After a motivating introduction you have a large amount of game modes available. There is a Quick Match option, as well as a Single Match option, but the meat of the content is in the Season and Career modes. Season mode allows you to play through the NAB cup (along with all the pre-season rules) and guide your team to Premiership glory. Career is a little more in-depth, and allows you to develop your players. During matches your players may become injured, and you’ll need to strategise so your team doesn’t fall apart when one of its stars is injured. There's also a Training mode which is pretty self-explanatory.
The game does feel like an AFL title.
Rounding out the options is Mission mode. Every team has a mission each, which normally involves coming from behind to win. The Mission mode is rather tricky though so it’s not something you can jump into immediately. Being a Sony-published title, the game also includes EyeToy support, so you can import your own face into the game. This is easy to work, although it doesn’t really make much of a difference seeing your face in the game. One of the biggest omissions from the game is online play. The game doesn’t include online support at all, which is a severe disappointment. We can imagine the lobbies would be really busy on Saturday afternoons.
It’s an impressive list of features, but where other AFL games have come down in the past is the gameplay. While the game still has some issues in this respect, the gameplay is a little more consistent than in AFL Premiership 2005. A small change that's made a decent difference to how the game is played is the viewpoint. The games are now played from a side-on angle, like how you watch the footy on the television. The viewpoint makes the game feel a little more authentic and it's easier to keep track of who has the ball, although it isn't always easy to see where you're kicking. Instant replays have also been included so you can replay that special goal. Score a goal or concede a free kick then an instant replay will automatically play, but you can bring up the instant replay option by pausing the game as well. When viewing the replays you can manipulate the camera too.
The controls have changed a bit and it’s definitely for the better. We’ve been hoping to score outside 50 for years now, and finally you’re able too. When shooting for goal there is actually some skill involved, with a mini goal appearing on the bottom of the screen, and when shooting you need to line up the mini football with the goals. When taking a free kick you have a power bar, but hold it for too long and you'll over kick the ball and it will only go a few metres.
The difficulty has been improved as well, so you won’t be annihilating teams by 100 points on the hardest difficulty; infact, until you actually get a grip of the game the computer will be beating you quite comfortably. Team tactics can also be employed. There are different tactics for different scenarios such as when you’re in the forward 50. You can select tactic styles like defensive or attacking, and you can change tactics in game by using the directional pad, which is certainly very handy. It's also easy to tell when you've implemented tactics like when you flood the back half in the last minutes of the game.
It seems the umpire is doing the Robot dance.
There are still some gameplay issues that hold the game back though. The AI still isn’t that intelligent. Sometimes the AI will push you in the back whilst you’re shooting at goal and the AI seems to never use the interchange bench unless one of their players is injured. There are still a few glitches with the game as well and the instant replay option makes it easier to identify them. Players will often actually run through each other and the game isn’t always responsive to your button presses. This can be extremely annoying because you may tap the ball out of the ruck, grab the ball quickly and go to boot it into the 50 metre arc but you'll press square too early and you’ll end up getting tackled.
The gameplay has been sped up but the game still doesn’t flow as well as it could. It’s much easier to control your players and execute moves, but sometimes your players still aren’t doing what you want them too. Handballs in particular are especially hard to judge. It would also be good if the game contained some more detailed stats as well, so we could keep track of our players a little more easily, but this is really only a minor gripe. The off-season aspect of the game overall could do with a bit more work though, as it’s not exactly comprehensive.
It can also a bit hard to kick a goal when you’re in a rush or if you’re extremely close to goal, because it isn’t all that practical to wait for the goals to line up down the bottom of the screen. You can just quickly press X to take a shot, but it would have been better if you could just press a button to snap. Players can also get injured, but it seems some players are more prone to injury than others; for example, Matthew Richardson can’t seem to play a quarter without having some sort of an injury problem. You’ll rarely utilise the wings either because the players seem to just about always kick straight down the field.
Graphically the game hasn’t really changed that much which means it still looks rather awful at times. The crowds are 2D and when the camera flicks to the stadiums it looks like pieces of cardboard are sitting in the crowd. The major improvement visually appears to be the stadiums, which actually look pretty impressive at times. The frame rate stays consistent which is pleasing but it would be good if there were some visual improvements because the game doesn’t look all that different to last year’s version and when the game zooms in you can’t help but cringe.
Here's a chance.
One of the aspects of the game that hasn’t been overly improved though is the audio. Dennis Commeti, Dermott Brereton and Christie Malthouse provide the commentary and unfortunately it’s still rather inconsistent with comments like, “Nice work by …Geelong”. The crowd has improved a little, but the sound effect for the crowd feels like the same audio sample but looped. If you were looking forward to better audio then prepare to be disappointed - there's no other way to describe the audio other than awful.
There is plenty of content in the game, so you’re not likely to run out of things to do very quickly. The Career mode and the Season mode are very in-depth, and when you’ve got a grasp on them the sixteen missions take quite a while to get through. The multiplayer is addictive and the game is a lot of fun with friends. Hopefully by next year the online component of the game will make a return though, as this is a game that would be a lot of fun online.
It’s clear AFL Premiership 2006 is merely a stepping stone to the inevitable sequel. Whilst you can kick from outside 50, develop your players and use team tactics the game, still has poor animation, glitches and some really dumb AI at times. This game is easily the best AFL title from IR Gurus, but more improvements need to be made to the title before the AFL games become must-buys. For now though, our faith has been temporarily restored, and although this game isn't the ultimate AFL package, it can still be a bit of fun if you can get past the issues.
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