Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #184 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Released on: 2007-07-25
• Platform: PlayStation2

Manufacturer's Description
Rugby 08 captures all the emotion and passion of the world’s fiercest national rivalries. Experience all the excitement of the Rugby World Cup 2007 as you challenge the best teams and players ever assembled for global supremacy. A nation’s destiny is in your hands when you take control of one of the officially licensed national teams and power your way through a grueling six-week campaign for the sport’s ultimate prize: the Webb Ellis Cup.

Play as your home nation and control your favourite players as you battle from qualification right through to a virtual re-creation of the championship final.

Take complete control of your favourite squad, emulating its style on offencand, for the first time ever on defence, using new authentic formations. Adjust your defence on the fly to keep momentum on your side or counter your opponent’s attacking style by changing your defensive strategy based on score, field position, and more.

Rugby 08 also introduces the Rugby World Cup Challenge mode which will test even the most hardcore gamer. Recreate 30 classic moments in Rugby World Cup history using modern teams, and unlock exclusive Rugby World Cup highlight videos. Compare your results with history, and measure yourself against the world’s best.

Rugby 08 also introduces a layered pick-up-and-play control system for set pieces and drop kicks. Take full command over every scrum and maul with enhcnaced push and rotation controls, make lineout throw-ins look easy with a simplified control scheme, and master the new kicking meter to score those key penalties and converts. New truck and zoom camera angles zero in on all the key action on the field during the game’s biggest moments.

Customer Reviews

HMPH
If, like me your favourite part of the EA Rugby series is World league mode DO NOT BUY THIS GAME!!!!
The main reason for this is you can only have a maximum of 5 impact players in your squad! I KNOW!
There has been virtually no effort to improve the rosters except for making a few more impact players.
There is no try scoring bonus so making money is much harder.
I would not recomend this game if you have rugby 06 already(though the graphics and camera angles are better). If you dont have rugby 06, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!?!?!

fun to play but seems unfinished

I found the game to be enjoyable to play and I haven't got tired of playing it. There are several small things which I think let the game down:

-One can ONLY play the 2007 world cup (i.e. starting from 2007 world cups). This is especially frustrating as one can have random a Six Nations. Why not have a custom tournament?

-The process of substitution is really clunky. One has to ever so slowly select down to the person who one wants to substitute and then, slowly, scroll down through the rest of the team and however many substitutions before getting to the right player. The epitome of this mess is manual squad selection for tournaments wherein to get to, say, the scrum halfs one has to scroll through every single forward of that nationality first!

-No British Lions?

-It's kind of a shame that the classic games teams are actually composed of contemporary players!

-Minimal statistics. You only ever know how many points a player has scored, their points kicking in the game, and whether they were cautioned or not. No Man Of The Match award.

-Poor AI? With a pretty good team like England it becomes quite straightforward to even beat better teams. The computer can't resist
giving away offside penalties.

-Strange business of a player played even slightly out of position becoming a complete wreck.

-Lame, irritating menu music. Who listens to this stuff on purpose?!

Poor, really poor.
1.Practically no better that Rugby 06 - cashing in on the 07 RWC.
2.Still infuriating that turnovers are decided at random, and therefore the impact of a tight forward units in turning over possession or retaining momentum is lost.
3. In fact on this basis, why bother having forwards with their own "physical characteristics" at all? since they have exactly the same chance of giving posession away as a fey winger? As a player, your best bet is to avoid taking the ball into a tackle, and keep kicking into touch. Pathetic.
4.As a sarries fan, it irks me that De Kock isn't on the roster, I can't play Ratuvou on the wing (or Leonelli for that matter),Farrell is still listed as a No.7, that the commentary name for Adam Powell is "Randell" (as in Taine), and generally, there are massess and massess of misspelt player names and positions in all the national and club sides.
5. Squads are out of date - and it appears that player ratings have been decided based on the informed opinion of the Leigh-on-Sea knitting circle.
6. Set pieces are poorly executed and very slow, there is no ability to play on the gain line (as passes are always deep).
7. Drop goals are impossible.
8. Lions tour is now out (shame)
WASTE OF MONEY.