12DOVE Verdict
Pros
- +
Winning the World Cup
- +
All the best players are here
- +
Superb dual stick controls
Cons
- -
Passing can be frustrating
- -
Occasional choppiness
- -
No online play
Why you can trust 12DOVE Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.
Pads? Helmets? Bah - those are for wimps. Just in time for the quadrennial Rugby World Cup in September, the toughest sport on the planet makes a return appearance to your PlayStation 2 in the form of Rugby 08. If you know your rucks from your mauls and your blood bins from your scrums, you’ll be right at home with Electronic Arts’ latest tribute to football’s forebear. What’s that - you don’t? No worries, as it teaches you the basics and lets you go from there.
The muddied, rough and tumble action on the field is quite solid, although the movement can get slightly choppy when the action gets overheated. The controls respond particularly well; some nifty dual analog stick tactics let your carrier sidestep, smash into, or otherwise pummel the opposing tacklers with relative ease, while the ruck, line out, and kicking mechanics are intuitive too. Knowing that many of us Yanks will be wholly unfamiliar with much of the goings on at the outset, the fairly good controls tutorial and additional in-depth training really let you soak up the knowledge and familiarize yourself with the fundamentals.
More info
| Genre | Sports |
| Description | Rugby might be football's rough-around-the-edges cousin, but nifty dual stick controls make for bone-jarring tackles and plenty of satisfaction. |
| Platform | "PS2" |
| US censor rating | "Everyone" |
| UK censor rating | "" |
| Release date | 1 January 1970 (US), 1 January 1970 (UK) |
Balatro creator started "properly playing the game myself about a week before launch" and had "a pretty emotional moment" where he realized it's "actually fun"
Hideo Kojima reveals Death Stranding 2: On the Beach release date, and the Collector's Edition includes exactly what I predicted it would
Kingmakers is a strategy game about taking on medieval armies with a gun, but its devs thought the giant mech was too much
