The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

On to the American footingsball, or as I’ve heard I was supposed to call it from now on, tackleball.

Something like that.

I was pretty excited about the Blood Bowl game. I had heard great, great things about the tabletop version. It was very well loved, and had a big cult following. I was looking forward to trying it in a completely affordable way on the 360.

Unfortunately, it was just not to be.

It’s clear that the people who made the Blood Bowl 360 game love the original game. Like, seriously and completely love it. Their goal was to set out to create a game where fans of Blood Bowl could play Blood Bowl online with minimal problems, and that’s pretty well exactly what they did. However, they took exactly 0 steps towards accessibility.

After doing the tutorial, and playing several matches, I still have very little idea about how the game’s mechanics work. This is a very complex game with lots of dice rolls, but it only shows those dice rolls when you fail them, and have a chance to reroll, or in a tiny window in the corner where they scroll past without explanation. It makes it extremely hard to pick up exactly why you’re failing to tackle people and so on. I was sure there was a perfectly good reason why I was failing, but the game really wouldn’t clue me in on it. It assumed I already knew.

It’s even worse in the “real time” mode. I figured this would be something to fuck around with, like a really shitty Madden or something, but no, the game just starts rolling dice in real time, and you still have to issue commands, except that it doesn’t make sense how to issue commands. It’s even more confusing than the normal game.

I’m sure, for a fan, this game would be completely amazing. The announcers are funny, but can also be turned off, which I’m sure is nice after you’ve played 50 games. The visuals are actually pretty good, and have strong style. You’ve got all the customizations options you’d want, and you can set up online leagues with your friends, or just practice against the computer. But man, if you don’t know how to play Blood Bowl already, this game is just going to seem completely incomprehensible, and I can’t really recommend it. I sent it back to Gamefly on the quickfast.