Rugby 22

Squidge gave it a surprisingly good review. I was looking at it last night on the store but haven't committed yet, Randomly its 10 quid cheaper then Rugby 20.

What’s the customisation like for unlicensed teams? Can you edit player names and teams kits?

I've noticed if your passing the ball v quickly consecutively down the line, you will get offloads when being tackled. It very much seems to be built into the gameplay though as opposed to player controlled. On so many occasions my player as been falling in whet felt like slow motion but I couldn't pop it on. Its a bit of a shame tbh, slows down the gameplay

pushing up on the right stick is a hand-off, need to do it well before the tackle though.

Have to say the more I play the more I'm liking it. Definitely some clunky animation and a few glitches /bugs but its good craic.

I've played a few online matches not and some decent arm wrestles. Manged to come back from 14 down last night and pin the opposition into his own 22 in the last minute. He'd kicked it out for a draw rather then playing it! I was disgusted!

Wait times for online matches haven't been too bad either, at least at he the moment theres a reasonable uptake of people playing it online.

I've been playing this a bit too. The previous two incarnations of this game were fairly bad, and were very similar. They made some iterative improvements for the sequel, but overall both games were not great. This one is a massive improvement on previous, they've fundamentally redesigned many aspects of the game, some of which I'm still on the fence about (e.g. I don't have a rashers what's going on at line-out time still), but I like that they're trying things and not just churning out more of the same. I still think it's below the bar to be considered a good game, but the trajectory of the series is good. Things like the graphics and animations are especially poor which really drag it down for me.

Licensing many of the teams and leagues is a huge improvement. Not being able to set the starting line-up of teams is a real pain in the hole however. Sexton doesn't make the Leinster 23 for example, despite being the highest rated player in the squad, and you can't fix that permanently.

They introduced starter plays in the previous version and seem to have expanded on that significantly for this one. They were hugely powerful in the previous version, especially the cross field kick play which would result in a try probably 90% of the time because the defensive line was always so narrow. I've yet to play around with them here, but I think they'll be key to adding a bit of variety to the gameplay as it can be a bit tedious trying to make something happen in possession, especially when your players are tired.

The changes to how scrums, line-outs, place kicking and kicking from hand work are all welcome, but I'm still not sure they're actually better yet. Line-outs in particular make no sense to me. The game used to slow down when you kicked from hand which was good, but I think I like that it doesn't do that anymore, means you have to get your kick away faster. I don't understand the power bar accuracy thing that appears on screen when you kick from hand however, I choose to ignore it and it seems to make no difference.

Online play is much improved from a playlist perspective. Previous version had loads of playlists: 7s rugby, competitive match, casual game, women's rugby — for a game that doesn't have a lot of players to begin with, diluting the online player pool like that was a ridiculous decision. Now there's just one mode: Online Game. Much better.

The last main sort of interesting change is the introduction of some kind of Ultimate Team type card collecting feature. Anyone who has played FIFA will know about FUT, it seems like kinda the same thing — you get points for doing challenges in game, and you can use those points to buy card packs that contain rugby players. Not sure how that will play out, but might add a bit of longevity to the game for some people. The main issue with previous versions of this game if you play online is the player base is effectively zero after a couple of months.

The last line there is the main thing. I suspect by summer /end of summer there will be sweet fa playing online. For me thats where it's at with games like this. You can't beat the spontaneity of a human opponent. Playing a campaign is a little dull.