easy game play, fun to beat your mates, but still could be improved!
Firstly, when attacking, most of the time all a player has to do is chose a set play for their backs and that can result in a 50-meter run when the fly half should have been tackled straight away. At first this is great, when you see a replay of your team marching up the field so easily and scoring a simple try. However, after the 20th odd time of doing so, this can become a tad repetitive and makes the game to easy and short lived. Also on the attacking side of the ball, the lineouts and rucks are far to static. This can prove tiresome as you see the same animations for the lineouts and rucks repeated. This shows a lack of realism and also, on TV when have you ever seen a single player turnover a ruck against 8 other forwards! So in summery of the attacking game, it is good at first, but repetitive animations and over easiness proves its downfall.
Moving onto the Defensive side of the ball. When changing player I have found that although the cpu is supposed to allocate you the nearest player to the ball. It can in fact sometimes do the exact opposite of that and give you the player you least want to control. Many a time have I been 'F'ing and blinding at the TV when I have been given the wrong player and lost the game because of that. Secondly, you can find that your defence, on occasion, all swarm to the ball like a bee to honey and this leaves the CPU or your friend’s team with a 3 man overlap. This can be frustrating when the CPU is supposed to keep all the men on the other team covered as much as possible.
For those who want a realistic rugby game, in the sense of the stadiums and atmospheres, I would keep looking. The stadiums in rugby 06 are limited and inaccurate. The pitch markings are always the same and so are the post protectors and flags. And the lack of a referee is an annoying flaw.
As much as I wanted to like this game, I found that because of its ease when attacking, and frustration when defending combined with its stadium and field inaccuracies, I can only call Rugby 06 an average game that is ok for a quick a** kicking of your mates.