Thursday, May 21

Blood for the Sports God!

Riding the wave of Warhammer Fantasy Goodness , the franchise that brought you things such as Pop Khorne and the Nurgle Burger (the only burger that bites back) has returned to the silver screen. I mean, the LCD screen. Or your TV set.
I'm talking about Blood Bowl!
The only Football game where it's accepted behavior to throw fireballs at the opposition and where Ogres don't just toss the ball, they toss the Goblin holding the ball. Now that's a touchdown!
Yup, Cyanide studio has made what looks like a very good remake of the old board game.



I used to play the board game of this game in my teens as a whymsical break from serious P&P RPG or tabletop battles. Despite the tongue in cheek gruesome mayhem that results when you put things like Skaven and Orcs on a battlefield, I mean greens of a sporting arena it was quite the tactical game as well. It never was about winning though, it was about trying out ridiculous tactics to wipe out the opposing team completely. Ok, maybe it was about winning, just a bit.

I have yet to find video footage of that playstyle but apparently Old Skool turn based gameplay is an option. Which is a good thing. The remake of Speedball II didn't do so well despite being very faithful to the original mainly because the people who remember it fondly also fondly remember when they still had the reflexes for that kind of fast action :-)

Planned minimum system requirements:

WINDOWS XP SP2/VISTA
PENTIUM4 2.4GHZ/ATHLONXP 2400+ PROCESSOR
1 GB (XP)/2 GB (VISTA) OF RAM MEMORY
128 MB 100% DIRECTX 9 AND SHADERS 2.0 SUPPORT COMPATIBLE GRAPHICS CARD
(NVIDIA GEFORCE 6600/ATI RADEON X700 OR HIGHER)*
2X DVDROM DRIVE
3 GB HARD DISK SPACE
DIRECTX 9 COMPATIBLE SOUND CARD
INTERNET CONNECTION REQUIRED FOR ONLINE GAME
* INTEL, SIS AND VIA/S3G GRAPHICS CONTROLLERS NON-SUPPORTED

Planned recommended system requirements:

WINDOWS XP SP2/VISTA
CORE2DUO/ATHLON64 X2 PROCESSOR
2 GB OF RAM MEMORY
256 MB 100% DIRECTX 9 AND SHADERS 2.0 SUPPORT COMPATIBLE GRAPHICS CARD
(NVIDIA GEFORCE 8800/ATI RADEON HD 3850)
2X DVDROM DRIVE
3 GB HARD DISK SPACE
DIRECTX 9 COMPATIBLE SOUND CARD
INTERNET CONNECTION REQUIRED FOR ONLINE GAME

But going by this last player made video I'll at least give the arcade version a try :-)

Currently, the estimated release date for the PC version is June 18th, the release date for Nintendo DS and PSP versions is June 2009, however, the Xbox 360 version has been announced to be held back till September. Bugger those Quality Assurance processes :-/
The game screams Xbox/Lazy chair at me so I guess I'll have to wait. Maybe check out some more player vids before committing might be a good thing.
Authored by Lani @ 15:03:00

2 comments:

  1. Phedre22/05/2009, 11:24

    I don't know ... Often games that try to put a swing on a regular sport are more about the gimmicks. There are kinda fun for half an hour with some friends. I have never played a P&P sport game, so I don't even have that angle of fun. But maybe I am all wrong. At least it was fun to watch the videos, so thanks for the post :)

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  2. Lani22/05/2009, 15:03

    Heh heh. Believe me when I say I recognize and to a point share your feelings.

    What partially alleviates them for me is that both the boardgame and a videogame predecessor did well. I'm not talking about the '95 DOS game, but about the Speedball II gameplay.

    The board game you could see as a kind of "Brawl Chess". It won't appeal to everyone. If you liked tactical boardgames like the original Bloodbowl or Space Hulk / Space Crusader then this will probably appeal. I liked those and for the most part I still love turn-based tactical games. It's the Real Time "Strategy" games I can't abide.

    The arcade elements will appeal to the younger generation, and might be fun for a few days for me as well :-)

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