Despite problems with work and home, I've finally been able to finish off the
Blood Bowl Campaign Mode by winning the game's most prestigious trophy, the Blood Bowl itself. My Necromantic team, the Order of Darkness retires with a record of 52 wins, 3 draws and 3 losses including a 29 match unbeaten streak.
Order of Darkness vs Khemri, Final Score
If you haven't followed the progress of the Order of Darkness in it's quest for head-smashing, elf-thumping football dominance (
Part 1,
Part 2,
Part 3), then a brief rundown of the game is in order...
The sport of Blood Bowl is very loosely based on American Football adapted for the Warhammer Fantasy setting. Races that normally fight on the battlefield, instead face each other on the Blood Bowl pitch. The 20 different teams include the agile Wood Elves who favour the passing game, the slow moving Khemri mummies and skeletons who'll worry about scoring touchdowns only when they've knocked the opposition out or off the pitch, and the sneaky Goblins who will use every secret weapon they can get their hands on and hope the ref doesn't notice.
The PC game plays out as either a (mostly) faithful reproduction of the turn-based
Games Workshop miniatures game or a real-time adaptation. I'll always prefer turn-based over real-time, so all my experiences with the game are with turn-based single player. The campaign mode that I played allows you to build up a team from scratch, improve your players as they earn Star Player Points, and compete for trophies over multiple seasons.
Halflings vs Lizardmen
The presentation of the sport in the game is really good, not because the graphics and sound are amazing (which they aren't), but because the vibe and atmosphere is brilliantly captured in all the little things throughout the match: witty banter by the commentators, individual touchdown celebrations, replays to relive the joy of a clutch interception, and so on.
The reproduction of the official rules seems close to perfect. Even some cases where I though I'd encountered a bug in the game, it turned out was just my lack of familiarity with the rules. On the other hand, there were plenty of times I encountered really serious bugs such as the saved formations feature that would just crash the game.
The bugs aren't a huge problem as you can learn to work around them. The biggest problem is the weakness of the opposition AI. I used to play a bit of the miniatures game a long time ago, so I thought I'd start on the hardest difficulty level for a bit of a challenge. I was left sorely disappointed with the challenge presented. Games I lost were almost always because I was playing against a much stronger team and I made a newbie blunder of some kind. Once my team had improved to be on a par with the other teams, I could even afford a couple of serious mistakes each game and still emerge victorious because no matter how poor your tactics, the AI's will be worse. He'll leave his ball carrier exposed to your blitzers, he won't take any actions at all on the free semi-turns you sometimes get on kick-offs, and he never takes into account the amount of turns left before the game ends.
The AI's salvation could come up from the fact that not all the teams are equally good. The mutant Chaos team is very strong once your players have leveled up a few times, whereas the challenging Halfling team has slow and weak halflings accompanied by a few, often immobile, treemen. However, even when playing with a team of Halfling novices against a much stronger established team, the challenge is limited, as this halfling proves as he scampers towards scoring the winning touchdown.
Surprised halfling runs in the winning touchdown
In addition to game-crashing bugs and braindead AI, there's an obscure interface which never explains how
inducements work or how to throw a team mate, and the imaginative commentary gets tiring very quickly as the same anecdotes are repeated every single match. But despite all this, the game is really, really fun. It is probably a really great multiplayer game; I'm just not ready to throw myself to the mercy of random internet players where the game is so readily exploited. If you have a couple of friends who'll buy it, you'll have a blast together. If you're a Blood Bowl newbie, you'll probably have a longer time in the sweet-spot where the AI is a reasonable challenge. If you're a Blood Bowl veteran, you'll probably get a kick out of seeing the game brought to life and enjoy playing with Goblins and Halflings for a while.
Final Score: 7 / 10 - I can't promise an amazing game, but Steam tells me I've logged over 50 hours on it, which is more than I can see for most games I play. The challenge is lacking, but it packs in plenty of fun.
Notes on my personal rating scale: They are entirely based on my personal feelings about the game - I don't rate a game on its own merits but rather how much I've enjoyed and how much time it's sucking out of my life. Strategy games will do well and shooters poorly because those are my gaming preferences.
0-4 = Poor game that I won't be bothering to play any more
5-7 = Decent game - fun enough that I'll try play it some more if I have the time
8-10 = Good game that I'll be playing a lot more or have already finished and greatly enjoyed
