Rugby 2005 is a hard hitting, fast paced, no frills sport that makes the guys over at the NFL seem like wimps with all that padding they use. The object is to get that squash over the goal line. The team with the most goals by the end of the game is the winner. Simple enough yes? Well not quite. You have to deal with hard tackles, vying for the fallen ball on the pike, punts that don’t fly in your favor, and hoping your team provides some good tackling to get you into the goal.

Visually Rugby 2005 looks a ton better than previous offerings. The pitch is vivid and large, with great detail to each stadium. The player models are now done with precision in both design and animation. Speaking of animations, the hits and tackles in Rugby 2005 are brutal, but in a good way. You can almost feel the wind leaving your body when a hard diving tackle is laid upon you. Everything moves about at a nice frame rate and the action is never at a stand still, thus is the game of Rugby. The menus and presentation is done extremely well, providing polished overlays, menus, and great close ups and cut scenes of all the action. EA has done a splendid job-recreating look of the sport and is world apart from efforts in the past.

Audio does a fine job, with some great commentary that never gets old, and is spot on accurate when calling the action on the pitch. The crowd chants, murmurs much like the FIFA series, and is just as satisfying, especially when you are playing in front of your home crowd. EA Trax is back, this time providing some great overseas rockers that fit the bill for this style of game.

Rugby 2005 does not skimp on the features, providing a good assortment of game play modes to choose from. Before you even think about jumping into the action, you must prove your worth by completing a number of basic maneuvers and tackles which will refresh the fans on what to do, and help the newbies who are clueless to the rules. Once you are in the game, you can choose from eight different styles of tourneys to test your skills. You can also create your own player to bring some personality of your own into the game, or at worse give you someone you know to root for. The lack of online support is surprising since EA’s servers support everything else. I guess it may be a wise move if less than 100 gamers are filling the rooms; it would not be a great investment if the online support was not supported.

Nevertheless, Rugby 2005 is not for everyone. Actually, Rugby 2005 is not really recommended to anyone not too keen on the sport. Give it a go on the tele first, and if you feel like this is your bag, pick it up. In the end, it’s a great sport and a great game. Kudos for EA by giving this another chance as there is a small calling for it, but it may just be too unfamiliar for folks here in the States to sell enough to make a profit.