Zeppelin
£3.99
091 385 7755
Reviewer: Jonathan Nash
Rugby! Now there's a subject close to my heart. Many's the games period I remember being spent on a hard muddy field, tottering around in freezing conditions and being urged to throw my inadequately-clad form at an obvious thug by a master wearing a coat, three jerseys and thick gloves.
So when Linda whisked her monogrammed handkerchief away to reveal this little number I leapt into a corner and screamed for a bit, victim of a hideous flashback. But after a nice cup of lemon tea and a useful lecture about overcoming stark naked terror by confronting it, I loaded the game up, to discover it's a management sim. After another cup of tea and a further lecture, I buckled down to giving it the old eye (as they say).
The first thing that strikes you is the rather natty icon selection thang. The whole game is played by zipping this oddly-shaped cursor about the place which is jolly friendly and all that, but does cause some problems. (Well I never. Ed) So as the mighty Wales (cheers cheers) I prepared to take on the mighty, erm, Venezuela. Typically, you can check up on player injuries, fiddle around with you team and see how everyone else is doing, and all the info screen look nice. (Very nice, in fact.) When you select an option, the picture flips over like the page of a book. (Unfortunately, very slowly, which after selecting about three options starts to drive you up the wall.)
PLANNING AND SCAMMING
Right, so now to put together a winning team. Ooo, that's smart - a little pointer pops up on a picture of the team to tell you exactly where each player goes. And the players have dinky pie-charts to show their strengths and weaknesses! How sweet. Alas, you really need a good grasp of rugby to know exactly where each player will do the most good. (For example, should a fullback have great tackling skills or be fast on his feet?) The other prob surfaces when you want to compare the player currently in a position with the others on the team. You click on the position - up comes the name of the selected player. Annoyingly, you now have to go through the list to find him and bring up his details. Why couldn't this have been done automatically? Tch, Okay. After quite of bit of clicking and scrolling, I've got what I reckon is a pretty strong bunch. A quick look at the main team statistics shows I'm not too far off the mark - another of those pie charts displays the strengths of your forwards and backs. (Oops, 'forwards' and 'backs' are the sort of attacking and defensive parts of your rugger team.) (Oops, 'rugger' is the colloquial term for rugby.) (Oops, 'colloquial' means speaking on familiar terms. Ed) Right! On with the show. (Click click click.) Blimey, you can 'Play match.' Could it possibly mean you get to (gasp) play the match the players as well?
Erm, no. It's just a rather badly-phrased term for showing animated highlights from the whole match rather rather than just the scores. Take my advice - don't show the whole match. The graphics are as dreadful as those in Match of The Day - a bird's eye view of a truly horrible pitch with ugly figures diving about the place in an almost entirely unconvincing manner. Ugh. Tragically, the most important and exciting part of the game is reduced to a fair-to-middling graphic of a newsreader with a couple of numbers whizzing around behind his head. Whoops, eh?
Whoops indeed. There are a lot of splendid graphics elsewhere (the result table backdrop is especially groovy) but the very centre of the game, which should have you staggering around with excitement, erm, doesn't. Sitting quietly in your seat with your hands creeping towards that rather interesting book you started reading last night is more the order of the day, which is a real shame. It's still possible to enjoy the game, and the fact it's rugby rather than (yawn) football lends an edge to the action (if that's the right word) but to he honest, it's a bit of a struggle. 'Look at me!' World Rugby cries innocently. 'So what if my match highlights are crap? I've got lots of other goodies to offer.' 'That's so,' you smile reaching down benevolently to ruffle its hair and give it a Christmas sixpence. 'It's just that in the cut-throat world of sports management simulations, highlights help a lot. Yours are scant reward for twiddling icons all over the place. Now be off with you, young shaver. And keep away from Farmer Barleymow's orchard.' Or something.
Overall | 72% |
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Label: Zeppelin
Memory: 48K/128K
Tape: £3.99
World Rugby doesn't offer anything new on the management front but it does give this jaded game formula a small facelift using a Rugby scenario. In general the graphics are of a good standard with amusing match highlights and easy to follow menus. It's quite difficult to put together a good team and even more difficult to get to the top so fans of Rugby and management games will be well satisfied. However if you don't foil into either of these categories then stay well away.
Soccer management simulations are the bane of my life. They're. usually all the same and unless you're a complete fanatic with a train spotter's addiction to numbers and detail they are highly forgettable. And now rugby. I suppose rugby isn't as worn out a theme as soccer manager but surely the idea's exactly the same - just put oval ball terminology and player names in there instead of round ones and you've got a new game!
Well, yes and no. Rugby being a more enjoyable game (floods of nasty complaining letters will arrive, I know) this management sim did actually grab my attention for a while.
World Rugby is basically an unofficial Rugby World cup game where you (yawn) manage a national side to the top using your skills as a coach and trainer. Actually all the sides re-created in this game are surprisingly well documented and accurate. The names and positions look right and I'll wager the rest of the info isn't too far out either. Not only that but you get to choose from about forty players on each side and considering that you can choose from ten different countries this means that World Rugby has on impressive database - unlike Graeme Souness Soccer Manager. (Though I did notice that some famous soccer players had switched sports!)
Each player is measured in terms of skill, speed, kicking, tackling and stamina. Weight and height measurements are also given. This info is presented using pie charts and you select a side based on It. You can really choose anyone for any position so if you're useless at the rules and conventions of rugby then don't choose this game. Once you've actually played a game on anonymous TV presenter comes on screen to tell you of your success or failure.
As an added bonus you can opt to either see the match being played (not in full thankfully) or simply highlights. The latter being a wise option.
GARTH:
Well done, Zeppelin, they've produced a couple of good simulations in the last year or so with Match Of The Day, Graeme Souness and now World Rugby. For simulation and rugger boffins only though.
Graphics | 83% |
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Sound | 31% |
Playability | 78% |
Lastability | 80% |
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