Rugby 2004 Classic (PC)

However this game seems good but what competition does it have Rugby 2001 and Jona Lomu both extremlyout of date games, so my judgment might be slightly biased.
Once in the game there are a few strange circumstances,for example when you take a penalty, and kick at goal no matter whether the ball goes out the back or bounces off the post it is a 22 drop-out. Also the shorts of the players seem to be about 3 inches thick, oh well! When playing the game it is extremly easy to attack as gaps appear in the opponents back line and also ball retention in the rucks is rediculusly easy. However defending is extremly tedious. It is almost impossible to win the ball in rucks when they have taken it in and the computer seen to use the route 1 method every move and make 2m each time but do this the entir length of the pitch.
I personally recomend this as a must buy, especialy with the rugby world cup here,and all you rugby fenatics stillplaying Jona Lomu. I do recomend also to buy a gamepad for your computer though as from playing Jona Lomu on Playstation i find it dificult to convert to the keyboard.

Overall i think that people are wrong when they say this is a bad game-its not it is very good but with problems
Buy it try it and enjoy it but still leave r2001 on your Pc

Unfortunately, it's a shoddy effort that produces gameplay that is inferior to not only the first EA Rugby game (now four years old) but also inferior to Johah Lomu's Rugby on the PS1, which must be 8+ years old by now. Video rugby, it seems, has had a fall from grace even worse than that of Welsh rugby.

Martin Johnson is not pretty, but he plays a good game. The same can't be said for this. It's just as ugly, but the interface is clumsy, the player control is poor and tactics seem to come down to finding a diagonal and hitting sprint. The manual references 9 different buttons when you can only configure 8. Not only that, but it's very tough to configure a gamepad so that it works nicely with both normal play and scrums/lineouts. The details are poor too - the 'kickometer' gives you a horizontal line for the 'sweet spot', yet when the power bar reaches that part it is vertical. The sound is pretty ropey and the in-game commentry is clunky.

On the plus side, the line-out implementation is quite well done (once you get used to it) and the game features some Super 12/Heineken cup sides as well as international sides. The squad rosters aren't totally up-to-date, but they aren't too far off.