AFL 23 Review - A Rushed Behind
It’s been a while since we’ve seen a new release to Australia’s most popular sport, Australian Rules Football; thus, the release of AFL 23 from local game studio Big Ant came with great anticipation. The build-up gained plenty of traction, with the league itself heavily promoting trailers of the upcoming title.
However, excitement turned to dismay and disappointment when the game was released on Thursday. Consumers were greeted with nothing more than a demo littered with broken gameplay, missing features and bugs that would even make EA blush. Xbox users didn’t even get a chance to try the game, as AFL 23 isn’t even available for purchase.
It has been nothing short of a disaster, but perhaps in between all the issues and memes, there could be an enjoyable game that one day lives up to the hype…unlike Carlton.
So grab your scarves, crack open a tinny, and proudly wear your team colours. Here’s my look at my review of AFL 23.
Ball in dispute
Football is undeniably challenging to recreate; unlike others, there are many moving parts, different skills, and vast rules. In the past, games like AFL Live 2004, arguably the greatest footy game created, have recreated the magic of this spectacular sport.
Moving the ball is possible through precise kicking, and when you pull off a move through this type of game style, the game can be fun. However, linking up a chain of handballs is a lottery. Often the handball goes in a completely different direction leading to a turnover and the opposition going the other way. But AFL 23 lacks something the elite and even good players possess…polish.
Marking seems too easy, which is fine, whilst tackling is a non-factor. With patches made over the past two days, the AI has gained the power to tackle, yet users are still frustrated as their opponents can stream through a pack of players without being impeded.
Graphically the game is fine, not to the quality you'd expect from an EA or a 2K, but still solid. The cut scenes are excellent and bring an immersion into the game. The face scans are pretty good overall; however, this dips in quality during certain cut scenes.
Commentary from Fox Footy's Anthony Hudson and former Carlton AFLW coach Daniel Harford is pretty good, with Garry Lyon chiming in as a boundary rider. Hudson is undoubtedly the best TV commentator in Footy and hits his iconic high notes throughout the broadcast. There are times when Hudson doesn't take a breath, and on the odd occasion, there is a pronunciation error for Adelaide Crows forward Izak Rankine.
On the AFLW side, Channel 7's Jason Bennett and Fox Footy's Kelli Underwood call similar lines to the men's commentary. Bennett produces an equally impressive performance in the booth to his counterpart Hudson.
Channel 7's Hamish McLachlan and Daisy Pearce were initially slated on the official AFL 23 page. However, it seems they've been dropped from the final game.
The HUD uses the 7 broadcast package, which is clean and sleek and complements the gameplay nicely. However, statistical overlays on player stats, team stats and basic broadcast packages at the breaks would be nice.
Free kicks against
With the few things it got right from the opening bounce, AFL 23 got plenty of things wrong. The AI was a complete biggest error on Day 1, a great example of this was users being able to run the length of the field from a kick out completely untouched. This was a game killer and made it very difficult to enjoy the game.
We’ve already mentioned tackling, or the lack thereof which brings us to the string of bugs and glitches that plagued AFL 23 on release.
The bench on the field
Coaches becoming goal umpires (Adam Simpson)
Goal umpires becoming field umpires
Users running rings around AI without anything happening
Players morphing into each other
Game crashing
Commentary stops working, which leads to the game crashing
That’s just naming a few that plenty of other users encountered. As of writing the review, most of these have been patched.
Another area for improvement is the management mode. Whilst there are great features like the mid-season draft, the problems lie through its match simulation. Realism is wholly removed from the realm of possibility when multiple players accumulate 60+ disposals in a game. This shouldn’t happen during the simulation. To put this into perspective, Tom Mitchell holds the AFL record with 54.
Not to mention the automated generated players, which all look the same and will ultimately lead to the game crashing.
Dropped
Glitches and bugs have unfortunately become normalised in video games as developers have the opportunity to patch them up. This leads to the most considerable misgiving of AFL 23, the omitted features. This is unforgivable for a game that costs $79.99 on a disc and $99.99 as a digital copy. With all the hype surrounding game modes and customisation, it was mightily disappointing to see so much missing.
Here’s what wasn’t in the game at launch but is coming this week or later:
Credit: Big Ant Studios
Whilst the roadmap is appreciated, the fact so many of these features in the first place without communication before the game release could be better. For someone like myself who enjoys customisation and creating teams, to be unable to create team jerseys, import logos and not even customise the HUD, which is just stuck on black text, this is not great.
Coaches thoughts
AFL 23 is an unfortunate representation plaguing the gaming industry at the moment. Games are being released unfinished, forcing users to download a 50+ gigabyte day-one patch that only paves over the cracks of all the problems. It’s frustrating beyond belief and insulting to people who paid full price for the game upon release.
Whilst there is an element of wanting to produce a retrospective review of the game down the line, we can only review what we have in front of us. And, at the moment, AFL 23 is a contested mess littered with gameplay bugs, broken controls and missing features with the potential of being a fun game. Whether Big Ant Studios can get AFL 23 to a level where it’s fun and somewhat a representation of Aussie Rules, time will tell.