Introduction
Blood Bowl is the newly released digital version of the ancient and quirky board game, a spinoff of Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy series. Those who already know what the game involves can skip on to the next paragraph as I explain the basic premises.
Blood Bowl, in all its formats, is basically American Football played by fantasy races. As befitting a sports game with orcs, goblins and trolls, it is hugely violent and very tongue-in-cheek. Players are encouraged injure and kill each other, to foul each other behind the referee's back, and of course to score. From a sporting point of view the game is very simplified, but as a turn based tactical game it is quite deep. Some I've played have compared it to chess in the way it's simple to learn but intensely strategic. On top of the game played on the field, there has always been an RPG element of team progression as your players gain skills and injuries, and try to stay alive as long as possible. One of the greatest assets of the game is the fact that as soon as you fail a roll, your turn is over. This means every decision is a tactical one, weighing up the odds of success so that you can maximise your activity before letting the other guy have a go.
Gameplay
The PC conversion is very faithful to the board game. After taking a few turns to get used to the interface and 3D-ness of it all, it all becomes very intuitive, rarely involving anything more complex than basic RTS controls. The game makes all rolls for you and gives you the options available after the results. The single player game could have been crippled by dodgy 'random' number generation when playing AI opponents, but I'm confident it relies on AI tactics rather than cheating rolls after half a dozen games of a mixture of good and bad luck for both sides. The AI isn't bad either. It tends to be a little predictable, generally caging the ball in with players then either running or passing, but it plays a solid game that will prove a decent level of challenge even if it's rarely surprising.
Off the pitch, there are plenty of ways of playing. From one off skirmishes to campaigns with what looks like 20 or so different competitions, public ranked games and player created multiplayer tournaments and leagues. Teams are moderately customisable (colour and logo), and the between game progression interface is usable if somewhat overcomplicated.
Sights and Sounds
The graphics aren't particularly impressive, but they do the trick. They're clear and fairly uncluttered, but the textures and models look fairly outdated. Still, they're not ugly for the most part and hopefully they'll run on a not-too-high-spec machine (although the stated requirements might prove otherwise).
The sound is a little more impressive. The game noises sound natural and unobtrusive, and there are nice little touches like the crowd roaring louder when you have the ball near the touchline. There's also a nice running commentary which is generally appropriate to what's going on in the game, and not too repetitive. One of them sounds like Pinky.
Stuff that sucks
It's kind of a one trick pony. Sure, there are different kinds of competitions and six races to play, different pitches and textures for the players, but at the end of the day every game is going to be a game of Blood Bowl. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's up to you to decide whether that warrants £25 of your money. Expansions will hopefully address this with new races and hopefully a Dungeon Bowl option (same game played in a complex of rooms and tunnels). Again though, it'll inevitably cost more money. The game can also be unforgiving of mistakes. Nothing has an undo option, from moves to actions to buying players. It's not a huge problem, but could lead to some rage moments occasionally.
Conclusion
Blood Bowl is a very satisfactory representation of the board game. It has the gameplay pretty much spot on, and it looks and feels like a professionally published game should. It is an excellent, if slightly unvaried, tactical game, with a decent sense of humour and a nice progression system. It isn't good enough to convert many people to playing turn based games, but for those of us who have enjoyed Civ, XCom and Fallout it's a nice little game.
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