What I know about the game of rugby couldn’t even fill this sentence. After playing the demo of Rugby World Cup 2011, I know one thing, I want to learn more. The last rugby game I can remember playing was EA Sports’ Rugby 2004, and all that did was leave a sour taste in my mouth.
In this demo you get to play one half with either England or South Africa. I played through the demo multiple times with both teams, and I learned something very interesting about myself, I think I really like rugby.
Rugby seems like a fairly difficult, yet straight forward sport, and what HB Studios had done right is make it very accessible. The only offensive controls you have are; pass right, pass left, sprint, kick and dive (for grounding the ball for a try). On defense its even simpler, there is only switch player, sprint and diving tackle. From what I remember of Rugby 2004, all the buttons were being used. Rugby World Cup 2011‘s simple control scheme makes the game very easy for players that may not even know the game.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJs_-xxgJPI]
The visuals of this game are on par with other sports games on Xbox 360 and PS3. In the past, the majority of games worked on by HB Studios were in cooperation with EA Sports. That would explain the games high quality and attention to detail. This is the first game where HB Studios has fully funded the game themselves, and from what I’ve seen, it’s a great start.
If you have some free time on your hands I really think you should check out this demo. The only problem that I have had so far is that I can’t any place that is going to carry the game. I’ve checked on Amazon and Best Buy, nothing, the only thing I have found is GameStop has the game for pre-order only on Xbox 360, available on September 6th, while the game’s official website says it comes out August 26th.
So I’m extremely interested in getting my hands on the game, so I hope as we get closer to the release it is easier to find it.
Rugby World Cup 2011 demo is available now on Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network.
Let me know what you think of the demo in the comments or on Twitter @ThatSportsGamer.