Blood Bowl is a strange game. Partly, it’s strange because it isn’t really a videogame – it’s a virtually recreated board game. Partly, it’s because it’s perversely fun, despite all its issues. And partly, it’s because it’s difficult to gauge at whom Blood Bowl is aimed.
For those who don’t know, Blood Bowl is a virtual adaptation of a classic board game from Games Workshop, the fantasy hobbyists. It mixes American football with goblins, elves, ogres, and dwarves, then underpins the entire sport with brutal, sadistic violence. Out here in this irritating thing called reality, fans will buy the board game, spend hours assembling and painting models, talk with fellow fans, discuss the rules, make up new ones, invent tournaments and scenarios, host grudge matches, and more. Adapting this for the small screen rather negates these huge parts of the hobby – actually playing is just one aspect of belonging to the war game fraternity.
Back in my youthful heydays of eating space raiders from the tuck shop, telling porkies about how the dog ate my homework, and failing to entice girls behind the bike sheds, I was a Games Workshop devotee. I played Blood Bowl – a lot. Strangely, this makes me feel rather over-qualified to judge the merits of this curious offering from Cyanide Studio. Not only do I have a nostalgic attachment to the board game, but also a firm grasp on the rules, even after all these years. As a result, I like Blood Bowl because of its failings, not despite them.
