Rugby 2004 Impressions

At today's Camp EA press event, we got to take a look at the PlayStation 2 version of Rugby 2004, EA Sports' rugby title currently in development at HB Studios. The gameplay of Rugby 2004 is designed much more around passing and running, rather than focusing on tackling and scrums, as some of the previous games in the series did. The control system is a pretty basic and intuitive one, and the game also features a training mode that provides a fairly in-depth tutorial for anyone unfamiliar with the mechanics of the sport. The game supports up to four players, including a co-op function that lets players buddy up on the same team.

There are more than 60 international and domestic European teams to choose from in the game. Additionally, achieving certain objectives in the game, such as maintaining possession of the ball for 85 percent of the game, or winning every scrum in the game, will provide you with trading and maintenance points that will let you trade for any player in the game and build your team however you like. You'll also have fairly robust create-a-player and create-a-team modes to work with, each with several cosmetic and statistical attributes that can be edited.

Graphically, Rugby 2004 looks pretty decent during cutscenes and other non-gameplay areas, but during the gameplay, it isn't nearly as impressive. The game looks rather dark all around, and the PS2 version seems to have some jaggies here and there. The player models themselves are also rather small, and they don't show much in the way of variety while playing. The game does support a host of different arenas, however, as well as multiple types of dynamic weather conditions.

Rugby 2004 will be released on the PlayStation 2 and PC this September.