Rugby Union Team Manager 4

I love Rugby Union, I love simulation games, I love sports management games (I've put more than 6,000 hours into various iterations of Football Manager for comparison). There’s obviously been some inspiration from the Football Manager games here (even in terms of screens / layouts) and I was super excited to try the game out, but sadly it suffers a number of issues I’ll describe below. [b] The positives: [/b] [list] [*]There are plenty of leagues and clubs available, no [*]The player stats seem fairly logical and there are not so many that you’re overwhelmed [*]The game is bundled with an in-game editor that seems pretty flexible [*]There is workshop integration (albeit with limited files created so far) [/list] [b] The issues: [/b] [olist] [*]UI – The user interface is meant to be simple, but the problem is it’s just not intuitive in any way. There’s no hotkeys, everything requires mouse clicks, which wouldn’t be such an issue if the screens ‘flowed’ better. There also appears to be no tooltips, so good luck guessing what each button or icon is supposed to represent. Seriously, MS word had tooltips working in 1995. [*]Performance – This is a bit of an oddball, most of the time processing seems pretty fast, but then it has the occasional hang or pause for no reason (on a Core i9 13900KS / 96GB RAM / 2TB NVME SSD / RTX 4080 so specs are obviously not the issue). [*]GFX – The graphics are okay. At best. I honestly don’t mind poor graphics if gameplay makes up for it, but in this case it doesn’t, and the 3D match view just looks janky. [/olist] The absolute worst problem the game has is ironically the most important thing: the matches themselves. Matches seem to be just 100% randomised, I don’t want to keep comparing to Football Manager, but you can look at an attackers’ stats in FM and estimate how well they’ll perform, here you may as well just toss a coin. I’ve done various tests: [list] [*]I set all the stats of Leinster to 99, and started a match against 3rd Tier English opposition at home: I lost 17 – 0. I restarted that match, lost 15 – 3. With default stats the loss was ‘only 12 – 7. [*]Players often just ‘freeze’ when an action happens (e.g. a Ruck forms) before teleporting one at a time into position. [*]Animations range from ‘decent’ at the line-out, to ‘WTF is going on’ at the breakdown. [*]Players don’t bother closing down or performing kick chases (even if onside). [*]The players never seem to pass to the winger / wide runners. [*]Players pass to a player about to be tackled even when they have a clean break. [*]Players randomly pass forward. [*]‘Kick to Touch’ seems more like ‘Kick directly to the sideline, don’t try and gain territory’. [*]AI teams seem to be able to tackle more reliably than the player teams, and even if the human team manages a tackle it seems to dish out Yellow / Red Cards out of spite. [*]Positioning for defensive kicks is non-existent. [/list] It just goes on. There’s absolutely no way I can recommend this game in its current state, and after 20+ years gaming (11+ of them in Steam) this will be the first game I’ve ever requested a refund for. I really want a quality Rugby Union Manager game, but at the moment, this is not it. I agree with the comments that this game has the skeleton of a great game, there's clearly a lot of potential, but until the matches become in any way tolerable this game is not worth it.

As a massive rugby fan (and management games fan), I wanted to love this game so much but couldn't. I concur with another review below - I can't figure out if somehow everyone giving it a thumbs up has been playing another game from us in secret. The graphics are pretty horrendous and occasionally the 3D match randomly gives you a completely black pitch and a few player numbers. The UI is a disaster and no hot keys mean that you spend absolutely ages clicking through badly laid out screens just to get back to where you were originally. And as mentioned, the amount of processing it does (on a bizarrely outdated screen that you then have to click "close" after every time it has finished) is inexplicable when games like Football Manager load in a fraction of the time, with infinitely bigger databases. It feels like a throwback, in the worst possible way. The only plus is the in-game editor - but even that has major problems. As someone else said, you can set each one of your players attributes to 99 and still lose to an inferior team. I tried it because someone mentioned it and it's true. That's before we get onto the AI in a match. The players do weird things - it's that simple. As mentioned elsewhere, your flankers will 100% not be at the breakdown, your centres will simply run at the last defender and completely ignore the overlap. The idea is needed, it has the skeletal bones of a great franchise and a great game. But it is staggering that this was released about 6 months ago, when it feels at least a decade or more old. I'll wait patiently until someone finally makes a good rugby management game. But this isn't it.

Football manager for rugby union is about the right way to describe this game. 2 seasons down, 2 sackings for sending the clubs into administration

Is this as slick and fully developed as the football manger series no... is it the best attempt at a Rugby equivalent to date absolutely.

Rugby Union Team Manager 4 is basically Football Manager but you do have the capable intelligent Ability to achieve success for both club and country, the best part about the game is you can do career mode and editor mode which gives you the advantage to make your own tournament such as leagues and knockout cup competitions and creating your own rugby players the way you want it because you are in charge which is quite entertainment, it is is very fun, dramatic, epic comeback win to give you the passion, dedication and a will to win, i give it 10/10 because it is the greatest rugby/football manager video game of all time.

I don’t usually leave reviews, but I’m desperate for a good rugby management game, so I hope the developers can take something from my completely unqualified opinion—other than the 1,500 hours I’ve spent on the new Football Manager, which obviously sets the standard for sports management games. If you’re looking for a team management simulation where you can build a squad and aren't bothered about watching or playing the actual games, you might get some enjoyment out of this. That said, I have a few issues with this aspect—namely, the lack of a reputation system. Top players will sign for 3rd division non-professional English teams, meaning you can easily build a super team within the first few seasons. This undermines the fun of squad building—why wouldn’t you sign Damian McKenzie for Nottingham? I used to play a game called Pro Rugby Manager 2 that was released in 2005, and it handled this perfectly. It would negatively impact signings by giving an overall contract rating and then significantly reducing it if your team’s reputation was too low or the player didn’t want to move to that country. You’d have to offer a massive contract to compensate—which reflects real life. Other issues with the simulation side include: * Coaches having no impact. * Being able to coach international teams, the Barbarians, or the B\&I Lions without earning it. * Contract management is frustrating—if you forget to re-sign players at the start of the season, they’ll almost definitely sign elsewhere without any notification that their contract was up or that other teams were interested. One thing the game does well is the Academy/Colts system. You’ll see promising players come through, and it’s satisfying to build some homegrown talent. That said, it barely matters when you’ve got a World XV by the time they’re ready. It also becomes a chore when promoted Colts leave your squad under the minimum 35-player threshold, forcing you to sign random players from other teams just to meet requirements. The real dealbreaker—and why I’ve uninstalled the game—is the completely unplayable 2D/3D match engine, which ruins any enjoyment. Teams hold onto the ball for 20–30 minutes at a time, so any subs you try to make either have no impact or don’t even come on before the final whistle. There’s a noticeable lack of penalties, which leads to regular scores like 21–14 most games. While it would be frustrating to concede a penalty in the 79th minute in front of the posts, that would at least feel authentic and give attributes like Rucking some meaning. As it stands, most attributes seem irrelevant—only Scrum, Goal Kicking, and Line Out seem to make any noticeable difference. There’s no fluidity or spontaneity in the engine. Players won’t exploit gaps or pass to an overlapping teammate—they’re locked into rigid instructions from the limited playbooks. Again, in Pro Rugby Manager 2 (remember, released in 2005), players would abandon the set play if they saw a gap. That made pace important and also gave defensive attributes like positioning, tackling, and awareness visible impact. That game also had 10x more set plays—this one offers just two for scrums and the same two for lineouts (plus a maul if you’re within 10 metres). **But the absolute worst part of the engine is the crash ball to the inside centre (12) from a lineout or scrum. You will score every time you use it, and the AI will do the same to you.** You can’t stop it—even if your 12 has 99 in tackling—and it’s infuriating. My last ever match in this game was a loss as England to Argentina, where their 12 scored five tries from the exact same set play. You know it's coming, and you can’t prevent it. My own 12 scored twice doing the same thing, but since possession is never turned over, you end up helplessly watching them run the clock down. Honestly, the match engine feels like it was built for Rugby League. Players stop immediately when tackled, and the overall flow suits that game more than Union. I urge the developers to revisit Pro Rugby Manager 2 for inspiration. It wasn’t perfect—but it’s a 20-year-old game that, in many ways, does almost everything better that this game.

"Bon mais peut mieux faire" serait sans doutes la qualification qui correspondrait le mieux pour ce jeu. Je ne suis pas un adepte habituel des jeux de gestion/management sportif mais pour une fois j'ai voulu m'y essayer à travers un sport que j'apprécie particulièrement: le rugby. J'ai passé une vingtaine d'heures sur RUTM4 à manager Beaune pour une saison complète et j'ai trouvé ça vraiment sympa mais il manque clairement des choses en matchs. En effet, des options tactiques limités par moment ou certaines réactions de mes joueurs m'ont frustré mais sinon c'est une vraie bonne surprise pour un jeu dans l'univers du rugby il mérite votre attention même s'il reste perfectible.

Que dire de ce jeu, c'est un bon jeu de management de rugby et j'insisterais là-dessus pour commencer si vous êtes fans de management ce jeu n'est pas pour vous, c'est un jeu pour les passionnés de management MAIS aussi de rugby, l'un ne va pas sans l'autre et vous n'y prendrez aucun plaisir si vous êtes juste fan de jeu de management. D'abord les graphismes s'épurent c'est très bien comparé aux autres jeux même si perso' je m'en fous ça pourrait avoir la gueule d'un jeu Windows 98 ça m'importe peu pour du management. Je parlerais pas du jeu en 3D parce que pour le coup c'est moche et surtout je m'en tape je joue qu'en 2D parce que j'ai un PC plus proche du Bangladesh que de la NASA. Y a plusieurs choses à souligner et à améliorer que vous devez prendre en compte avant de l'acheter, voir si vous pouvez avec moi pousser les devs à se bouger là-dessus, ce serait sympa : - L'historique des joueurs, ça c'est un truc très con pour les fans de management mais les joueurs n'ont pas de page histoire juste un petit encart avec les clubs qu'ils ont fait de tel saison à tel saison et des stats "all time" et de la saison, je trouve ça dommage parce que c'est un truc qui rajoute toujours un peu de fond à vos parties de Football Manager ou de Pro Cycling Manager ou de n'importe quoi manager. - Certains postes sont purement inutiles et d'autres complètement craqués, les avants ne marquent jamais d'essais (ce qui n'a pas de sens quand vous jouez Oyonnax ou La Rochelle), les arrières peuvent vous en caler 40 ou 50 à eux seuls dans toute la saison, les positions de 9 (demi de mêlée), 10 (demi d'ouverture), 12 (premier centre) et 15 (arrière) sont craqués, si vous avez des bons joueurs à ces postes vous pouvez gagner tous les matchs ce qui n'a pas de sens. Les avants ne servent qu'à gagner des mêlées c'est déjà pas mal mais disons que ça rend les choses un peu chiantes. Mention spécial à mes 12 qui sont absolument craqués dans le jeu qui peuvent coller 40 essais à eux tout seul dans la saison. - Les phases de jeu sont très répétitives, les essais sont souvent marqués de la même façon (notamment par le 12, encore) - Sur la gestion pure des joueurs, les montées de caractéristiques et les descentes peuvent être très rapides, il y a peu de "flop" c'est à dire qu'un joueur qui à 100 de potentiel se développera toujours au maximum même s'il joue peu. De la même façon certains gros joueurs peuvent perdre du niveau sur une à deux saisons et devenir vraiment nuls alors que juste avant c'était les meilleurs joueurs du monde, il faudrait calmer ça un peu. Sur la question des matchs internationaux, je comprends pas les listes des IA, elles sélectionnent parfois des joueurs qui sont moins bons au niveau du classement que d'autres. - Il y a plus de nationalités que d'équipes nationales ce qui n'a que peu de sens parce que certains joueurs ne peuvent pas avoir de matchs internationaux quand bien même ils sont monstrueux + certaines nationalités existent mais ne fournissent aucun joueur ou presque (Allemagne, Albanie, Roumanie). - Les récompenses de MVP qui n'ont aucun sens, parfois des joueurs sont récompensés alors que je les ai pas vu de la saison, de même ça manque de récompenses internationales en fin de saison pour saluer les meilleurs joueurs à l'échelle internationale. - Faut retravailler le modèle des coupes d'Europe qui est très largement daté et qui élimine des équipes qui ne devrait pas être éliminés. - Le championnat américain n'a aucun intérêt, j'ai vu des rouleaux de PQ me fournir plus de divertissement que ce championnat dans le jeu. - Il faut simplifier un peu l'éditeur de jeu qui est sympa mais galère pour créer des databases propres ce qui risque d'embêter un peu les modeurs qui voudrait avoir le courage de développer des updates des databases notamment pour cette saison (2023/2024). - Faites un modèle de qualification pour la World Cup et faites en sorte qu'on puisse avoir des changements au niveau des poules parce que tous les ans ce sont les mêmes matchs et on se fait sacrément chier à répéter le même paterne constamment en fin de saison, quand ça fait la 53e fois que j'ai mis une branlée à l'Uruguay et les Fiji j'avoue que je décroche un peu et que j'arrête de jouer les compét inter pour me concentrer sur mon club. - Le modèle de centre de formation est sympa mais n'importe quelle équipe avec n'importe quelle structure peut sortir des joueurs pas trop mauvais et j'avoue que j'ai du mal à comprendre comment certains mois avec l'Union Cognac Saint Jean d'Angely je peux sortir des jeunes du même niveau que Leicester ou que le Stade Toulousain ça c'est les points à améliorer mais de manière générale le jeu est bon pour un jeu de management de rugby, il faut en avoir une paire pour sortir un jeu sur un sport comme ça quand on voit toutes les bouses qu'on se tape d'habitude. Il y a un potentiel et un intérêt à jouer et à voir grandir ses joueurs du centre de formation, il faut à minima essayer ce jeu pour s'y faire un avis.

8/10

Wow a good rugby management game, think the next version is going to be great, getting closer to Football Manager, keep it going.