Instead it just feels unpleasantly jerky. If the animations materialized quicker, perhaps even in half the time as they play out now, the game would flow in a far superior manner. But unfortunately it is as if the developers somehow designed the speed of the tackle animations a fraction of a second too slow. A hand off does look like a solid shove, and rucking looks like a bunch of manly hulks climbing into each other in competition for the ball. Sure, without a doubt the animations themselves look really great minus the diving on loose balls. Some miss tackles have to be slow animations, and so on. Diving on the ball is both atrociously designed and handled, and also has to be a slow animation. Dropping the ball has to be a slow animation. That the developers had to animate everything at such a slow pace really knocked the gameplay for me. Consider a football equivalent of some footballer from Tonga or Lesotho’s national side outclassing Argentina’s Lionel Messi in attack. Some of the most potent and effective rugby players such as Eben Etzebeth, Julian Savea, and Nonu felt ineffective on attack against some of the weakest opposition I could put them against.
At the end I realized it didn’t matter who I ran with for it would always be the same result. And even further dissatisfied I became when Vermeulen would miss easy tackles against Kenyans while defending. So all the more dissatisfied I became when Kenya’s amateur scrumhalf put Vermeulen on his back every time I ran at him. In real life he is an impact player who can cause damage to his opponents. For example, South Africa’s 8th man, Duane Vermeulen, is arguably one of the best in the world in his position and he’s a pretty big unit (117kg). I managed to beat Kenya simply because South Africa is much better but at the same time the win felt contrived. In real life South Africa would smash Kenya in a game of rugby, but this clearly fails to translate to RC3.
This was clearly most noticeable when I played mismatched teams against each other on pro level for instance, I put powerhouse South Africa against Kenya. Northern Hemisphere clubs bashing it out.Īnother disappointing feature is RC3’s substituting realism for difficulty. Not only do I much prefer the side-line camera but I also felt nauseous from the constant camera swinging as the teams either won or gave away the ball. I could only change the depth in terms of how far, or how close, I wanted the camera to be to my player. However, I personally hate the camera being placed behind the player but for some insane reason pro mode won’t allow for me to change it. This I found to be a really great component to RC3 and one that I certainly enjoyed in part.
This means the player has to meet a certain standard for example, to be a competent flanker I had to join at least five rucks and make eight tackles in a game as well as meeting other expectations. One can then work his way up and potentially get selected for a national team should he perform well enough for his club. There’s also a pro mode which allows a player to customize their own player from his physical appearance and preferred positions.
For a start there is a new feature which allows players to compete on the ground for the ball, and if you’re quick enough having beaten the oncoming ruckers then you can win possession. There are all sorts of features that one would expect in a decent sports game, and there are also numerous improvements made since Rugby Challenge 2. One can witness the great deal of effort that the creators put into developing RC3.
We will look why this is the case but, to give credit where it is due, RC3 is by far the best rugby game on the market at this present time. Rugby Challenge 3 is one of those games that presents you with so much awesomeness but then mercilessly punches you in the gut.