England powered through into the rugby world cup final so it's time you lot dragged yourself out and followed in their footsteps for a fast furious game of rugger with Audiogenic's scrum-tious new game. And who better to review it than crash's hunk Nick Roberts. Guess who wrote the intro too...! (modesty itself! - Ed)

Audiogenic
£11.99

There haven't been any rugby games on the Spectrum for ages so this came as a welcome change from the usual football games. I saw the game in development many moons ago at Denton Design and it looked good then. Now, with all the flash presentation and sound effects, it's a real smasher.

Sports simulations usually divide into two extremes: either the graphics are awful but the game's quite playable, or the graphics and animation are amazing but there's no satisfaction. World Class Rugby has the best of both worlds - great detail and animation in the players, good presentation and highly playable, too!

The front end has various menu screens which allow you to customise the game. You can change the team names and player options and alter the pitch and graphics' colours. From the video menu, you choose to have action replays of the more exciting parts of the game and switch the special 'blimp' mode on or off. One is from high above the pitch with small sprites and a good view of all the players. The other is a closer view point but you can't always tell where all your players are.

Unfortunately, the 48K version has had some of the features cut out to cram the main game in. There are no action replays, a cut-down menu, no blimp mode, the players are't illustrated and you can't customise them.

MUD PACKS

World Class Rugby includes all the moves and formations of the real thing only without the bad backs and mud on your face. Some moves require you to use the jostick in a special way to gain possession of the ball and others are automatically performed by the players. There are scrums, rucks, lineouts, dropouts, penalties, conversions, send offs, substitutions and grounding. The controls are herd to get used to and different combinations have to be memorised but these soon become easy with a little practice.

Sports simulations generally aren't very good - it's difficult to capture the excitement of real life on a computer screen. Audiogenic and Denton Design have done an excellent job though and World Class Rugby goes a long way towards bringing the sport straight into the bedroom.

NICK [86%]

As with the footy World Cup many software houses have jumped on the bandwagon and produced copious amounts of rugby sims in the wake of the recent tournament. I'm no great lover of this very manly sport (any wisecracks here Ed and you'll be chewing dentures)(would I? - Ed), but it contains most of the features of the game. And without the risk of personal injury I might add, there's nothing like a spot of armchair sport for lazy so and so's like me. The only slight irritation is the amount of moves etc, that have to be memorised, but on the whole World Class Rugby is worth the asking price.
MARK [84%]

Audiogenic
£11.99 cass/£15.99 disk
Reviewer: Andy Hutchinson

I remember rugby, That was that awful sport, played exclusively in the freezing winter, where the large boys with body-hair got to squash your face into goo and got a pat on the back from the sportsmaster for their efforts. Meanwhile, the girls got to play sedate games of netball. Give me table tennis anyday.

I mean come-on, I reckon that if horse racing is the sport of kings then rugby must be the sport of bash-faced bruisers who can put away 15 pints of lager in a single sitting. Anyway those nasty chaps who were so 'good' at jumping up and down on each other and kicking a peculiar shaped ball carried on playing when they grew up - and even earned money for it. Hence something called professional rugby.

World class rugby is pretty much the saem as World class football, except that the Brazilians and the Cameroons are really crap at it, whereas the New Zealanders and the Australians (who are dreadful at footy) are brilliant. What a weird game!

CALL THAT FRIENDLY?

Audiogenic's World Class Rugby is a faithful representation of the competition which'll be played out for real by the time you lot read this. You can either play a single 'friendly' game, a league game or a proper world cup tournament. The friendly game option (contradiction in terms or what!) enables you to have a quick kick about, the league option operates in the same way as the football league and the cup option is a knock out tournament.

Practically everything can be configured the way you like it. Your team can wear different coloured funky strips, the matches can be played for however long you like (as long as it's between two and 40 minutes), the pitch can be any colour and the skill level can range between zero and six.

If you're unhappy with the team you can actually play a game. Hurrah! This starts off with the chaps jogging out onto the field and then booting the ball up-field. The strength of the kick is controlled by a groovy kickometer which also enables you to control direction.

With the game underway, you can now being to canter upfield and attempt to get hold of the ball. Yep, this is where the fun really starts! The player nearest the ball has a large arrow over his head, move him towards the ball and he can pick it up (as long as it's just lying on the floor). But (but!), if one of your opponents has got the ball, you can tackle him by pressing fire.

TRY ME!

There are lots of set pieces to any game. Depending on how nimble and quick you are, you can pass the ball down-wing to your fastest players and get a few tries. Then there are scrums. (Now, children, these are very dangerous and shouldn't be tried at home!) Both sides get into a huddle and stare fiercely at each other for a few tense seconds. The ball is then thrown in and 13 beefy guys attempt to kick the ball over to their own side. At this point you can either run, or try and get possession of the ball by waggling the joystick as quickly as possible.

Get a try and you can go for a conversion (which is a bit like a goal!) by booting the ball through the posts. If you're successful, you'll get some lovely points and a large pat on the back from your manager.

There's also a radar which shows you where your other team members are (probably whining in agony in a foot of mud), so you can pass the ball to your own chaps rather than those ugly bods from the other side.

And finally, if your last move was a particularly spectacular piece of play then you can view it again on the action replay. If it was absolutely stonkingly groovily funkadelic than you can save it to tape to view over and over again, or at least 'til your mum gets bored senseless.

WCR is a tremendous blast what with all those lovely reversible jerseys jostling each other for attention! And there's plenty of lasting action to keep away those dreadful muddy face pavilion blues. Right, I'm off to buy myself a gum shield and a pair of stout boots with huge studs. Well, you don't think I'm silly enough to try the real thing, do you? I had enough of that at school. Hurrah!

Label: Audiogenic
Memory: 48K/128K
Price: £10.99 Tape, £15.99 Disk
Reviewer: Big Al Dykes

That's it lads, stick the boot in. This favourite recommendation of my old rugby coach was brought back to mind recently, firstly by T.V. coverage of the Rugby World Cup and secondly by this spiffing piece of software from Audiogenic.

It's genuinely a myth that rugby players have to be big and hairy with cauliflower ears and miles of insulating tape permanently wrapped around their heads, at least by the standards of Audiogenic World Class Rugby. All these sprites are clean cut, slim and wiry and, believe it or not, I didn't hear a single curse during the entire course of the game, (well at least not from the on-screen players!). Furthermore, they never joined Garth or myself in the pub afterwards, yet more convincing evidence of how civilised this gentleman's game has become.

The accuracy with which the real game's rules and play are recreated in this simulation is quite impressive, along with the range of options available. Unlike many sports sims which look rather bland, World Class Rugby impresses immediately and you get a genuine feeling of real time action. The teams available includes the five home nations plus all the well known teams from the rest of the world. In play the whole team react to the opposition under computer guidance while you get control of the player closest to the ball. This player is marked with a diamond and when in possession of the ball he can make several realistic movements including long or short passes, "Garry Owen" up and under kicks or kicks to touch.

If you don't have possession the object is to tackle the opposition, you can move the diamond to different players with ease so there should be no excuse for easy tries.

Kicking and line outs are easy to understand and control and during scrums or lineouts a set piece play option screen appears allowing you to choose a maneuvere or formation which your team will follow once they've won the ball. Rucks, mauls and scrums are simply brilliant fun. It's Viz like joystick waggling action all the way as you try to gain the push and of course net the ball.

The graphics options include seven different pitch colours (though I must admit I've never seen a pink rugger field before) and seven different colours for player's strips. There are also seven daunting difficulty levels.

Audiogenic have really made touch with this game and it's now up to you to score the tries. Good graphics, a sense of realism and a fine range of options makes this the best sports sim I've seen in a while. Though I must admit I'm biased, I hate soccer.

GARTH:
There many games that you think you won't convert to computer. Squash, tennis, football - all of which have some of the worst and yet, some of the best games going. And until something better comes along, World Class Rugby is the best rugby simulation currently on the market!