''Rugby 08'' is the last release in the

Rugby Rugby may refer to: Sport * Rugby football in many forms: ** Rugby union: 15 players per side *** American flag rugby *** Beach rugby *** Mini rugby *** Rugby sevens, 7 players per side *** Rugby tens, 10 players per side *** Snow rugby *** Tou ...

series to be published by

EA Sports EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they imitated real-life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network" (EASN) ...

. The game allows players to play as 20 different Rugby nations, both major and minor, and includes many tournaments, such as the

Rugby World Cup The Men's Rugby World Cup is a rugby union tournament contested every four years between the top international teams, the winners of which are recognised as the World championship, world champions of the sport. The tournament is administer ...

, Tri Nations, Six Nations,

Guinness Premiership Premiership Rugby, officially known as Gallagher Premiership Rugby, or the Gallagher Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is an English professional rugby union competition, consisting of 10 clubs, and is the top division of the English rugby u ...

and

Super 14 Super Rugby is a men's professional rugby union club competition involving teams from Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. It has previously included teams from Argentina, Japan, and South Africa. Super Rugby started as the S ...

. ''Rugby 08'' was released prior to the 2007 World Cup in France. New modes include the

and the World Cup Challenge mode. Other new gameplay features include simplified lineouts and defensive formations. The commentary is provided by Ian Robertson and former All Blacks great

Grant Fox Grant James Fox (born 16 June 1962) is a former rugby union player from New Zealand. He was a member of the All Blacks team that won the inaugural Rugby World Cup in 1987. He is also the father of professional golfer, Ryan Fox. Fox holds the w ...

Cover versions

The international cover features

Richie McCaw Richard Hugh McCaw (born 31 December 1980) is a retired New Zealand professional rugby union player. He captain (sports), captained the New Zealand national rugby union team, New Zealand national team, the All Blacks, in 110 out of his 148 t ...

. Other players are featured in specific markets: *

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

—

Wallabies A wallaby () is a small or middle-sized macropod native to Australia and New Guinea, with introduced populations in New Zealand, Hawaii, the United Kingdom and other countries. They belong to the same taxonomic family as kangaroos and som ...

captain

Stirling Mortlock Stirling Austin Mortlock (born 20 May 1977) is an Australian former professional rugby union player. He has scored more than 1,000 points in Super Rugby, and nearly 500 test points for the Wallabies. Mortlock is a former Wallaby, Melbourne Rebel ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

— McCaw and

flanker Flanker may refer to: * Flanker (perfume), a newly created perfume sharing attributes of an existing one * Flanker (rugby union), a position in rugby union (not found in rugby league) * ''Su-27 Flanker'' (video game), a 1996 computer game modelin ...

Yannick Nyanga *

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

— Former

fly-half In the game of rugby union, there are 15 players on each team, comprising eight forwards (wearing jerseys numbered 1–8) and seven backs (numbered 9–15). In addition, there may be up to eight replacement players "on the bench", numbered 16� ...

Ronan O'Gara Ronan John Ross O'Gara (born 7 March 1977) is an Irish former rugby union player and current coach. O'Gara played as a fly-half and is Ireland national rugby union team, Ireland's third most-capped player and second highest points scorer. He i ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

— Former '' Azzurri'' Mauro Bergamasco and

Mirco Bergamasco Mirco Bergamasco (born 23 February 1983) is an Italian rugby union and rugby league footballer. Bergamasco has played both rugby league and rugby union, and is a dual-code rugby international, having played for both the Italy national rugby uni ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

— Former

Springboks The South Africa national rugby union team, commonly known as the Springboks (colloquially the Boks, Bokke or Amabhokobhoko) is the country's national team governed by the South African Rugby Union. The Springboks play in green and gold jersey ...

Schalk Burger Schalk Willem Petrus Burger Jr. (born 13 April 1983) is a South African former professional rugby union player. He played as a Flanker (rugby union), flanker for Saracen F.C., Saracens in the English Premiership (rugby union), English Premiershi ...

Bryan Habana Bryan Gary Habana OIS (born 12 June 1983) is a South African former professional rugby union player. Playing mainly as a wing, he is widely considered to be one of the greatest players in the history of the sport. He played for the , the and ...

, and

André Pretorius André Stefan Pretorius (born 29 December 1978 in Johannesburg, South Africa) is a former South African rugby union footballer that played professionally between 1999 and 2014. His usual position was at fly-half. He has been capped by his count ...

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

— McCaw and

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

wing A wing is a type of fin that produces both Lift (force), lift and drag while moving through air. Wings are defined by two shape characteristics, an airfoil section and a planform (aeronautics), planform. Wing efficiency is expressed as lift-to-d ...

Mark Cueto Mark John Cueto (born 26 December 1979 in Workington, Cumbria) is a former English international rugby union player. He played on the wing for Sale Sharks and England. He is currently the third leading try scorer in the Aviva Premiership. O ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

—

Reception

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

review aggregation A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. In Japan, ''

Famitsu , formerly , is a line of Japanese Video game journalism, video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly f ...

'' gave the PlayStation 2 version a score of one four, two sixes, and one five for a total of 21 out of 40.

References

External links

* {{Rugby Union video games 2007 video games EA Sports games HB Studios games Multiplayer and single-player video games PlayStation 2 games Rugby union video games Video games developed in Canada Video games set in Argentina Video games set in Australia Video games set in France Video games set in Ireland Video games set in New Zealand Video games set in South Africa Video games set in the United Kingdom Windows games