Here's someones' 2 reviews on the game after playing it, from the sidhe forums:
So I went, I played, I got beat (little sad about that).
It's a pretty fleshed out demo from what I played. You can get straight into the action, which gave me no choice on which teams to play, or you can choose a single player game, and pick your team and the computer team.
First up, I arrived and see the game in a prominant position in the middle of the store. To my dismay though, the controller was a mad katz gamecube controller. I really wanted to try out the wiimote/nunchuk controls, but I powered through anyway.
I stood and watched some of the demonstrated cut scenes in the demo and listened to Vossy commentary for about 5 minutes before tentatively picking up the controller and hitting the big green A button going straight to the title screen. And wow, can I say, the presentation of this game is a BIG step up over the previous. Changing menu items is s smooth transition, and rather than going to a new screen each time, when you select your menu item, much like EA games, it pops out a sub menu. This is incredibly helpful and there is little or no lag between opening menus.
So, after fiddling with the menu for a few minutes, checking out the speed it moved at, and whether it actually worked, I decided to move straight into the action. Rather than play a quick game and be Leeds Rhinos, I selected a Single Player game to play as my beloved Dragons. And, as I was playing as the Dragons, I decided to go for an opposing rival team and compete against the Roosters.
The presentation of the game is a big step up. No longer to the players look like they are doing some kind of geniused monkey dance as they warm up. There is not a great improvement on graphics, but there is an improvement. What struck me straight away was the big jump in frame rates and the complete lack of screen tear going on. It's evident the developer has concentrated on making the players move a lot more smoothly to help immerse you in the game a lot more.
I did a quick look over the lineups and was startled to see, first, the Roosters were playing James Aubusson as their starting hooker with Jake Friend on the bench. Strangely enough, Anthony Minicello wasn't playing, with Perrett at fullback and SKD and Waqa on the wings. I am not sure if someone had perhaps, previously fiddled with the lineups, but I would have thought Mini would have been there. No biggie though. The Dragons on the other hand were stock Dragons, 1-17 with Nathan Fein on the bench. Great to see the rosters are as up to date as they can be for 2009 so we will be left with only small changes to customise them to 2010.
Braith Anasta lines up for a kick off which goes directly into the hands of Ben Creagh. Herein lies my first error. I foolishy didn't check the controls first. And so, my finger slaps the A button to run as fast as I can out of the in goal and into the defense.. So Ben Creagh kicked the ball far, far out on the full. The A button is kick. Remember this..
Foolish mistake, but one that could prove costly as the Dragons are forced to defend their own line off the first set. The tackling mechanism is simply put, AMAZING. You can set your defensive tactic, I went for aggresive in the hope that I could knock a ball loose and get it back. At one stage, I didn't rush up (I am used to playing, let the computer chase down the player, then change to the tackling player to complete the tackle). This was my second mistake. Me setting the tactics to aggresive, and then my player not moving up left a big hole in the defensive line, one that Mitchell Pearce quickly realised and shot a cut out pass out of dummy half to young William Mason, who went charging at the try line. Luckily a computer controlled Darius Boyd was able to dart across and cut Mason's legs out from under him in a brilliant one on one tackle. This made me adjust my tactic of letting the comptuer do all the work and it was ON LIKE DONKEY KONG. For the complete set I was able to hold them out, working well with the defense as a team unit. No more is it up to the player to do everything. There are a lot less missed tackles, but there is a lot more of an ability to punch through holes in the defense. So, I found I had to watch my line and make sure I moved in conjunction with it. At the end of the set, and mostly thanks to my brilliant defense, the Roosters had lost about 15 metres, and so Anasta's choice was to put the ball high in the air in the middle of the field with the fullback (YES! The Fullback) chasing. As I scrambled to contest the ball, swapping my player to Matt Cooper, I was able to leap higher than the attacking player and just manage to snatch the ball, what followed was simply marvelous. 4 Roosters players immediately jumped on Cooper forcing him back into the in goal. It was like they knew... The end of the first set, (second if you count my bombed effort), a drop out to the Roosters.
I can not stress enough. When kicking, the power meter system, is lame. I hate it, in all games. We have analogue buttons people (which we'll get to when I'm finally attacking), quit with this silly, press, wait, time, press. Firstly, I was not sure if the power meter system used by this developer was the hold down till you get the power you want, or press and wait. My first choice, power meter wise, is press and hold, release when at your required power. If you don't release, you get max power. Simple? Unfortunately, that's not the choice in this game. I pressed and held, nothing happened. So I pressed, waited till the bar rose, pressed again. *sighs*.
After acheiving and average drop kick, the second set went almost as the first one. Brilliant defense, seriously. The defense in this new game is key. You MUST work with your team. There is finally an actual quick play the ball, so you MUST run back to your line. The AI will no longer do it for you, and the ball will not stop at the play the ball area. This is great. It requires some getting used to, and a lot more work than previous incarnations of this game, but it is great. Seriously. I was in complete shock and awe at the greatness of the defense. Players no longer teleport through other players, markers will rush out and try to get the dummy half, the dummy half will run at offside players (mosltly me running back into position), and the attacking team will look for those holes. So, the end of my second defensive set resulted in me knocking the ball lose on the 5th as the Roosters again went for a kick out of dummy half. Ben Hornby lept out at marker, knocked the ball lose and then was able to dive on it (champion mate). However, my two and a half minutes for the half was then up.
The second half I had to kick off again, and I was still waiting to see what the attack was like, so I was hoping for a good defensive set, and then a go at attack. What a shock I got with what happened next. I kicked to the left side of the field, the ball was fielded Soliola. I ran up the field and changed to Beau Scott to make a tackle, which Soliola bounced out of with a quick step and lunge. Beau Scott, not being one to give up, gave chase as Soliola broke the line. As I jumped onto Soliola's back again, he was again, able to shake the tackle, which put him completely in the clear.. The hole left by Beau Scott playing slightly out of position and then missing the tackle was a glaring one. Uh-Oh I though to myself. I'm screwed here, as Soliola darted off with 3 Dragons players giving chase. "Boyd will catch him" I thought, but alas, he was just too far. Boyd managed to catch him, but only as Soliola planted the ball down slightly to the left of the posts, gifting the Roosters a try.
Fitzy converted easily..
Dragons kick off again, this time, to Soliola again, and this time there was no mistakes from Beau Scott as he punished Soliola HARD. Driving him to the earth with a big bang. The fullback darted into dummy half, and seeing me standing around like a dofus again (get back into your line. Seriously) he went short side, looking for the gap, but this time Boyd made the tackle and dragged Perrett out. Scrum Dragons. The scrum work. Bang. That is all there is to say. No more, ball trickling slowly out. Your half picking it up and standing still, Hornby scooped the ball up on the run and shot the ball quickly out. This is where the analogue button comes in, and makes passing a little tricky. I am not sure if it's the harder you push it, or the longer you hold it, but boy did that ball fire. A bullet pass, cutting out three team mates and hitting The Dell right on the chest. And he's off, there a gap that he sees, and he's running for it. The gap quickly closed (man alive, The Dell just has no acceleration) and as he's being tackled, he sees anoth Dragons player standing, ready for the offload, so offload he does. The canned animations no longer prevent offloading. Again, offloading works. That's all there is to say. I continued with my attacking set, working hard at finding gaps, but it was not to be. I just couldn't break the line. Basically, I couldn't really work out the passing. When it came to the kick, I already knew A did the kick, but man alive, if it wasn't much, much too deep. Heh. I need more time to work out the controls. So basically, the rest of my game was defense, defense, defense, and when I got the ball back, me not really being able to work out the passing. Then kicking really long, even when I didn't need to.
Overall, with the inclusion of tactics, the players getting more involved, you as the player having to actually work with your team, the smoother passing, catching and running. I have to say.. I can't wait. Seriously guys. This is a great big fat improvement over the previous game. I can't stress enough how fun it was to play. Unfortunately, my fiance was bored after my first game and I wasn't able to get another one, so I lost 6-0. But I will return on Monday with a friend of mine to have a few goes. Seriously, don't pay attention to the video (kudos to the poster), but if you watched video of the previous game, you'd think it was much worse than it was.
This game is freaking awesome. 4 months today people. And it can't come soon enough.
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Second impressions of the game are, I love it even more. Playing wii mote pick up and play sucked. Heh. The kicking has a lot more depth that in previous games. I spent the whole game trying to get a quality kick off with the game cube controller... And couldn't work it out till right at the end. It actually takes two buttons now. Press a to enter kick mode, hold down another button for the style of kick, release.
The best thing about this time though was, using the pick up and play, I was able to do chip and chasese really well. Just a quick tap of the 1 button to put a chip over the line. I did it with Benji Marshall, Shannon Gallant, Keith Galloway, Tuiaki and Gareth Ellis at assorted parts of the game.. Everyone will be extremely happy to know, I re gathered the kick with Tuiaki and Benji.. Yes, that's right, I re-gathered. Once, outleaping Fitzy who was getting back into place in his line, and once, the ball went to ground and I was able to beat the winger to it.
OH YEAH!
When you first pick up the control, and start playing it like you played Rugby League 2, the game is much the same. When you, as the player, treat it as such. The big difference is, the computer AI is much better defensively. So, when you play like you did Rugby League 2, you lose. The defense is the same.
The AI is drastically improved in both attack and defense, the kicking is much, much better (once you work out how to do it), the chip and chases work for one thing.
Seriously, it's just all round better.
That said, of course there are similarities to RL2. To complain about the game not havign a giant upgrade is moot. If you play any of the anually renewed sports games, there is usually not much difference. Fifa 9 and Fifa 10 was a big upgrade, thanks to the huge amount of online stuff they added in, and the 360 degree controls, other than that, Fifa 2010 is much the same as Fifa 2007.. Same as Tiger Woods, NHL, etc etc etc..
RL3 just feels better to play, and is a little harder to grasp. I put like a thousand hours into RL2 and I can seriously say, this one is a big, big improvement.
