Ah rugby, I remember you from when I was a young lad. Surrounded by huge men who would make noises I just didn’t understand, the smell of alcohol, and the anger… I might be thinking of that time I walked in on your dad though. Honestly, I’ve grown up around rugby; Scotland, as the commentary first said when I first played, is one of the oldest clubs to play rugby. However, I’ve never been one for it, much like I don’t care for watching Formula 1, yet played 100 hours of the game, and I’m still going.

Sadly, as every year it comes around the 6 Nations, rugby is impenetrable as a concept. Maybe you need to be on several bouts of both meth and speed to comprehend just how quickly you have to think, but advancing the ball up the field is either boring or far too stupid to begin with. If I were to ask you what a “Ruck” was, you’d have no clue; neither do I, and I’ve played the tutorial several times to try to understand its purpose. I could say the same about the entire concept of rugby, I don’t understand any of its purposes.

Starting on amateur (the lowest) difficulty, I still got a slice of myself handed or rather thrown in my face. Admittedly, it might not have been the best idea to play as Scotland against the All Blacks. Even then, playing against the country that thinks a slightly egg-shaped ball should be called a “pigskin,” makes trying to score like going into labor: I’m sore, happy it’s done with, and whoever put me in that position is about to find a horse’s head in their bed. I know nothing about rugby, but I do know that America doesn’t like it, and therefore it shouldn’t take 38 minutes to score.

While we’re on what I know, the Rugby series of video games is most notable for the Rugby 15 (not developed by Eko Software) release where it was laughably bad. As a game, I’d argue Rugby 20 is leaps and bounds ahead of the dreadful pile of vomit on a disc that Rugby 15 was. However, while EA’s Madden series and FIFA series are friendly to new players, rugby as a concept still sits among the intangible. I’ve understood foreign languages better than I’ve been able to pick up this “sports simulator.” I think that’s my biggest problem, even on the amateur difficulty, the matches don’t feel as natural as anticipated.

Personally, too much of my time has been spent either being grabbed by big men, felt up by big men in a ruck, or swearing as I’ve been tackled once again by another big man. As I’ve made clear, I’m not entirely a rugby person, but I have been around the sport quite a lot. Part of the excitement not only in rugby; but sports and entertainment as a whole, is almost scoring. Those moments of inching ever closer are what makes the NFL, aside from several million concussions to answer for, more exciting. It is tennis, the ball needs to keep moving between sides to be enjoyable. Not just the same several inches of the field, but the entire field.

Part of the gimmick to rugby is how passing works. Much like chess, the ball has to go diagonally; diagonally backward to make it confusing. Not that I can punt the ball up the park anyway, in the time it takes for you to read from that comma to this syllable, I’d be on the floor clutching a ball being hugged by angry French men. Advancing up the park isn’t an easy feat to overcome, it would be easier getting a colonoscopy on the field.

The controls didn’t help. The mini-game for the scrum was the most intuitive part, aside from passing; the rest confused the bejesus out of me. The ruck alone asks you to press B to add players to the ruck, you’ve also to use the right stick to fill a momentum bar, and when you’re ready, press A to secure the ball for your side. I’m a man of many talents, however, smashing my genitals into a controller so the other team will submit isn’t one of them. Somehow that’s where I draw the line with pulling off magic.

As the only rugby game around, Rugby 20 would be the go-to game for any rugby fan who wants to play a game of their sport. However, with an unfathomable set of rules, a control system that would confuse a pilot, and very little really going on, I can’t say I enjoy it. It is not completely broken like it’s 2015 counterpart; though it does require former knowledge and advanced torture training against doing anything exciting.

An Xbox One review copy of Rugby 20 was provided by Nacon for this review.

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Rugby 20

$39.99 USD

5.5

Score

5.5/10

Pros

• Decent camera options for play.

Cons

• Hellish control system.
• Completely unintuitive to new players.
• A lacklustre "creat-a-team" feature.