Blood Bowl

Review from Starks, Starks, Starks and Starks - Tuesday, 06 October 2009 @ 3:18am

Games Workshop is one of those companies that can virtually print their own money. Their Warhammer table-top board game is the type of cash cow an entrepreneur dreams about. In essence, they created an environment where nerds can be accepted as themselves, and then added a hobby to keep them entertained while they were there. An expensive, time consuming and altogether addictive hobby.

My hats off to them; I spent more money than sense buying, assembling, painting and gaming their miniatures for about 5 years and I wonder why, between my drinking, gaming and other crazy hobbies, I never had any money growing up.

Blood Bowl was actually one of the games I played. A table-top variation to their standard ‘Armies of Mass Destruction’, it combined two of my favourite elements to life – Sport and turn-based-model-gaming. A winning combination in Starks’ eyes!!

Blood Bowl in its table-top form

So I couldn’t resist asking Yug for a copy of the game, especially since I had a little green man sitting next to me bugging me to review it.

Og – Og here! Og annoy Starks to get game. Very happy!

*sigh* Honestly, I can’t get rid of him.

Anyways, for the uninitiated, Blood Bowl is a cross between American Football and Warhammer Fantasy battles, fitting in to the storyline by being the game that all the races within the Warhammer world would come together to play. Sort of like the soccer game the Germans and British played in December 1914. You know, the one Germany supposedly won 3-2. I suppose it was the only major point they could brag about once they were defeated in 1918.

To those not aware of the background to this games production, the developer who created it – Cyanide, a Paris based development studio started in 2000 and made up originally of 8 ex-Ubisoft employees – actually developed a game called Chaos League back in 2004 which looked, played and in some cases stole from the Blood Bowl franchise. Games Workshop sued for copyright infringement, however they settled outside of court in fairly amicable circumstances. One of the clauses to their settlement was Cyanide would receive the license to create the Blood Bowl game, and 5 years later – here it is.

So loading up the game, I went in to it with a fairly good idea as to how it should actually play. The options for playing are fairly stock standard when you start up. You have the choice for running through the tutorial, which I would whole-heartedly recommend to anyone who has NFI about what Blood Bowl really is. The tutorial itself runs you through the actual rules of the game, how to play, and the tricks of the trade like bribing the referee or utilising an apothecary. For the uninitiated, an apothecary is essentially a medic in ‘old skool’ times.

Argh!! Let's bash some squishies!!

The second option is the single player aspect, and this is where the bulk of the game is going to be played. You’re given the choice to utilise some training, play career mode or have a one off exhibition match. The career mode is the bulk of the game. Allowing the player to never have to ‘finish’ by not giving an end to a season, you can continue to play to infinity and beyond as the game is like a vinyl record that loops over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and… you get my point.

Loading up a season, I had a bit of a crack and was, for about an hour, actually entertained. You get the choice of playing the game in turn based or real time; a decision that will greatly change the manner and style of game you will play. I will explain it by likening turn based as being an almost exact replica of the board game, and real time as being fairly similar to most sports simulators you can play as a video game.

Deciding that I would play in the real time, at least at first, I enjoyed getting in to the game. For about 5 or 6 games I bashed, barged, killed, bribed and belted my way to the top of the leaderboard.

Og – Starks not great at game. Nancy doesn’t know what bash is. Og did all the work for him. Og tell Black Orc Blitzers to attack enemy thrower. Og get trolls to burp and bash opposition Blockers. Og do all work, Starks run around with arms in air. He scared to be tackled with ball.

Shut up you little green turd! That’s not right. People are entitled to answers. People want the truth.

Og – You can’t handle the truth! Og tell the truth. Og need to make sure people know what go on.

…

Excuse me.

(A lot of rumbling and mayhem in the background. A small squeal of pain is heard and a cry of ‘Not the nipples, NOT THE NIPPLES! Oh have mercy on me!’ and then quiet.)

Og here. Starks is… sleeping. Og finish review.

Og enjoy campaign mode. Very fun. Blood Bowl centre on bash and barge. Many ways to score touchdown. Og gets players to bash opposition. Opposition then fall over. Og get quarterback to throw to linemen. Linemen then run to try line unopposed.

Surely this could be settled over a few beers and a game of pool?

Og think good tactic is bash. Blood Bowl is all about bash. You bash opposition down. Then you can kill opposition. In season mode, dead players don’t come back. You can heal hurt players, but dead players all gone. Og think it gives new meaning to ‘taking out players’. Tee hee!

Og enjoy season mode. Og do think it gets repetitive. Same old, same old. Real time mode is good. Lots of fun. You get ‘concentrate’ mode. This is mode where game pauses. In the pause, you can give fellow Orcs orders. Then exit concentrate mode. Orcs fulfil orders. They not intelligent like Og, but they try.

Og notice game mechanics run well. Og saw it was all based on dice rolls like board game. Certain option in game allow dice re-rolls. In real time version, this not mean much. In turn-based, it mean lots.

Og then switch to turn based. Have lots of fun. Better to play turn based when playing friends too. Re-rolls mean lots in turn based. Game can hinge on poor rolls. Og find this frustrating in some way. Probability gave way to statistics. Og not sure how teeny-weeny goblin hurt his big Black Orcs. Og get annoyed and belt keyboard.

Og also think turn based too slow. Sport fast. Turn based slow. Og think turn based good for 'pure' Blood Bowl, but for fun real time better when on own.

When players stand by themselves like this one, it's usually because they farted...

Og try multiplayer. He play with Starks-the-nancy. Starks lose, throw temper tantrum. Og then try online play when Starks go cry in room. Og not find game! Og unhappy, as multiplayer lots of fun. Og find it better with beers too.

Og play with other features. Og liked making his own team. Lots of fun. Customisation limited. Og find you can mod game lots. This means Og can import new characters. This good feature.

Og find some small glitches. This not good. Make Og hit monitor. Then Og need buy another monitor. Not good. Glitch in customisation, some glitch in game, a few glitch out of game in menu – Really dumb. Not sure why. Og find lots of updates after install. This frustrate Og too.

Og find graphics so-so. Not pleasing to eye sometimes. Og also find menu system clunky, and not polished. Could be better. Very 90’s.

Og think game fun. Must have? No. Og still play other stuff. But if cheap, Og recommend buy. Og will still play sometimes. Mainly when Og drink so he can bash Starks in game, rather than outside. Og find Police not accept ‘It was fun’ for domestic violence. Og wake Starks up now. Og get him to write rest. Og out!

Pros

A lot of fun in game. The bash and barge mentality gives a different spin on a traditional sports game. The Real Time is probably my preferred option, but the true-to-board-game Turn Based means its a great alternative for those wanting to play the pure version, but without the friends to do it in.

Cons

It really plays like a dated game. The graphics aren't what I'd class as above average. The menu is pretty clunky and frankly, after you play 10 or 15 games, it's not hard to master how to beat the computer, since in reality all it does is tweak the dice rolls in its favour as a means of getting harder.