Recent reviews by Paul

Great rugby union game. It is fun to play and challenging as well. When you score a try, it feels like you have earned it.

There are no awful mini-games for set-pieces like scrums and line-outs. No mini-games for rucks either. It feels fun to play and I don't feel like I have to button mash like some other rugby titles.

Unlike Rugby 22 and the Rugby Challenge series, you can actually play some kind of 'career' mode with progression for your players. You get points to spend on player development and, in some leagues, you can spend recruitment points to acquire new players.

Someone on The Rugby Forum has made a brilliant set of mods for this game adding in different clubs, players, and leagues. Check out the community hub and discussions ('Rugby Champions - 2021-22 Update' thread) to find it. I have been having fun playing Premiership rugby using this mod.

Rugby Champions 2 please!

Rugby 22 is a massive improvement on Rugby 20. I have had quite a bit of fun with it and continue to do so.

Playing against the computer is finally challenging. On Rugby 20, I was winning World Cups with Italy and Fiji with ease on the hardest difficulty. Now, on Rugby 22, I find the game offers me a challenge (on higher difficulties) even when I am playing with the best teams.

The real shame about Rugby 22 is the missing licenses but there are mods out there to add them in. I have a mod that adds the missing international teams, adds the Six Nations, and also adds the Premiership clubs and competition.

On the negative side, I wish Rugby 22 had more off the field stuff, like customisation of teams and players. Also, a career mode in the game would be great. Honestly, the 'ultimate team' style thing the game currently has is a bit meh to me.

One other thing that bothers me is that I wish the game had Steam Deck support! It just crashes on Steam Deck, which is sad because this would be a brilliant game to have on the Deck!

With the Rugby Challenge series no longer available to buy on Steam due to their licenses expiring, there really is no competition for Rugby 22. It seems like the future is bleak for the Rugby Challenge series, which is sad. On the other hand, the Rugby series of games has gone from strength to strength, with Rugby 20 being a ridiculously huge improvement on the quite frankly awful Rugby 18, and now Rugby 22 continuing the upward trend.

Rugby 22 is a fun and enjoyable game and worth a buy if you fancy playing a decent rugby union game.

Rugby Union Team Manager 4 is definitely worth a buy if you are a fan of rugby union.

The series has improved a great deal in the last two iterations. The UI is pretty slick and the game is easy to pick up and play but there is also more complexity there if you want to get stuck into it. For example, you can keep the tactical side simple and delegate the training if you want. Alternatively, you can design your own playbooks and configure your training in detail if you prefer.

The match engine can be a bit rough and you do need to cooperate with it in an imaginative sense. It sometimes requires some imagination and creativity to interpret what it is showing you and occasionally you have to overlook some clumsy parts of it. But overall, it is fine and it does the job. It does at least show you what is happening in the game to a reasonable level.

One thing I really like on match days is the ability to select certain options during the match. For example, deciding on kicking options for a penalty or choosing moves from a lineout or scrum. It makes you feel more engaged with each match and I really enjoy it.

A huge plus for this game is the great community on Discord who put out updated teams, club logos and player photographs etc. It is really easy to customise the game thanks to in-game options, the workshop and thanks to the community who are extremely helpful.

I am hoping that they keep working on the series as it is heading in the right direction. RUTM 3 and 4 have brought huge improvements. Overall, I find the game fun and enjoy playing it. Definite thumbs up from me!

Really fun! Reminds me of my Mega Drive days playing games like World Cup Italia '90 and, of course, the legendary Sensible Soccer.

It is an absolutely perfect game for the Steam Deck.

Please make a Pixel Cup Rugby Union game!

How is this game only a couple of pounds? It is ridiculously fun and addictive. So very good! Strong recommend!

I'm gonna eat you little fishy!

Today's fish is Trout a la Creme. Enjoy your meal.

This is a masterpiece; a true work of art. I love this game and it is definitely one of the best experiences I have had in gaming.

The world is beautiful and lovingly crafted. The atmosphere is excellent. The characters are memorable and the dialogue is fantastic. The main quest is great and the side quests are often even better!

I have been so immersed in this world for around 235 hours of my first playthrough. I love Henry and I think he is one of the best characters I have come across in gaming. I'm going to miss him, at least until I come back to do a hardcore playthrough because I definitely will be coming back to this game again. This game deserves a second playthrough. Next time I will be doing a 'hardcore Henry' run!

If you enjoy history, you like realistic RPGs and/or you want to play a deep game in a beautiful open world then I cannot recommend this game enough. Simply wonderful.

Ancient Relics is an excellent story pack DLC. It adds more stories, events and narratives to the game, which is always a good thing as far as I am concerned. The writing quality is great and the mechanics are well done. Definitely recommended.

I really wanted to leave this game a positive review. I have been a massive fan since CM2 in the early 90s and continued to love the series through to the current Football Manager era.

I will admit that I started to become a little cynical and even skipped FM16 due to the feeling that the game was just not moving forward in the way that I wanted. I will also own up to the fact that I detested FM14 due to the removal of the sliders and the fact that I felt limited by the tactics creator. It particularly frustrated me that I did not see any indication of the instructions that I was giving to my players and I felt restricted by just giving vaguely defined roles instead.

However, I recently had a strong feeling of nostalgia and a huge desire to come back to the FM series. First of all, I tried FM15, which I already owned, and I had a blast with it for a while. With this experience in mind, I decided to try FM17 when I saw it on sale. At first, I was excited by the extra detail and thrilled by some of the new features, but sadly I feel let down by the match engine.

The major issue is that wingers/wide midfielders in this version stay far too wide defensively and you cannot keep a proper defensive shape no matter what instructions you give tactically. They never move infield to help centrally. If, for example, you are playing a 4-4-2 formation, the central midfielders will stand around holding hands in the middle while the wide players stay out as wide as possible doing nothing. The wide players refuse to help centrally even if the opposition overloads the central areas. Currently they are hard-coded to behave like this which is completely unrealistic. This is a new change for FM17 and definitely didn't happen in previous versions of the game. There are several threads on the SI Games forum if you are interested in reading more about issue:

https://community.sigames.com/topic/381957-wingers-too-wide/#comment-10480754
https://community.sigames.com/topic/388134-wingers-doesnt-track-backclose-down-opponent-near-him/
https://community.sigames.com/topic/388226-how-to-get-wide-midfielders-defending-centrally-in-a-4-4-24-4-1-1/
https://community.sigames.com/topic/386503-football-manager-2017-official-feedback-thread/?do=findComment&comment=10535803
https://community.sigames.com/topic/389441-wide-player-defensive-positioning-discussion/

This is one of the most recent threads on the issue:
https://community.sigames.com/topic/401732-concerning-tactical-issue/

Note the first two comments in reply to the OP (both voted as popular posts by users of the forum):

'Well, this is a huge issue for me too, in terms of the realism of the game. It ruins the playability of FM17, for me at least, and you've illustrated it very well.'

'I sincerely hope this is addressed for FM18 as I miss my Football Manager sessions, having uninstalled the game because of this very problem. It was a significant factor in why I stopped playing FM17.'

For a game that calls itself a football simulation and prides itself on realism, this defensive issue is nothing like real life. The defensive shapes in the game are nothing like anything I have ever seen in a real football match.

What I find even more frustrating is the unwillingness of SI Games to admit the problem or to talk about the issue. Many of the threads bringing up this bug have been closed by overzealous moderators. It was never this way in the old days when I was a regular poster of the forum. Also, the devs have taken the decision not to fix this bug for this version of the game. The official line seems to be that it will be looked at for a future version of Football Manager. It is incredibly disappointing.

With this in mind, I simply cannot recommend the game while it has this major match engine/tactical issue. Ultimately, if you want to play with certain formations, you are at a major disadvantage, and the match engine is just not well balanced in this version of the FM series.

It is hard to tell that this game is in early access because there is already so much content and it is so much fun!

The Firefly aesthetic is simply brilliant, the music is cool and the game-play is so addictive. As I play the game, I frequently find that I have difficulty in finding a good point to stop playing. I'm always thinking to myself, 'just one more day'!

After 100+ hours, I still feel like I am learning the game and haven't experienced everything. Just to remind you, this game is supposed to be early access and in alpha!

Rimworld has various ways to customise the difficulty, which I really appreciate, so you can set the level of challenge that suits you. By adjusting the AI storyteller personalities and the difficulty setting, you can take your pick from relaxing base-building game to super hard permadeath experience and, indeed, anything in between. It is worth noting that the game is absolutely ruthless in higher difficulties so if you are looking for a challenge then you will find it here!

The major strength of Rimworld is that it creates awesome stories and addictive game-play that will keep you coming back for more and more. I can't recommend it enough!