Well after much excitement, anticipation, and spent money I must say, from my own personal perspective, Rugby League Live has turned out to be a little bit of a disappointment

Many things are lacking right from the opening menu, to customization, to actual game play itself

The main menu is tainted with obscenely loud rock music, just doesn't set a rugby league mood. I'd rather the “That's My Team” instrumental. Many if not all rugby league fans are familiar with this song. Setting up a quick game is quite difficult, given that all you want to do is have a quick game. You have to go through choosing the teams, roster if you like, as well as the strip you play in as usual, but it all requires the usage of about 80% of the buttons on your control. Ridiculous! Instead of just x to go forward and triangle to go back, you now have to use O, R1 and L1 (PS3 terms) and a couple of others can't really remember. But it is very confusing as you go our of different menus and go in to others

Customization is lacking big time. In previous games you could customize everything from stats, to birth dates, to the size of the players arms. Customization in these games is important as it adds longevity and more options to the game. That said, customization is very, very limited in almost every respect. Gone are birth dates, scaling players, choosing their representative teams etc

While it is cool that the uniforms, rosters and stadiums have all been updated, it's a shame that game play has not. In fact, I rate the game play of rugby league 2 a lot better, not to mention smoother, and realistic. Big call I know. First of all game play itself is very, very fast. It's like a game of touch. It may take a while to adjust to. The graphics are substandard to say the least, and quite unrealistic. Eg in some of the stills players in the D line are behind the tackle and running backwards. Small things like this add to unreal-ism Also the fact that 9 out of 10 tackles you make would rate in the channel 9 “Brut Big Hit” competition also adds to the fakenes of this game. The frustration of useless AI (Artificial Intelligence) players also annoys the heck out of me. I miss a tackle on Greg Inglis and my other mates who are within the length of an arm to G.I just stand there and watch him get away to score. I can't even beat QLD on the game! Haha (I can). The players are quite unresponsive to your controls. They take a split second to actually run after you shift the stick for him to run. If a player breaks the line you're better off leaving the full back in AI mode to catch him. I can almost guarantee that if you try and control your full back you won't catch him.

I'll close with some good things

There are a couple of cool additions to this game. The step is R3 stick (I think, or L3) in PS3 terms, don't know and don't care what it is for Xbox lol, but you can actually control which way you want to step. Which takes away the risk from previous games of getting the ball down the flank, coming to the full back and stepping out because the randomization of the R2 button has made your player step that way. Has happened to me many times. When kicking, an arrow pops up showing you where your kick is going to go, and land, which makes 40–20s a little easier. Also with the kick, your outside backs chase there little hearts out which is good. In the opposition red zone the cross field kick actually works, because your little digital outside backs run for it. I've scored a couple of tries from the cross field kick and I must say, the level of satisfaction I received from achieving that was huge. And that's about it for the pros

All and all cons far out score pros. If Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is a solid 9/10 I'll rate this 5/10

The pros are a step in the right direction however, and I hope another league game comes out that is developed by EA

Still should be a good blast with the boys though

I'd say hire it before you buy it, you might actually like it. I can't believe I've written this much about a game. Nothing else to do. But it'd be better renting it for 8 bucks then going and blowing $108 the day it comes out at the warehouse like I did. I'd love to hear some other reviews as well considering this is the first I have ever written, I wana hear what you guys think of this game

Authors note: I only played it for an hour or so and picked up on all of these things. I hope that as I continue that more pros are found and I can just get used to this game

This game is a re hash of previous games gone by. I am very dissapointed with this game, I pre ordered it because I have been hanging out for a decent rugby game and then this turns up. I would be just as upset as if I had bought it for the first XBOX let alone a 360. The graphics are terrible, the player movements and animations look like a ps1 game, controls are all over the place, although thats not a major. Wait till its in the bargain bin for $10. EA needs to make a decent rugby game for 360, they seem to atleast get fluid player movements hahahaha!!!

Was kinda disapointed with this game cause theres not much new with it. there are extra teams etc but its too much like the last games on xbox and ps2. I still like the game tho. a must have if your a league fan. game is mostly enjoyed when playing against your mates or over xbox live