virtual inbox to keep abreast of Dally M standings, player injuries, suspensions and crisis meetings. Strangely, we didn't see any communiqués about our players involved in bar brawls or defecating in non-designated sections of hotel rooms - but perhaps that just fell under the politely listed 'suspended for law breaking' emails we kept receiving.
Anyhow, one of the best new additions is trial matches, which are great for tweaking your team to perfection. You can take a greater role in training your squad in either defence, tackling ability, aggressiveness, fitness, skills, set-plays, speed and strength. Everything has a cause and effect. You can also set rest days to reduce injuries - for example; if you issue some R&R to a guy out with a torn achillis, he may get back in eight weeks instead of ten. You can mess with your team line-up too; but you'll need to watch for players who crack the sads when they're playing out of position overall performance will go downhill faster than a fat man chasing a dropped Malteser.
Franchise mode isn't brain science, but it is rewarding to see the knock on effect of all of your decisions and meticulous planning. Couple that with a brand new 'club records system' that lets you track, and attempt to beat existing, real-life records for every single NRL team and this new Franchise mode really is the duck's guts.
Fit men and plenty of ball handling - no wonder this sport is so popular.
It's a shame then that the game is partially let-down by the mixed bag that is the controls. There are three different control modes: the GameCube controller, the Wiimote and Nunchuk combo and the Wiimote by itself held 'gangsta NES' style. The first option works great. The second makes sense after five minutes and minimises the waggle to flicking the Wiimote to single pass and swinging with the Nunchuk as well for a cut-out pass. The third is bloody awful. The Wiimote D-pad is ill-suited to positioning a player to catch a line-drop-out and the idea of tilting a little to pass and a lot to cut-out pass is a concept that is borderline broken. Even still, two out of three useable control schemes ain't so bad, we guess.
Closing Comments
When designing this Wii title, developer Sidhe would have been faced with three choices; to dumb down the graphics and devolve the existing game to a Wii Sports-style title, to do an oxymoronic bobble-headed serious version (like FIFA 10 on Wii) or to stay true to the existing franchise. Mercifully, the studio chose the latter. This retains the depth of the original titles and adds incremental meaningful improvements the formula.
Rugby League 3 is still a bit semi-pro in places in terms of graphics and control, but it is more than passable. Besides which, the issues and weaknesses are offset by the game being genuinely entertaining to play, both in the expanded Franchise mode by yourself or when you take advantage of the eight player multiplayer. Rugby League 3 scores the try but misses the conversion.
IGN AU RATINGS FOR RUGBY LEAGUE 3 (WII)
Rating Description
7.0 Presentation
Slick menus and improved on-field UI. Also sports a much improved replay function that shows the entire play being made.
6.0 Graphics
Capable by Wii standards, which doesnt say that much. Long term fans will feel an overwhelming sense of deja-vu with the tackling animations though.
6.0 Sound
Speaking of re-use, a lot of Vosseys voicework has been dug up for another go. The looping menu music gets annoying. Hearing the ref through the Wiimote is cool.
7.0 Gameplay
Bypass the Wiimote-only control scheme and this is a blast to play. Sidhe have done an admirable job of shoehorning the PS2 controls to the other schemes. There are still niggling issues though.
7.5 Lasting Appeal
Franchise mode will keep hardcore League Gods happy for a long time with great multiplayer and a tonne of competitions, teams and heritage jerseys to unlock.
7.0
Decent
OVERALL
(out of 10 / not an average)
http://au.wii.ign.com/articles/107/1075104p1.html
Doesn't seem too bad!
