''Rugby World Cup 2011'' is a

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

video game developed by

HB Studios HB Studios Multimedia Limited is a Canadian video game developer based in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. It is best known for its Rugby football, rugby and cricket games. History HB Studios was founded in early July 2000 by Jeremy Wellard in Lunenburg ...

and

505 Games 505 Games S.p.A. is an Italian video game publisher based in Milan. It was founded in 2006 as a subsidiary of Milan-based Digital Bros. History 505 Games was founded in 2006 in Milan as a subsidiary of Digital Bros. The company found its earl ...

. The game is the official video game of the

2011 Rugby World Cup The 2011 Rugby World Cup was the seventh Rugby World Cup, a quadrennial international rugby union competition inaugurated in 1987. The International Rugby Board (IRB) selected New Zealand as the host country in preference to Japan and South Af ...

, and was released on both the

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...

and

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation ...

for the PAL region in August 2011. It was released in North America in September 2011, with the PlayStation 3 version available via the PlayStation Store and the Xbox 360 version via Xbox Live Arcade.

Details

No rugby union game had been produced for four years since '' Rugby 08'', which was also developed by HB Studios, then under the EA Sports label. It was announced on 29 March 2010 that The Rugby Forum and its members, would help HB studios gain a better understanding of what the general rugby-supporting public wanted in the new title. For the first time in the series of rugby games developed by

, the title has a player editor, but it is limited to attributes and names only.

Modes

Tournament Mode

This mode, which is the only area of the game in which most of the official stadia appear, is based entirely on the real-life tournament. As such it can be competed in as any of the 20 participating teams, with a schedule of pool matches to match the actual tournament (although users can also choose to have the pools re-drawn randomly, as game developers try to extend the game’s longevity by providing reason for players to complete the tournament more than once). This is the only mode on the game which allows for full-length matches to be played in the official tournament jerseys.

International Test

This mode allows for contests between any of the 20 included teams, at any stadium included in the game (except those stadia exclusive to the ‘Tournament Mode’). Similar to one-off matches in the FIFA series, for example, the match situation is a ‘one-off friendly’ and can be taken to a combination of extra-time and/or a place-kick shootout if the scores are tied after the last play of the match.

Warm-up Tour

This mode allows users to take a team on a tour of teams in their opposite hemispheres, although to play the stronger sides the user must first complete two tours of weaker nations. For example, to tour to the Tri-Nations teams with a northern hemisphere team, the user must first complete a 'Pacific Islands Tour', encountering

Tonga Tonga (, ; ), officially the Kingdom of Tonga ( to, Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a Polynesian country and archipelago. The country has 171 islands – of which 45 are inhabited. Its total surface area is about , scattered over in ...

Samoa Samoa, officially the Independent State of Samoa; sm, Sāmoa, and until 1997 known as Western Samoa, is a Polynesian island country consisting of two main islands (Savai'i and Upolu); two smaller, inhabited islands (Manono Island, Manono an ...

and

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists ...

; and also a 'South Atlantic Tour', encountering

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

and

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. To tour to the Six Nations countries with a southern hemisphere team, the user must again complete two tours: 'North American Tour', meeting

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

; and then 'Eastern Tour', meeting

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, Georgia and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

Place Kick Shootout

This mode allows for the user to contest a place-kick competition between any two included teams of their choosing. The match takes place in ‘Auckland’ stadium (Eden Park), and is set at night.

Teams

The game features all twenty international teams competing in the

. However, only ten of the teams are officially licensed. Teams such as the

All Blacks The New Zealand national rugby union team, commonly known as the All Blacks ( mi, Ōpango), represents New Zealand in men's international rugby union, which is considered the country's national sport. The team won the Rugby World Cup in 1987 ...

(New Zealand), and

the Wallabies The Australia national rugby union team, nicknamed the Wallabies, is the representative national team in the sport of rugby union for the nation of Australia. The team first played at Sydney in 1899, winning their first test match against the ...

(Australia), are unlicensed due to their exclusive licensing deal with rival video game Rugby Challenge.

Trailer

The trailer of the game was released in July 2011.

Demo

A demo was released on 2 August on

Xbox Live The Xbox network, formerly and still sometimes branded as Xbox Live, is an Internet, online multiplayer video game, multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft. It was first made available to the Xbox ...

and 3 August on the

PlayStation Network PlayStation Network (PSN) is a digital media entertainment service provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Launched in November 2006, PSN was originally conceived for the PlayStation video game consoles, but soon extended to encompass smartp ...

. The playable teams are

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, and the venue is

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

Reception

The game received "mixed" reviews on both platforms according to the

review aggregation A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

. ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...

'' gave the Xbox 360 version a score of three stars out of five and said that its most disappointing aspect "is just how threadbare it is in terms of modes." ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' similarly gave it three stars out of five and said that "there's just too little on offer here to justify the cost for a full-priced, boxed retail release." ''The Digital Fix'' gave it a score of four out of ten and said that it "stinks of under investment and cheap development shortcuts. It feels like a budget arcade game shoved into a shiny full-priced release and an officially licensed sticker stuck on top."

References

External links