Blood Bowl is a very good turn based adaptation of the great board/RPG game of the same name from Games Workshop. The general premise of this game is similar to American Football - touchdowns. Expected activities include blocking, passing, tackling, and handoffs. Unexpected ones include dirty plays (stomp them when they're down), hireling all-star free agents, and a great league play option for playing through a series of seasons.
What has always made Blood Bowl so much fun though is its differences from American football. For starters, imagine what football would be like in Tolkien's Middle Earth - Dwarven teams, Human teams, Undead teams, Elven teams, Halfling teams, Orc teams.
That's Blood Bowl. Teams tend to have the expected advantages and disadvantages for their race. Dwarven players, for example, are tougher than average. Halflings...well not so much. The Halfling team tends to get beat up quite a bit.
Not only are there racial distinctions between players and their abilities, there are minor class ability differences. There are general classes like Linemen, Throwers, Catchers, and Blitzers. Each has a role to play. Throwers, Catchers obviously are better at throwing and catching, and have stats (yes, each player has 4 stats which I will touch on later) that reflect their class. For example, Throwers are not as powerful, but have a few more movement points than average players to help them get out
into the open to catch a pass and stay ahead of that Orc blocker trying to stomp on him. There are racial specialty classes which are usually just extreme versions of one of these 4 basic classes.
There are a few areas where this game has surprising depth.
The first, as I've already mentioned, is the individual player stats. These include Movement Allowance, Strength, Agility, and Armor value. These are pre-assigned to each player so you can't change them, but just knowing that your Black Orc Blocker (specialty class) has strength of 6 and that Halfling next to you with the ball only has strength of 2... Well it just gives you a warm fuzzy feeling... right before you smash him into the dirt, break his bones, force him out of the game, and possibly even kill him.
The second is the skill system. Blood Bowl includes 30 talents or skills that can enhance a player in a certain area. The thrower class, for example, will usually have either the Accurate or Pass skill so they are more accurate when throwing the ball, or less likely to fumble when they attempt a pass. Linemen will sometimes have the Blocking skill. Those are examples of some of the normal skills. Some of the more unusual skills include Prehensile Tail, Two Heads, Razor Claws, Dirty Player, and Horns. Many of these special skills/abilities are reserved for Free Agents (see below). Each skill gives the player an advantage in some area. Some players are blessed with multiple skills, and most free agents have 3-5 of them.
The third great area of the game is the individuality of players. Each team has a complete roster of about 16 players. Each one is individually named and has own class/stats/skill set. While most of the players are fairly average, each team tends to have a few stars/best players. Having those individual names to follow through league play is very entertaining. Each player gets his own stats on how many tackles they've made, how many touchdowns they've scored, how many players they've killed...and so on.
The fourth great part of the game (and what really puts it over the top) is the free agent system. Each team has a 16 player roster. Well what do you do if one of your players gets ground to a fine blood red powder by an overachieving dwarf? You go hire a replacement! Free agents range from average (just give me a body to stick on the field, 2/3rds of my Halfling team is disabled or dead) to AWESOME (6 skills, very high stats). Of course they tend to have a price to match. They want Gold. You get Gold in Blood Bowl by winning (losers get some too but not much).
The fifth great area of the game is the depth of the league play. Sure you can pop in and play the exhibition and get some feel for the game, but these extra features such as the stats, individuality of characters, injuries(which heal over time based on severity),death , skills, and free agents are much more pronounced (or only available) in the league play. League stats (as with player stats) are kept not just over the course of a single season, but over the course of multiple seasons. I don't know if there is a limit to the number of seasons you can play. The farthest I can remember playing is about 4 seasons. Usually by then I want to play a different race for a change of pace. If you really want a challenge, try playing the Halfling team through a few seasons.
The last thing that is good about the game is that you can play against a friend! It's a great hot seat game!
There are a few downsides to this game.
The most annoying one is that it can be slow for the computer to take its turn. I don't mean 5 seconds. Sometimes it can take up to a minute or two for it to move. It’s not usually that bad, but if you really get it stumped as to the best way to get you or get past you, it can take a while. I usually just do other stuff while it thinks in the background. Since it runs well under DOS-box, I make my moves finish my turn and go browse the net. When I check back it's usually done. Its possible this delay could be lessened if I allowed the game more CPU cycles (a setting under DOS-box).
The sound doesn't always work especially with the announcers.
The instant replay doesn't seem to work for me, but you can skip through it easily or even turn it off in Options.
The AI is only average.
You have to find the manual. Reading through the manual will make the game much more fun. If you hunt around the net you should be able to find it though.
Overall this is a great game! Read through the manual and you'll be in good shape.
