World Class Rugby

Sinclair UserSinclair User Silver

Graphics 81%

Sound 70%

Playability 86%

Lastability 82%

Overall 86%

Alan Dykes 86%

Garth Sumpter

Label: Audiogenic Memory: 48K/128K Price: £10.99 Tape, £15.99 Disk Reviewer: Big Al Dykes That's it lads, stick the boot in. This favourite recommendation of my old rugby coach was brought back to mind recently, firstly by T.V. coverage of the Rugby World Cup and secondly by this spiffing piece of software from Audiogenic. It's genuinely a myth that rugby players have to be big and hairy with cauliflower ears and miles of insulating tape permanently wrapped around their heads, at least by the standards of Audiogenic World Class Rugby. All these sprites are clean cut, slim and wiry and, believe it or not, I didn't hear a single curse during the entire course of the game, (well at least not from the on-screen players!). Furthermore, they never joined Garth or myself in the pub afterwards, yet more convincing evidence of how civilised this gentleman's game has become. The accuracy with which the real game's rules and play are recreated in this simulation is quite impressive, along with the range of options available. Unlike many sports sims which look rather bland, World Class Rugby impresses immediately and you get a genuine feeling of real time action. The teams available includes the five home nations plus all the well known teams from the rest of the world. In play the whole team react to the opposition under computer guidance while you get control of the player closest to the ball. This player is marked with a diamond and when in possession of the ball he can make several realistic movements including long or short passes, "Garry Owen" up and under kicks or kicks to touch. If you don't have possession the object is to tackle the opposition, you can move the diamond to different players with ease so there should be no excuse for easy tries. Kicking and line outs are easy to understand and control and during scrums or lineouts a set piece play option screen appears allowing you to choose a maneuvere or formation which your team will follow once they've won the ball. Rucks, mauls and scrums are simply brilliant fun. It's Viz like joystick waggling action all the way as you try to gain the push and of course net the ball. The graphics options include seven different pitch colours (though I must admit I've never seen a pink rugger field before) and seven different colours for player's strips. There are also seven daunting difficulty levels. Audiogenic have really made touch with this game and it's now up to you to score the tries. Good graphics, a sense of realism and a fine range of options makes this the best sports sim I've seen in a while. Though I must admit I'm biased, I hate soccer.

"And the scrum half has it." Now put your head down and go, go, go!!

A never ending world of options.

A wealth of set piece play options.

Hurrah! Mr Winger puts one over.

It's options city in WCR, eh kids?

N.Z. driving forward in the maul. Hope you've got your jockstraps on!?!

New Zealand start the game.

Och aye! Scotland on the wing.

The line's in sight. Dive man, dive!

RUGBY FAX The first Rugby World Cup look place in Australia and New Zealand in 1987 and was won outright by New Zealand. Rugby originated in 1823 in England when a chap at Rugby school named William Webb Ellis picked up a round ball and ran with it during a game of soccer. In my old school such behaviour would have resulted in being branded a complete dork, however William got away with inventing a new and now world renowned sport. What a git! Serge Blanco, the French fullback who is reportedly retiring this year, holds the record for appearances for his country. The first international rugby championship was contested by Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England in 1884. France first contested in 1910. The highest recorded defeating score at international level was that of New Zealand Vs Japan in Tokyo on 1st November 1980. The score was 106 to 4, guess who won.

Crash

Presentation 88%

Graphics 85%

Sound 80%

Playability 83%

Addictivity 84%

Overall 85%

Mark Caswell 84%

Nick Roberts 86%

England powered through into the rugby world cup final so it's time you lot dragged yourself out and followed in their footsteps for a fast furious game of rugger with Audiogenic's scrum-tious new game. And who better to review it than crash's hunk Nick Roberts. Guess who wrote the intro too...! (modesty itself! - Ed) Audiogenic £11.99 There haven't been any rugby games on the Spectrum for ages so this came as a welcome change from the usual football games. I saw the game in development many moons ago at Denton Design and it looked good then. Now, with all the flash presentation and sound effects, it's a real smasher. Sports simulations usually divide into two extremes: either the graphics are awful but the game's quite playable, or the graphics and animation are amazing but there's no satisfaction. World Class Rugby has the best of both worlds - great detail and animation in the players, good presentation and highly playable, too! The front end has various menu screens which allow you to customise the game. You can change the team names and player options and alter the pitch and graphics' colours. From the video menu, you choose to have action replays of the more exciting parts of the game and switch the special 'blimp' mode on or off. One is from high above the pitch with small sprites and a good view of all the players. The other is a closer view point but you can't always tell where all your players are. Unfortunately, the 48K version has had some of the features cut out to cram the main game in. There are no action replays, a cut-down menu, no blimp mode, the players are't illustrated and you can't customise them. MUD PACKS World Class Rugby includes all the moves and formations of the real thing only without the bad backs and mud on your face. Some moves require you to use the jostick in a special way to gain possession of the ball and others are automatically performed by the players. There are scrums, rucks, lineouts, dropouts, penalties, conversions, send offs, substitutions and grounding. The controls are herd to get used to and different combinations have to be memorised but these soon become easy with a little practice. Sports simulations generally aren't very good - it's difficult to capture the excitement of real life on a computer screen. Audiogenic and Denton Design have done an excellent job though and World Class Rugby goes a long way towards bringing the sport straight into the bedroom. NICK 86%

It's the kick off, just time to do a silly and chant a jolly song.

Ooo look it's an interesting options screen.

Them boys are busy down at Ludlow Rugby Club, look, there's Brevett the milkman going for a try!

Your SinclairYour Sinclair Megagame

Life Expectancy 91%

Instant Appeal 93%

Graphics 91%

Addictiveness 88%

Overall 92%

Andy Hutchinson 92%

Audiogenic £11.99 cass/£15.99 disk Reviewer: Andy Hutchinson I remember rugby, That was that awful sport, played exclusively in the freezing winter, where the large boys with body-hair got to squash your face into goo and got a pat on the back from the sportsmaster for their efforts. Meanwhile, the girls got to play sedate games of netball. Give me table tennis anyday. I mean come-on, I reckon that if horse racing is the sport of kings then rugby must be the sport of bash-faced bruisers who can put away 15 pints of lager in a single sitting. Anyway those nasty chaps who were so 'good' at jumping up and down on each other and kicking a peculiar shaped ball carried on playing when they grew up - and even earned money for it. Hence something called professional rugby. World class rugby is pretty much the saem as World class football, except that the Brazilians and the Cameroons are really crap at it, whereas the New Zealanders and the Australians (who are dreadful at footy) are brilliant. What a weird game! CALL THAT FRIENDLY? Audiogenic's World Class Rugby is a faithful representation of the competition which'll be played out for real by the time you lot read this. You can either play a single 'friendly' game, a league game or a proper world cup tournament. The friendly game option (contradiction in terms or what!) enables you to have a quick kick about, the league option operates in the same way as the football league and the cup option is a knock out tournament. Practically everything can be configured the way you like it. Your team can wear different coloured funky strips, the matches can be played for however long you like (as long as it's between two and 40 minutes), the pitch can be any colour and the skill level can range between zero and six. If you're unhappy with the team you can actually play a game. Hurrah! This starts off with the chaps jogging out onto the field and then booting the ball up-field. The strength of the kick is controlled by a groovy kickometer which also enables you to control direction. With the game underway, you can now being to canter upfield and attempt to get hold of the ball. Yep, this is where the fun really starts! The player nearest the ball has a large arrow over his head, move him towards the ball and he can pick it up (as long as it's just lying on the floor). But (but!), if one of your opponents has got the ball, you can tackle him by pressing fire. TRY ME! There are lots of set pieces to any game. Depending on how nimble and quick you are, you can pass the ball down-wing to your fastest players and get a few tries. Then there are scrums. (Now, children, these are very dangerous and shouldn't be tried at home!) Both sides get into a huddle and stare fiercely at each other for a few tense seconds. The ball is then thrown in and 13 beefy guys attempt to kick the ball over to their own side. At this point you can either run, or try and get possession of the ball by waggling the joystick as quickly as possible. Get a try and you can go for a conversion (which is a bit like a goal!) by booting the ball through the posts. If you're successful, you'll get some lovely points and a large pat on the back from your manager. There's also a radar which shows you where your other team members are (probably whining in agony in a foot of mud), so you can pass the ball to your own chaps rather than those ugly bods from the other side. And finally, if your last move was a particularly spectacular piece of play then you can view it again on the action replay. If it was absolutely stonkingly groovily funkadelic than you can save it to tape to view over and over again, or at least 'til your mum gets bored senseless. WCR is a tremendous blast what with all those lovely reversible jerseys jostling each other for attention! And there's plenty of lasting action to keep away those dreadful muddy face pavilion blues. Right, I'm off to buy myself a gum shield and a pair of stout boots with huge studs. Well, you don't think I'm silly enough to try the real thing, do you? I had enough of that at school. Hurrah!

I came by this New Zealand side cheap, they were on this market stall in Hackney and I didn't have enough for the Ken Dodd piccie!

Nah! We don't want equal skills. Wouldn't want those Aussie chaps winning a game. Cheat, who said cheat?

That large red box is in fact a radar, not an international smartie convention on the pitch.

What a silly chap. He's gone and tackled completely the wrong player. Meanwhile number 12 can canter down the middle of the field! Or can he? Nope, tackled again and time for a scrum. Heave ho. Pass it here, then hurrah, number 8 scores a try. Hurrah!

When have you ever heard of a football match being friendly? I mean come on. Not even tiddly wink matches are friendly these days!

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