"No Blood, No Glory.. Literally!"
Game: Blood Bowl 2
Developer: Cyanide
Publisher: Focus Home Interactive
Price: $49.99
Size: 2.8GB
PSN: Click Me!
Blood Bowl 2 is a game developed by Cyanide Studios and published by Focus Home Interactive. This is a turn-based strategy American football game set in a Warhammer fantasy world.
Based from the screenshots I've seen about this game, I actually thought at first that this game plays like MADDEN that is just set in a fantasy world. Didn't expect that it was actually a turn-based strategy with a touch of an American football game. I was really having doubts at first if the game will be any good because of the combination, but I was wrong. This game took so many hours of my free-time and still doing it up to now.
What I noticed about this game is that you really need a lot of patience because this game is so unforgiving to newcomers like myself and each match takes 30 minutes to an hour to finish. If you are not familiar with the game then I suggest that you start with the campaign mode first because that is where you will learn on how to play the game. My mistake before was I started a Friendly Match first to see if I can learn anything in that mode because I cannot see a tutorial menu and what I've learned was nothing but pain and utter defeat.
This game is actually based from a board game and almost every action you take will require a roll of the dice, except for moving your player on the field. Like when you attack another player, you will need to roll the dice and the result of the roll will be the outcome of your attack. It can be a hit, a miss or if you are lucky enough, a result that will make your attacking player get hit by the one you are supposed to attack and losing your whole turn in the process.
Since this game relies heavily to dice, you will sometimes find yourself winning even if the opposing team is stronger than your team if they are unlucky with their rolls, but the same might happen to your team. So, you should befriend lady luck and let her stay by your side because you might awaken the sleeping rage within you if not. There is this one time where I fought a team stronger than me and knocked out 2 of my players, leaving me short of 2 players on the field, but still came out victorious with sheer luck from the dice rolls. So, there's really no strong team in this game.
The Campaign mode is my favorite part of the game. The early matches in the Campaign mode act as a tutorial, where you will learn a lot on how to play and master the game. In this mode, you will take part as the coach of the Reikland Reavers, which is a team consisting of human players. You will help them get back on their feet and earn your way to the top of the foodchain. You will encounter all type of cheating from the opposing team and even from the referee themselves. Along with these craziness and bloodbath, there are also these 2 hilarious commentators, Jim and Bob, that makes the Campaign mode more interesting to play. You will be hearing these duo commentate before, during and after the match. They will be supplementing play-by-play commentary and give background story about your team and or the opposing team. The voice acting is great and never gets boring.
The heart of the game lies in the League mode. This is where you will be spending a lot of time playing a solo or online league matches. This is the place where you will use everything you've learned in the Campaign mode, as the battles are much fiercer in this mode. You will start the League mode by creating your own Team. You can choose which race you want your team to be, each with their own special strenghts and weaknesses. I noticed that some race only had 3 player's type to choose from, while the other races has more type of players to pick. Maybe for balancing or I don't know. You can also choose a staff to add on your team which can help you win. One of my favorite staff addition is the re-roll. This grants you a choice to roll the dice the again if you ended up in a bad roll result or if your player tripped from overrunning or from a defender.
After preparing your team, you will now be able to join leagues or even create your own league. Creating your own league is probably one of the best feature in this game. You can customize almost everything you want in your leauge, like naming your own league and competition, making your competition a ladder, round-robin or knockout type and some other stuff.
In this game, both yours and opposing team's players can randomly get knocked down, knocked out, injured or die after getting hit. Sometimes, a knocked down player can also get a stunned status and that player will skip a turn before he/she can recover. Knocked out players on the other hand will be taken off the field and will only have a chance to get back to the field after a team scored a touchdown, after halftime or if you use an item to heal him after getting knocked out. And there is also a chance that a player can die from attack and they will be out for good. There is this one time that I've won a match by knocking out and injuring the opposing team's players, leaving them with only 1 player in the field. The feeling I get when knocking out or injuring an opposing player is so niceeee.
This game is played in turn. You are only given 3 minutes on your turn. You can move anyone from your team on the field and move them anywhere their movement range. If your player is beside an enemy, there is a chance that he/she can trip you over if you move away from that player. So it's best to attack the defender or just add more of your player closer to the defender to boost the strength of your attack, to have a better chance of knocking down the defender by having an additional dice to roll.
Sometimes, you'll notice some random effect appearing in the middle of the game specially during kick-off. These are the result of the staff you've hired and they will give you a random chance to get something helpful that will help you in the game.
Star Players can also be hired in the League, but they are sure is expensive. Each game, you are allowed to hire all the 1 of each Star Players available to your race. These Star players will only play for 1 game and you will need to hire them again on your next game. The only time I enjoyed using the Star players without paying that much is during the Campaign mode. Star players are really very helpful in this game since they have highers attributes and more skills than the regular players. Star players doesn't level up though.
Players can also level-up when that player gained enough SPP. SPP can be gained when they knocked out a player or send the opposing player out of the field after an attack. Getting a goal will also give that player a SPP. Gaining a level doesn't improve the attributes of your player, they will only have a skill of your choice each time they level-up. Also, when a player reached a certain age, this player will retire, but good thing is that you can sell it in the Marketplace which is only available in the multiplayer mode. You can also buy in the Marketplace from the other players online which I think is a nice feature. The only thing I didn't like is that I cannot buy a player from the other race. I can only buy players which is from the same race as my team. So, there's no experimenting on your team with mixed races. Would have been awesome if it was allowed though.
So, all in all, this game was really addicting. How is it addicting? Maybe because of the violence it gives, or maybe because of the great campaign mode, or maybe because of the time consuming league mode, or perhaps because of the hard earned GOAL which also makes me shout and rejoice after getting it.
If you think that this game would be boring because it's not an actual American football game like Madden, I suggest that you give this game a go and see for yourself how addicting and hard earned each goal is.
Score: 4 / 5
Website: http://www.bloodbowl-game.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BloodBowl_Game
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bloodbowlgame
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