It’s due out on September 10 and the latest footage looks … kind of good. Check it out for yourself.
Random bits and pieces of Rugby League Live 3, the latest in the NRL video game series from Big Ant, are starting to appear online ahead of the game’s launch next month.
The RLL series hasn’t been anything spectacular but after the release of Don Bradman Cricket 14 I’m quietly optimistic that RLL3 might actually be worth a buy.
The latest two videos come courtesy of the GLAustralia YouTube channel, which has managed to get their hands on a pre-release copy of the game. The first video features Shaun Johnson and some Auckland Nines gameplay, while the second is a full match featuring the Storm and a custom all-star team put together by Big Ant.
The animations look a little janky and players seem to move from zero to full speed a little more quickly than they should. But, and I don’t want to jinx things too badly, it actually kind of looks fun.
I’m being careful here because the last decent NRL game was the one EA put out in the early 90’s and as much as I love Don Bradman Cricket 14, that game still has plenty of problems. But RLL3 could be good. I want to believe. I need to believe.
Also, it helps that I really like the UI. It’s minimalist and super clean, the kind of overlay I wish Channel 9 would adopt for their broadcasts.
What do you think? Any expectations for Rugby League Live 3?
Comments
25 responses to “Rugby League Live 3 Isn’t Looking Too Bad”
I am right with you on the hope train Alex!
Also I am liking a bit of what I see but I hope they support it with patches like they did with Don to fix some of the more obvious problems (running, jankiness)
Sums up pretty much all the RLL games.. I want them to be fun, I really do, but the jankiness and weird zero to full pelt is annoying. Still, I’ll hold on to hope and keep an eye on it.
Amen! Loved that game
No, the UI is shit – why is it so fucking tiny? Not all of us have super human eye sight nor want to squint when sitting back on the couch. The graphics that Ch 9 and Fox use work – dont reinvent the wheel with these micro UI elements and illegible text
Might need your eyes checked man, that’s not tiny in any sense of the word.
I wear glasses
After the goal kicks, where the player names come on the screen (example 15:14 mark when Cameron Smith misses the kick), that name title takes up under 1/4 of the horizontal space – thats way too small (would be an OH&S issue it that was a workplace application) – not only that, but of the space assigned to the name title, less than 1/4 of that is actually made up of Cam’s name – that means his name gets less than 1/8 of the horizontal screen space (he doesnt get much of the vertical either)
Small fonts in game UIs and Menus can go away – quickly.
Also, not sure I like the fact that the first throw seems to always go to a player off-screen…
I really suggest going back to your optometrist :/ – this is perfectly acceptable for my shitty vision, this isn’t Witcher 3 here. In fact the text here is bigger than in previous titles.
edit: ok well not really bigger (at least not discernibly), but it’s not smaller-
My apologies for expressing a personal opinion
If its OK for you, then is MUST be ok for everyone else….
You know what… I just can’t understand the business model for these sort of games. This is marked as $99AU at EBGames. FFS. Really? How many people are going to buy it at that price? You can tell from the graphics and videos that it will get a 6 or 7 out of 10 at the most.
Why not release it for $25AU and a lot more people will grab it and give it a go.
For the same reason indie films don’t charge less than an Avengers film simply because they cost a fraction to make; they’d never make any money if they did.
I’m not sure how well you understand “business models”, but the size of the Rugby League gaming market is already miniscule. If devs were to give the game away for nothing like you’re suggesting, how on earth would they ever be able to justify financing it.
People cop buying FIFA and Madden titles that are generally only pallet swaps from the previous year at full price, so why demand a local developer making a game of a locally loved sport go bankrupt for their troubles?
I love the NRL, and I for one will be buying this game the day it comes out.
These games were always flawed, but very fun. The 0-100 has always been there unfortunately; playing locally with mates is always a good time.
These games never feel as polished as you hope they will be.
I would love somebody to put some time and effort in to a proper Union game.
There just isn’t the money to justify putting more polish on it, I’m afraid. It’s one of those things where the game and tech has to be iterated on over many years to get to the level of quality you’d want from, say, a FIFA or something.
Weirdly, I really want to play Pro Evo 2008 now.
I know 🙁
And sadly the audience isn’t as large as titles like FIFA which doesn’t help the process along any.
Gawd I can’t even remember the last soccer title I played.
I have a lot of respect for big ant, especially considering they will always be unfairly compared to fifa, NBA, nhl, etc. They always manage to bust out a “good enough” looking game that is usually a heap of fun to play if you’re a fan of the sport. Afl game next pretty please
Why is it unfair to compare them to NBA? When I bought DBC (on both 360 and xbox one) it cost more than NBA2k at launch both times.
Not fair in terms that the fan base isn’t even in the same league as those other sports so they will never sell as many copies and have as much money behind them. At least for rugby and afl anyway. NBA2k can probably afford to have their games at lower prices as they have probably outsold dbc in pre sales alone. I just feel that if big ant don’t make these games no one will and ea sports will probably give zero shits
Why is it unfair? For the same reason it’s unfair to compare a sci-fi TV movie produced by the ABC to a movie by Marvel Studios – basically a budget difference that is 1:100.
How people have such trouble grasping the dynamics of economies of scale I’ll never understand…
….
I understand that but when one game is priced $99 and broken at launch and another is priced $69 and plays fine I think while one has a smaller budget the fact it costs so much more can still let them be compared.
One game is “broken at launch”? I have Rugby League Live 2, and it wasn’t ever “broken at launch”… I think you may be confusing “broken” with “doesn’t look like a $50 million masterpiece.”
It’s fine to compare any two things I suppose, but as a rugby league fan the only useful measure of comparison is how it fares against other League or Union titles. On that mark the last title was one of the best games to be released, with all union games being pretty poor by comparison on average.
Read my original post, I was talking about DBC. They’ve done an admirable job getting it to a decent level but at launch it had a bunch of major issues. It’s a nice framework for a franchise going forward but the price is very steep for what you got.
I guess it’s up to the consumer to decide if the price point is too high, but we are dealing with niche local sports here that have very small markets. If they were to sell them at such a low price with such a small consumer base they wouldn’t be able to justify any investment in anything local. Again, to me this is like asking local film producers to charge a discounted rate to big budget hollywood films because their special effects aren’t up to their standards.
Personally, as a big fan of Cricket and Rugby League I’m happy to pay to support the industry. Otherwise all we’d ever have is foreign sports games that I just have no interest in playing.
I agree which is why i bought dbc twice and will buy the next one. I still think it’s fair though if people want to compare or complain. I think it’s great the work they put in but the devs put me off on another forum where they were derisive and rude to people who had issues at times. I don’t think devs should ever insult customers and even if they are being rude have the sites mods deal with it.
I think it’s fair enough for people to compare too, but at the same time if you’re gonna compare a product with a budget of $50 million and a consumer base of a billion people to something with a budget of around $500k and a potential consumer base of a couple million, then people will rightly call it out as being a bit of a pointless comparison – certainly not “apples for apples” as they say.
Here’s hoping the game is a hit anyway – could use more Rugby League games!
If it’s like dbc14 it’ll release broken and then they’ll get a bunch of praise for making it playable but still not getting it 100%. I liked DBC but there’s a lot to improve next iteration