Standing as probably the most brutal and hardcore turn based game in recent memory, Blood Bowl is an adaptation of the tabletop classic. There is nothing more frustrating than building up a star player then having him literally get killed on the field, permanently off your roster.

The tutorial is serviceable, but you're going to need to put in a bit of extra legwork to understand the mechanics completely. But, those who persevere will experience a most gratifying and frustrating experience. The computer seems to give itself a few too many good rolls and makes miraculous plays all the time, something that you will probably only be allowed on a rare occasion, at least until your team is built up.

To those who are intrigued, but still in doubt, I recommend picking up this version over the more complete Legendary Edition, as this is a very love it or hate it game.

Very steep learning curve, but very fulfilling once you get the hang of it. Real-time mode is much easier and more suitable if you're a casual gamer. Turn-base requires you to invest alot more time before you begin to enjoy the game. Recommended if you're a fan of classic turn based games.

Blood Bowl is - difficult to get into. Once you do, you realize just how tactical the game can be, with a huge variety of strategies, unique racial units that set every faction apart from one another, and a truly authentic boardgame feel.

The game is quite enjoyable, but even after playing the tutorial, it took me some time to really get a grasp of what I was doing. In many of the game's screens, options and team member customization choices assail you and you really have no idea what the difference is between options, or even what options you want to use and which ones you don't, and how your choices will effect your gameplay.

There's a great game here, but it's fairly inaccessible when you first start, and it can take some time to even marginally understand what you're doing on the game board, and it's mostly because of an unintuitive tutorial. I assume if you're a player of the Blood Bowl board game, you'd be right at home, but for those of us who have never played it before, it takes some learning to become proficient.

The only other complaint I have is this: the game has very high quality music tracks that help get you in the mood for medieval fantasy football, but there are only three songs in the entire game, and they never play during a match. No ambient music, no nothing. This isn't a big deal, but the menu theme and the intro cinematics built up an expectation that there would be more to follow, and despite the game's excellent sound effects and commentator banter, I just feel it would be that much better with some ambient music playing in the background.

All that said, the game looks and plays great, but don't expect any rowdy, brutal fights on the field - this is a turn-based game at its heart and has more in common with a highly-advanced game of chess than actual football. And if you're like me and you love a good round of turn-based gaming, complete with a dwarven steamrolling machine trundling across the field to flatten a few greenskins when they get in its way, well... The game is very fun, even charming, and it's a fresh take on turn-based gaming that pulls from the complexity of a well-established board game to give it an extra layer of polish and balance, and that added depth really shows.

This game is a very loyal take on the classic tabletop board game.

For those who dont know the board game its quite a simple premise. You choose an American football team from a range of different fantasy races including humans, Elves, Goblins etc all taken from the Warhammer Fantasy world.

You then have to play a series of matches in a league. You can either play turn based which is very similar to the board game, where you have to sit and think whether you want your blitzer to attack and knowck down their lines man or whether you want to try and get your catcher to risk running right past the opposition so you can throw a dangerous long ball. Or you can play realtime which plays a little to fast for strategy to play much of a part and it is more reaction based.

Inbetween matches you can hire wizards to cast spells or bribe officials. You can upgrade your teams kit and hire new team members (which incidentally grow in experience)

Its not perfect, the matches can get a bit samey and the cutomisation options are pretty limited but the game, all in all, is generally good fun and the turn based style of of play can be fairly strategic if you play against a human opponent.

Bloodbowl is okay, when i played it i found it an uphill battle to get to grips with the gameplay. However the game does come with a helpful strategy guide and manual. The strategy guide does not list any help for the dark elves but the other races are all there. Bloodbowl has a sizeable multiplayer community to play with, i actually won a match. I give this 4/5 as the gameplay will be difficult for beginners.

Blood Bowl is an atypical sports-game with good turn-based mechanics. Here there are football, fantasy, dice and lucky, in an original fairly good mix. Blood Bowl isn't for casual gamers, but if you are fans of the board-game and you can play it online, you certainly can give it a chance.

This game is great for fans of the tabletop game. If you don't like eturn-based, rules heavy strategy, then you probably won't be interested. Plus, since the rules are directly from the tbletop game, there is a HUGE element of chance in your dice rolls that will turn some people off. But, if you love Warhammer, then this is a great addition to your game collection.

This is simply the best buy of 2009, guys.

If you are into boardgames you will not regret getting it. Many races, many abilities, many surprises, many strategies an unlimited longevity, a huge community, a decent AI and a world of live opponents.

Here is my reveiew and its going to be lengthy because this is an awsome game. First lets start with the DRM :

you are allowed 3 simultanious installs. This means you can install on 3 machines and no more until you de-activate one. The company is to be commended for its ingenuity on this as no one else has been able to come up with a viable solution until now as the game comes with a handy deactivate app so that you can do this. however, at the time of writing this it is unknown as to whether or not other programs with older versions of securom will overwrite or deativate the drm in the product (as is the case with titans quest-I have to keep my manual unlock code posted on my desktop for this game) but there is no manual unlcok code incase this happens. It should be noted that the game comes with two serial keys instead of one. You will have to write down the second one as the game requests the second one in full screen.

UPDATES: make no mistake , the game requires an online connection not only to activate it , but it will also automatically blast through any firewalls you have and check for updates and then update your game on to the latest version on start up

Graphics: The game does not fail in this area. If you have a lower end pc you might want to disable cimatics and turn the texture settings down a bit.

GAME PLAY: The game may be played in either real time or turn based ! The game itslef is quite fun and very addictive and simply saying its an awsome game is understatement as the game is very addictive and VERY fun. In turn based mode a match can take up to an hour to play and for the most fun it can be played in whats called blitz mode where you get to hire cheerleaders, purchase potions , ect.

Voice Acting : Unfortnately , the game falls a little short in this area as the part of the game can become quite repetitious as lines are repeated by the broadcasters of the event. Although you will be having so much fun with the actual game that this will now make much difference.

Sound and Music : sound and music files perfectly match the mood and feel of the game so this area is 9 of 10

Manual and Documentation

The game comes with both a manual and a large strategy guide but you will have to locate it in the games directory in order to take advantage of it. It is ashamed that the creators forgot to add a shortcut to the desktop and start menu for the documentation but dont let this discourage you as the game is rock solid and well worth the price you will be paying. In short , this is a must buy for anyone who would like to manage their own fantasy football team.