EA Sports increase realism for Rugby ’08

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Full credit to Sagerian over at GoTheTahs.com for this post, it was too good not to stick up!

Word is they’ve increased the realism in Rugby 08, for example:

  • The All Black’s squad is not available until you’ve played half of the super 14 season, if you go straight into Tri-Nations, you can’t select the all blacks.
  • The Sprinboks will send a squad made up of the Cheetahs and Lions team if you select Australia or New Zealand as a stadium choice.
  • Lachlan MacKay goes down in the first minute with a knee injury (Lifted from TWF and this actually happened).
  • As South Africa, you can’t advance past the team selection screen if there are less than 4 black players in your XV (true story).
  • Playing as the Waratahs, when a try looks certain, it’s not…
  • Playing as the Waratahs, if you’re defending a slim lead, you’re going to lose.
  • Quade Cooper simply does not catch the ball. You have to actually move him with the controller so he’s directly facing the ball and standing perfectly still, or else he’ll drop it.

  • Rodney Blake will be told mid-season to not play anymore, for NO REASON!
  • Any time you try to pass the ball with Kurtley Beale, he instead chip kicks.
  • If you auto-select the Wallabies squad, it will consist largely of people who didn’t play during the Super 14, most of those will be Queenslanders. Additional options of selecting Kefu, Horan and Eales are available.
  • If you select South Africa, eye goughing is bound to the R3 button.
  • Playing as the Reds or Waratahs, half time consists of fighting off the Force administration and Firepower as they try to sign all your players.
  • In Career mode, you spend your budget on player salaries, etc. The Force have the additional section for court fees and fines.
  • When playing in cape town, you’ll suddenly lose 1 or 2 players from your available roster.
  • As England, you can increase the tightness of the playing jersey (there is currently no option to decrease it however).
  • Challenge mode: Deport Eddie Jones. 1: Get him sacked as Wallabies coach. 2: Get him sacked as Reds coach. 3: Convince Jake White that he can actually coach.
  • Challenge mode: Recruit as many has-been mungo players as you can before time runs out.
  • Select a Wallabies backline where the average rating for kicking is -50 and recieve Andrew Johns as a kicking coach.
  • Bug: David Croft, Matt Henjak and Peter Hewat non-selectable for Wallabies.
  • Berrick Barnes’ stats for Rugby 08 simply say “Refer to Rugby 06″
  • Trevor Brennan is selectable, but can only move about the stands, punching people.
  • Challenge mode: Sitiveni Sivivatu wifebeater challenge (…too soon?).
  • Bug: Nathan Sharpe runs around in circles towards the wings whenever there is hard work to be done by the forwards. Will win player of the year award.

5 thoughts on “EA Sports increase realism for Rugby ’08”

  1. I guess I will see this first hand, our Portuguese exchange student just ordered this game for our Play Station II. He told me he will try to teach me the game, since he knows I love rugby-but am a total tosser when it comes to video games.(“That’s just because you’re OLD” my 16 year old daughter says)

  2. I’m quite keen for it also, though they aren’t releasing the XBox version until later this year.. real shame really

  4. Hi Andrew, well, Rodrigo(Our exchange student from Portugal) gives this EA rugby game a massive thumbs up. I have not played it, but I am really impressed by the realism of the graphics and that they even made the players look realistic. How much does he like it? Well, he is on the internet a lot less…guess that’s a good thing