Cluster-ruck

Rugby union fans have been starved for authentic video game representations of their beloved sport for years now, with the last truly strong rugby game being Rugby 08. Sadly, Rugby 15 is not the game to break the drought. In fact, it’s an utter disaster.

Of all the various sports that share the ‘football’ classification, rugby union is one of the trickiest for newcomers to wrap their heads around thanks to a myriad of rules and complexities. While scoring points is the same logic as other forms of football—getting a ball across a try line or kicking a ball between goal posts—converting kick-off to try time involves a number of key set pieces.

For instance, ground is gained by a kicking game, that’s governed by specific rules of whether the ball lands out on the full, bounces before the out-of-play line or is caught on the full behind the 22-metre line and ‘marked’. The team in possession of the ball can run as many phases as they like, unless there’s an infringement or they kick the ball. When tackled, the player holding the ball must release it, as players from both sides pile in and form a ruck, which can only be entered from the side. Scrums and mauls can be used to drive the ball across the try line or gain precious metres, while line-out kicks are essential for gaining ground.

In short, rugby union is a tricky game to learn, and developer HB Studios deserves kudos for condensing the complexities of the game into a relatively simple arcade-style control scheme. Unfortunately, for gamers hoping Rugby 15 will be the gateway to understanding union, there’s a lack of a meaningful tutorial, or any specific training modes for the various components of the sport. Instead, you’ll have to learn by way of ten static training screens and in-game control reminders.

For the most part, the controls are all very easy to come to grips with, but it almost instantly comes apart after kick-off. As I played, it became increasingly clear to me that the gameplay stops and starts based on what the player is doing. While it’s nice to be at the centre of the action, it makes for boring rugby, as both sides stand around waiting for you to act.

For instance, at kick-off, your AI teammates only start moving after you’ve fully completed the drop-kick start of play, and the kicker stands stuck on the spot for a second or two before being able to move. Even if you switch players immediately after kicking, it’s impossible to perform cheeky ten-metre starts/restarts that give you the opportunity to gain possession and make easy ground.

Similarly, there were times when I pulled the ball out of the back of a ruck and just stood there watching the opposing team stand around, oblivious to my possession until I took a step forward. The best tactics were to deliberately relinquish possession to gain easy metres. I found the most successful and repeatable tactic, regardless of difficulty level, was to perform a box-kick from the back of a ruck to gain ground. As long as the kick stayed on the field and outside of the 22-metre line (where the AI will take a mark), it’s incredibly easy to force a turnover.

Basic tackling is as easy as guiding your selected player into the opposing player with the ball. Or any opposing player for that matter, as you never seem to get penalised for tackling players that aren’t carrying the ball. In fact, outside of ruck infringements, I rarely got penalised for anything. Forward passes were never noticed or penalised, whether performed by me or the opposing team, and off-side penalties were only awarded about ten percent of the time.

As for ruck penalties, they’re incredibly easy to avoid. Once the player carrying the ball is tackled, you have to push the right stick into a predetermined sweet spot that rushes from red to yellow to green, then you can take possession of the ball. Attempting to take the ball when the meter is red results in an instant penalty; yellow is a risky grab that may result in a penalty (and is, surprisingly, easier to get away with in hard difficulty); while green is safe to grab, except when the referee erroneously pings you from time to time for a legal grab.

The ruck mechanic is glitchy when in possession of the ball, meaning I had to hit the right trigger to release the ball before attempting to play the meter game. If I didn’t do this, Rugby 15 stopped registering controller input for a few precious seconds. This is a problem that plagues that PlayStation 3 version of the game more than anything else (also outside of rucks). Given the specific way you’re forced to ruck, it’s best not to be in possession of the ball until you’re within ten metres of the try line, so you don’t have to deal with the incredible frustration of losing possession because the game bugs out.

Even on the supposedly hard difficulty, it’s incredibly easy to win back possession in a ruck once you learn the right-stick sweet spot and perfect timing combination.

By far the biggest problem I had with Rugby 15, though, was that it rarely felt as though skill or tactics played into scoring tries. When running with the ball, you can flick the right stick up or down, or twirl the stick around completely, to sidestep opponents, but even that mechanic only seemed to work sporadically for me.

The game seems to predetermine the outcome of specific plays before the animation occurs, resulting in an inability to pass the ball if it decides you’re about to be tackled, or a lack of a sidestep if that stationary player in front of your guy is destined to take you down. Similarly, partial AI control over the player-controlled footballer means that sidesteps and fends automatically occur at the game’s discretion, while players will regularly run off on their own accord, even if they have the human-controlled icon above their heads. It feels more like rugby roulette than rugby union.

When you eventually make it to the trial-and-error-style try-scoring mechanic, you’ll discover that there are two ways to score a try. The first, game-encouraged option is to click in the left or right stick to score a try. This proved to be a risky manoeuvre, though, as full-speed players had a tendency to dive over the dead-ball line, resulting in a penalty. Even the opposing team was guilty of this on one occasion, in an uncontested try opportunity.

The second, guaranteed option for scoring a try is to run your player over the try line and wait to be tackled. There’s no option to get a player beneath a try attempt to stop them touching down the ball, and a button for charging down a kick is sorely lacking. While there’s no sprint option, stamina didn’t appear to come into play (despite its presence in the options menu), and pursuing players rarely catch up to a running player, even if their stats determine they should be able to.

There are rare moments where the intended gameplay formula bounces to the top of the heap, and local co-op/competitive play improves the rhythm as it helps get around dealing with the atrocious AI. Local multiplayer has its own specific issues, however, particularly in regard to the weird system of tracking and switching players during co-op.

It’s worth noting the game looks decidedly last-gen, with dated visuals that can become confusing in certain matches where jersey colours are indistinguishable between friend and foe, especially when you consider how frequently players flock in front and behind the off-side line. The PlayStation 3 version of Rugby 15 is particularly ugly, with a lower resolution, darker presentation, plenty of jaggies and a terrible frame rate, to boot. Combine the unappealing visual presentation with the aforementioned game woes, and the PS3 version is unplayable in its current form.