EA Sports' last attempt at making a rugby game was actually their best. EA Sports' Rugby franchise was generally stop-start. You're probably familiar with the year-on-year releases EA Sports have done the last several decades - FIFA, Madden, NHL. Meanwhile, EA Sports' first rugby game came out in 1995 and the second wouldn't be until 2000. The next after that would be in 2003. Overall, EA Sports made six rugby games, and to re-word an old saying; sixth time's the charm.

The previous iterations felt generally stiff, with the second attempt, simply called 'Rugby', particularly bad. Rugby 08 feels somewhat smooth though, doesn't feel unbalanced and the gameplay is relatively easy to get the hang of.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a great video game by general standards, or even an overly great video game by the standards of the sport genre, but as far as rugby video games go, this is in the conversation for the best ever made. The game is insanely cheap these days, the PAL region at least, and for what I paid (50p) this game is great value for money.

I'm not overly convinced that EA Sports would even make a very good Rugby game if they revived the franchise, but this game will more than do for now.

This ended up giving me a lot of memories in my mid teens and carried me through some fun nights I would have spent doing nothing. Single player is an intriguing and clever story but maybe not as personal as previous iterations. Physics are a bit more rigid than its predecessor which has a lot to say for me in wanting to fool around in the fantastic sandbox it is. Online missions and heist setups are or at least were very fun when I played online back in 2014/15. Detail, world and character building is insanely great and should be credited massively. This absolutely is a stellar game in many ways but can feel a bit boring when the magic of the world wears off.

I guess I'm done with this game. I was really getting into career mode as a player until I realized it's bugged and you get nowhere if you reach a high enough overall. I never got transferred and ended up the best player Rosenborg BK has ever seen. I buy Fifa titles every 5 years and I am astounded at how same this shit is. Am I supposed to wait 10 years between entries now? And how come the animations look LESS polished in a 2020 game? I feel like an absolute fucking idiot for wasting my time with that career mode. Generous two star rating because Fifa is always fun with your mate.

I recently became a football fan once again and Fifa was always a big part of maintaining that love, but man, the amount of lazy development just oozes from this game. Whatever, back to playing Red Dead