Arriving on the Xbox 360 after an entirely appreciable outing on PC, Blood Bowl follows PlayLogic’s Fairytale Fights with the intent to broaden the current-generations’ gaming spectrum. Eager to dispense with the demand for big-budget, Hollywoodised videogame productions and make room for smaller, niche titles, Blood Bowl is a welcoming embodiment of the benefits of an expanding installed userbase.
From the introductory cut-scene to the one thousandth time you land facedown in the mud, typically with an Orc or Minotaur trampling you on your way down, Blood Bowl is evidently designed for a very specific market. Side-stepping the expectations of the mainstream gamer and instead concentrating on delivering a tactical, brutal rendition of American Football intrinsically linked to Games Workshop’s table-top classic, Blood Bowl marks the beginning of a new phase for the current-generation, and a wholly welcome one at that.
The relationship with the game’s source material has obviously been considered carefully, with Blood Bowl presenting two gameplay modes; a real-time gameplay mode 
referred to as “Blitz” and a traditional turn-based mode entitled “Classic”. Classic mode is undoubtedly a time-sink, with matches typically lasting around thirty minutes to an hour, and entire seasons and championships available to play through. Here, the rules of play are entirely faithful to the original board game, with movement, stumbles, blocks, passes and catches all subject to rolls of the dice and any subsequent modifiers. Each of the varied teams has a number of different player types, each with varying skills altering the outcome of such dice rolls, and co-ordinating your team across the playing field with a predetermined tactic is essential for defeating the unforgiving artificial intelligence (AI) opponents, who clearly know the rulebook like the back of their hand. To say that Blood Bowl features a harsh learning curve would be a grand understatement.
Once the player has learnt the basics and chosen their team from the eight very different races available on-disc (the Dark Elves race has subsequently been made available for PC gamers, and hopes are high for Downloadable Content releases on Xbox 360), the player can then build their team from the funds they have available. At first, simply filling-out the team roster will draw most of your income, but as the game progresses and your team gain experience, hiring additional Star Players, bribing the ref and other inducements are available to aid your on-pitch strategy, and learning how to make the most effective use of these simple management options can greatly alter the outcome of a match.
Taking a single team through an entire campaign or championship will allow them to gain experience, and learn new skills. The overarching ideal being that a player will compete in increasingly difficult matches as they progress through seasons, and within this extended effort, their players will increase in strength and ability, learning new skills and becoming ready to take on more
formidable foes. However, player’s won’t learn new skills simply for being on the pitch – experience is earned through momentous play, and making a world-beating team is an enduring task. The levelling-up system has been well devised, reflecting that of the original board game and, in time, making each player on your team a very different individual.
The Blitz mode, then, is suggested as the more immediate offering. The initially confusing real-time gameplay quickly opens into a more commonly palatable fantasy football game. The on-pitch action is all that changes, with championships and experience playing just as large a part of the game as with the Classic mode, but the typical formula of predominantly taking control of the on-ball player will be more familiar to the game’s newcomers, and is perhaps the better option for introducing friends to the game for the first time. Online play is available, and should Blood Bowl achieve the level of success it’s clearly deserved of on console, will be a substantial long-term attraction. At present, however, finding a game is as much a cause for concern as having your opponent quite out of match after only one or two turns.
With pleasingly unattractive character models for the horde races and sturdy builds of the Humans and Dwarfs, few fans of the original game will have grounds to complain. The pitch-side detail is considerably lacking however, with the scattering of items frequently suffering from pop-in and the grass animation
being almost non-existent. The menus are also poorly arranged, with the highlighted option frequently being no more noticeable than every other option on the screen. The commentary is perhaps better than would be expected, but is far from the leading the genre, and the squeaks and squeals of players lack the scope of the bone-crunching effects in bigger budget releases such as the Madden NFL franchise.
Blood Bowl is strikingly different to anything else available on the home consoles of the current-generation at present. Both tactically deep and irrefutably original, as a videogame interpretation of the original game, Blood Bowl simply cannot be faulted. With a view to filling a niche gap in the market, Blood Bowl is entirely successful, yet at every turn it’s hard to shrug to feeling that that niche simply won’t do it justice. Blood Bowl is a fantastically addictive game, unfortunately destined to be misunderstood by many who play it.
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