Blood Bowl (Cyanide Studios) – now available
In Brief –
The second commercial PC release of the classic Games Workshop board/miniatures game Blood Bowl is a great example of how vivid visuals combined with an anxiety-inducing, tense gameplay system that has been continually improved over its twenty-two year lifetime (it is currently in its 5th edition of the table-top rules) can make for an addicting, satisfying game. Fifty dollars (as a digital download from the publisher’s site) is steep, and will probably scare away newcomers to the game and concept, but if you are already familiar with the table-top game, or think that a sports/Warhammer hybrid is an interesting concept, it is worth the price for the surprising amount of time this game will drain from you.
In Detail –
One genre of games that has suffered due to inattention in recent years is that of turn-based strategy. The Civilization series has remained true to the genre, but other than the sequels that have emulated and improved upon the original eighteen year-old idea, there haven’t been too many new games that have had anywhere near the success that Civilization has had, which has led to an already conservative game industry to take fewer chances. Take a peek at the list of turn-based strategy games on Wikipedia, and you will see that the majority of games that have come out this decade have more Roman numerals than the Friday the 13th franchise.
Games Workshop, the king of British table-top gaming, has released a series of PC games based on its Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k settings, although most of these have been real-time strategy offerings. While this product plan has done much to attract non-table-top gamers to Warhammer, these games did not do a good job of re-creating the original game experience that many would like to see on the PC. Digging deep into their catalog, Games Workshop decided, as part of a lawsuit settlement with Cyanide Studios )due to the software company’s release of a game eerily similar to Blood Bowl called Chaos League) to make a faithful recreation of Blood Bowl, a favorite among Warhammer fans. The manual and strategy guide give an in-depth history of the game for those who are interested in reading more.
One of the most immediately appealing aspects of this game is its premise – a bastardized, violence-happy version of American Football played in the Warhammer Fantasy universe. This is a formula that has been emulated (some might say ripped-off) several times already on various platforms (Grave Yardage, Mutant Football League, Cyanide’s own aforementioned Chaos League et al) which led to the original board game port in 1995, which had some success along with some quirks. The 2009 release obviously boasts better graphics and an interesting and immersive season mode make this version preferable to both the original PC version and the free Java-based version (which does not have an AI opponent).
Much of the flash of the presentation (cut scenes, the play-by-play announcers, and the in-game camera that shows your opponents moves from an on-field camera view as opposed to the ¾ strategic view when it is your own turn) can be turned off after a few games, but remaining in-game graphics add to and enhance the gameplay greatly. You will find yourself getting more attached to the players on your team due to their leaps when they avoid tackles on particularly chancy plays, or when they collapse on their backs and fumble the ball when you try to push their limits to move just one space further before the end of your turn. The violence also gives you a sense of your players’ mortality. On each physical conflict (referred to as blocks and blitzes) the losing player has a chance of being knocked down, knocked out, injured, or killed. Much like in old D&D games, it’s best not to get too attached to low-level characters. If your team can afford to employ an apothecary, they will be able to re-roll one injury roll per game. This may prevent a fatal or long-term injury from occurring, but will leave your other players vulnerable to the odds for the rest of the match.
Initially you are asked to form a team, selecting from one of eight character races (Blood Bowl is yet to be integrated, apparently) and spending your initial funds on up to fourteen players, with each team fielding an eleven-man squad on-field. Players fall into several categories of specialists. For instance, the humans have Throwers, Catchers, Blitzers, Linemen, and then their “big guy”, the Ogre. All of the other races have variations on these specific to their racial characteristics and culture in the Warhammer Fantasy universe. This gives a nice variety in AI opponents, even if the AI is not all that challenging (in fact, due to the game being so much about deciding when to take chances, the Medium difficulty mode is harder to beat than the more conservative Hard mode).
As for the mechanics of the game itself, each team has sixteen turns, split into two halves. All of your players may move to the limit of their allowance, block an opponent out of his spot, possibly knocking him down or injuring them, pass the ball, hand-off the ball, or, and this is sometimes the part of the game that will make you crestfallen, simply try to pick up the ball. I’m not kidding – sometimes both teams will have several players try and fail to pick up the ball for two or more turns. Once you have the ball, the idea is to get into your opponent’s end zone for a touchdown (one point, no PAT). Everything in the game is decided by die rolls, either on normal six-sided dice or on dice specific to the game, which determine the outcome of a block. The tension in the game comes from two things. First off, you take your entire turn while your opponent waits, getting the ball back either when you have no more valid moves, or when you fail a die roll and cause a “turnover” (meaning here that your turn is over, not necessarily that possession of the ball changes hands). The second part is deciding when to take chances and figuring out how to best get the odds om your favor. Do you try to move your receiver one extra space or to have someone throw a chancy block to give him a lane downfield? If you succeed, you feel like a genius. If you fail, your turn is over, and you have to sit and watch helplessly while your opponent capitalizes on your mistake. It makes you learn the odds pretty quickly to avoid embarrassment, particularly while playing online, using the game’s in-game opponent-fining system.
In the campaign mode, your team will face dozens of teams, each with different races, team player advancement, and composition of positions, so just because you find one Dwarven team easy to beat doesn’t mean that you will necessarily be able to beat another Dwarven team the same way. Once your team starts winning, it will earn Prestige points. Once your team gains enough renown, it will be invited to more prestigious tournaments, leading eventually to the grand championship, the Blood Bowl. But to get there, you will need to compete in smaller tournaments, usually set up in soccer fashion, a round-robin first round followed by playoffs between the top teams from each bracket. Later tournaments will have longer schedules and feature better teams, so your team’s depth becomes much more important as injuries and casualties pile up. The traveling tournament structure ties in to the fantasy setting better than a more usual season-long format would, and allows you to be able to face a great deal more teams along the way.
Also well done is the character advancement system. While your players will have a tenuous grip on their lives, it is rewarding to see them gain in level and develop skills that may save them to play another day. Different player positions can develop using different skill categories. For instance, Agillity-based skills are always available to Catchers, but require a certain roll during advancement to add. Blitzers have access to General and Strength skills. Linemen can only choose from the General list, unless doubles are rolled.
What is disappointing about the game is that of the twenty-one races available in the table-top game, only eight are available. The current trend in DLC may mean that on top of the $50 for the game, you may need to shell out more for additional races, but let’s hope that Cyanide Studios doesn’t go that route. As of this article, rumors say that there will be two new races added in a patch. That would help show potential buyers that the game is going to have some worthwhile improvements.
Blood Bowl is definitely worth a look if you area turn-based strategy game fan, not just because of the novelty of the idea, but also as an introduction to a great game system.
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