Finger-tip control over all rugby's biggest names ... and the results

By PETER GRIFFIN

New Zealand's national sport will feature in the most elaborate video game of its type.

The new game, for PlayStation 2 and PCs, will go on sale before the Rugby World Cup.

Games developer Electronics Arts, best known for top-selling sports titles such as Madden (American Football) and FIFA (soccer), is having another crack at building a rugby video game.

It will take a more expansive view of the game than its predecessor, which went on sale in late 2000.

The new game simulates the Super 12 and international competitions, and users can set up any combination of national or international rugby teams.

EA's Rugby 2004 development manager, Andrew Wilson, said the game won more development cash after Rugby 2001 sold three times more copies than EA had expected.

"It was a big risk for us, our first rugby game. It's not like the usual big-budget games that sell well in North America."

Putting the game together was expensive and time-consuming, Wilson said.

Creating the commentary involved the two commentators, John Inverdale and Gordon Bray, talking their way through 500 pages of dialogue.

They had to pronounce the names of 3000 players - then do it all over again in excited voices.

Wilson said the last version of Rugby was well-received, but EA's market research showed it had to give the game the same attention it lavished on other titles if a follow-up was to succeed.

"They told us that if they were going to pay $100 for a game, 'We want our rugby game to look like Madden'," he said.

The new game will be three times bigger than the previous version.

It will have 1500 players, considerably more than last time, 95 teams compared with 25 last time and 10 times more motion capture.

Real-life player movements form the basis of the game's animations.

Those movements were recorded with motion-detecting cameras and fed into a 3D animation engine.

Showing an early-stage version of the game at Eden Park this week, Wilson said the graphics would be far more realistic than in previous games.

"When a prop hits a scrum-half, you're going to see him get buried."

The game would also have more depth, with a wider range of competitions and more of an emphasis on the business of rugby - an aspect some successful soccer games have focused on.

Rugby 2001 sold half a million copies worldwide, and EA expects Rugby 2004 to be at least three times more popular.

That, says Wilson, is because of rugby's increasing popularity and the fact the game's launch will tie in with the World Cup.

"Three and a half billion people watch the World Cup, so if a few buy the game we'll be in good stead.

"Two years ago, Xbox hadn't even launched in New Zealand, which is a key market. PlayStation had the lion's share.

"If all I did was do a port [to the Xbox platform] I'd cop flak in the market."

He said broadband penetration in the key target markets - New Zealand, Australia and South Africa - was not enough to warrant building online gaming into Rugby 2004.

Wilson is also working to get Cricket 2004 finished for a November release.

And his dream is to build the best surfing video game.

"The Kelly Slater game wasn't too bad but it could be done better.

"The problem is that sort of game doesn't sell very well."