AFL Premiership 2006 (PlayStation 2)

CNET editors' rating: 3.0 stars Good
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Overall score: 6.2 (3.0 stars)
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Gamespot editors' review

• Reviewed by: Randolph Ramsay
• Reviewed on: 10/06/2006
• Released on: 07/20/2006

Let's start with the good news for AFL fans: AFL Premiership 2006, Melbourne-based IR Gurus' latest attempt at turning Australian Rules Football into a video game, trumps its 2005 effort in several key areas. Heading the list of key additions is a fairly comprehensive multiseason mode, which lets you manage nearly all aspects of your chosen team, including modifying player skills, trading players at the end of each season, and going through the entire draft process. It's almost like a simulation, and it's a top addition for wannabe coaches. And now for the bad news: Many of the gameplay shortcomings found in last year's game are in AFL Premiership 2006. While the controls have been improved from previous editions, on-field players still move like they're running through treacle, look nothing like their real-life counterparts, and react sluggishly to controls. You'll find the lack of responsiveness and blocky graphics in AFL Premiership 2006 immediately frustrating, particularly if you've been weaned on the slickness of other big-name sports games. AFL fanatics who persevere will find the game passable--after spending a few hours getting used to AFL Premiership 2006's gameplay peculiarities, that is.

Don't let the dainty poses fool you. Players don't move this smoothly in AFL Premiership 2006.

To be fair, AFL Premiership 2006 has made some noticeable improvements to its on-field gameplay from last year's effort. Tackles stick much better in 2006, and the on-field action generally flows more smoothly. The rest is still hit and miss, however. Overly sensitive directional controls make it fiendishly hard to direct kicks and hand passes--when aiming a kick or a pass, it's far too easy to turn your player completely around by slightly overpushing the PlayStation 2's left analog stick, meaning that a kick you intended to go on a slight angle may end up being hoisted in another direction completely. Your onscreen players also take too long to recover from missed tackles or even the slightest bumps. Missing a tackle usually results in your player getting up from the ground agonisingly slowly, while getting bumped by the opposition sends your player reeling for a second or so. It breaks the flow of the game and becomes frustrating, particularly at the hardest difficulty setting, thanks to some unforgiving artificial intelligence, which sees computer players seemingly able to shrug tackles at will while landing each and every one of their attempts.

Kicking for goal doesn't fare much better. As soon as a player is within kicking distance of a goal, a small indicator representing the sticks with a sliding meter appears. You need to stop the sliding meter when it's in the middle of the goal indicator to make the kick accurate. While this system works fine in most cases, having to wait for the sliding meter to move back to a scoring position results in some fairly ridiculous situations during a game. You will often find yourself in a great position to shoot for goal (such as being directly in front and a few metres away), only to be forced to wait for a second or so before the sliding meter reaches its best point.

Compounding the control issues is the game's AI, which is perplexing most times. While you have the ability to set tactics for different areas of the field (usually a neutral, aggressive, or defensive stance), none of these seem to make much of a difference during the course of a game. Players, both in your team and the opposition, will almost invariably run into space without a defender in sight, regardless of the tactics employed.

AFL Premiership 2006's saving grace lies in its excellent career mode, which is an AFL trainspotter's dream come true. The career mode lets you play multiple seasons (preseason, full season, and finals games) and lets you develop your chosen team in any way you see fit. Each of the 16 teams in the AFL and all of its listed players are available, which means all of the well-known superstars as well as first-year hopefuls. Each game you play earns you experience points, which you can then use to develop your players. All players are given a rating out of 100, which is derived from a list of 10 attributes like strength, speed, stamina, or skill. This means you can take a few rookies (or an entire team of average players) and build them up to become powerhouses over the course of a few games or seasons.

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