BLOOD BOWL, A MANLY GAME FOR MEN WHO ARE MANLY, AND MEN
I fell in love with this game in the middle of the tutorial. A little text box instructed me to tell one of my line backers to commit a foul. A right click brought a human player football player to run up to an unconscious rat man and kick him in the dick. It was glorious. It was everything I want in a game.
Blood Bowl is a direct video game adaptation of the table top game. Two game modes are available in single player, Classic and Blitz. Classic is the table top game. Nearly every action requires a die roll based on the player’s stats, out of Movement Allowance, Armor, Strength and Agility. Every race has different median stats for their players and ‘classes’, as well as different starting talents. The goal is to score touch downs to win the game. Touch downs are achieved through running or passing the ball down the field. Murdering the entirety of the other team is optional, but highly recommended because it makes scoring easier. Blitz adds a number of micro-management options, like negotiating contracts, buying player equipment, and so on. It also allows the game to be played in real time, which is stressful, hectic, and awesome.
A lot of care has gone into some of the game’s details. Each stadium has stands full of cheering spectators who cheer and boo at the appropriate moments. Two commentators create a dialogue based on what takes place during a match. However, the commentary is preset phrases and I had heard every single comment possible after playing three or four matches. Fortunately, there is an option to turn off commentary. Every race has a unique touch down dance, but not unique animations for catching, passing or tackling. The most customizable races are Chaos and Skaven (rat men), who have an additional ‘Mutation’ field for their leveling players. Given enough experience, a Skaven or Demon player may develop something like additional limbs to aid in ball handling, or tentacles which create an additional hindrance when an opposing player attempts to break away or run past a player with tentacles. The mutations do appear on character models, altering their physical appearance. The largest disappointment in the aspect of models and animations is some of the games more vivid incidents are hand waved away by text boxes. “Angry spectators storm the field and incapacitate some of your players” is read from a few lines of text, and the match simply begins with people unconscious.
The rule set as a direct adaptation poses a problem. On the player’s turn, they are allowed to perform any number of actions until they choose to end their turn, or a roll is failed which results in turning over to the opposing side’s turn. Un-opposed movement is the only safe action. My biggest complaint regarding this system is the die rolls required to move the ball. Passing the ball and catching the ball are two separate actions and require two separate die rolls. Distance is not factored into the two separate rolls, so there is a chance that a player will fail at handing the ball off to another player even if the player is standing right next to them. I will never begin to comprehend how it makes any sense. In my imagination, I see the ball carrier attempt to hand the ball to someone, someone that is not paying attention, or someone that slaps the ball out of their hand in order to be a jerk. Picking the ball off the pitch is another die roll. I recall one game very fondly, where a freshly kicked ball at the start of the round ended up at my catcher’s feet, who proceeded to chase the ball around the field because it took him three turns to pick the damn thing up.
Teams are given a point value based on the average level of the players on the team. In order to even things out, money is awarded to a team if it plays another team with a higher point value. This money can be used to benefit the team, buy penalties against the opposing team, or buy a star player. The star players are absolute badasses, and thus brings me to my favorite moment of playing Blood Bowl. My team, Dwarves, could only be matched physically by Orcs. The opposing team hired a star player, an Orc so strong that it required me to keep three of my linebackers on him to prevent him from doing whatever he wanted. The game was in its second half and I was barely winning. The star player kept knocking my players unconscious. After knocking out two of my dudes, the star player tried to break free from my last line backer. My line backer, level one and totally pissed, hit the star player so hard that it broke his back and took him out of the game. I cheered so hard.
To me, Blood Bowl was an emotional roller coaster. Failed rolls brought absolute anger and fury, while rolls that passed phenomenally made me absolutely ecstatic. I never played multiplayer, but only because I felt the capacity for the game to make me angry would be multiplied online. It did get me rather excited to play a sports game, and I enjoyed it immensely.
