Blood Bowl Review
The Short Version: While Blood Bowl is a faithful recreation of the boardgame, ultimately it feels like a budget title that you wont play for long. Its made worse by the fact that the Xbox 360 version is gutted sorry excuse for a port and without online leagues! If your interested in blood bowl, only consider the PC version but better yet, seek out the board game!
Blood Bowl Angry Review
What you’ll Like:
• The Turn-Based Mode is a faithful 100% recreation of the board game.
• Interesting seeing all the animations that you envisioned in your head playing the board game.
• The offline campaign has all the bells and whistles, sponsorship, cheerleaders, team management – Too bad its a bore to play.
What you’ll Hate:
• The game feels like an Xbox Live Arcade title masquerading as a Full Retail Release. Not worth the $40.
• Online Leagues in the Xbox 360 Version have been Stripped out of the game. Your stats, upgrades, and progressions do not carry over into other matches at all.
• The “Real-Time” mode is a mess, whats the point? Its essentially a “pause-able” turn-based mode, without turnovers – I liked the effort to Innovate but It wasn’t executed. Why not try “real” football as in Mutant League?
• Poor Customization options for your team (only two team colors; blue and red – and you cant even choose!).
• Commentary gets annoying after the first hour of play, with no volume control and lacking video/audio options in pause menu.
Final Verdict:
Xbox: 2/10
A Worthless Insult
PC: 5/10
Average
The Board Game: 8/10
A Recommended Great Game!
Issue your own Final Score Above!
*Note this episode had a small error in the size of my “Telecaster”. Some of you may know my PC had crashed twice in the past week, I was able to recover this file with the help of the Angry Joe TechDivision! (my computer-smart followers over twitter/facebook), this was the only version that was recoverable, but its sure is better than it being lost forever. Big Thanks to you guys!
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197 thoughts on “Blood Bowl Review”
i’m a big fan of the board game and was considering getting this game, but after watching this review i was less enthusiastic. the fact that you can’t even choose team colours, and just cycle between blue and red (a feature cyanide have blatantly recycled from chaos league) has pretty much made up my mind- screw this game. the only reason i wanted it was to bring my team from the board game, who are green, into the virtual world. having team colours is one of the biggest parts of sports, and the lack of that in chaos league allways really pissed me off. seriously though, anyone who hasn’t should play the epic board game
That’s only on the X-box version, i have the PC version and you don’t have the same problem there, you get online leagues too! For example my Skaven the sharp tooth slashers are silver.
get the pc version i have it on pc and it rocks
Thing is Joe Cyanide was forced hired by GW to make the BloodBowl game cause they sued Cyanide for making Chaos League http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_League wich was a complete ( and I “mean” complete) ripoff of Bloodbowl. Probably why they made a such a cheap effort in the game. On my part i got the PC version and love it and im waiting on the Legendary Edition with all the Bloodbowl races added.
lol chess. Awesome review.
And BTW, since you seem to be a Longhorn fan, and I love to bring up horrible memories for Longhorn fans (only in sports; I don’t say “hah! you’re mom’s dead!”), remember November 1, 2008: 33-39.
Now joe dont feel bad for playing that board game i play the arhammer 40k one all the time it gets the best of us…what just because i play with models i cant be cool?!? haha
Angry Joe end song, end theme, extro song, GO yell
the song at the end with the “gooooooooooo” is from
Callenish Circle – Suffer My Disbelief
in the song he sings original “mooooooooooooooore”
the song at the beginning of the review at 1.10 is
Crossbreed – Seasons
It’s funny cause the gaming store I lived down the street from closed and turned into a porn store…and left the magic the gathering painted sign on the window for some time…lol…but I digress. For me, I joined the board game leagues here just as the store was closing down and never got to experience it. I didn’t know of the PC version nor do I play PC games often, and though the features were cut down I picked it up for around 25 and I don’t mind it that much to be honest.
It’s still mediocre, but dang, if you want to call up and be all yeah let’s play a league and you can be orcs and so on, I’d be all for that lol.
What’s the name of that badass metal song at the beginning of the review?
Hey Joe I’ve seen your review about this game on 360 & pc, good job, and I got a little curious about this game and saw other reviews about this game. And i saw 6s/10, 6.7s/10 and a MOTHER F—– 7/10, and these were from other top game reviewers out there.
So i was left scratchen my head about this game. What do you think?
Как сказал бы Ипполит Матвеич: Да уж…
whats that song in the beginning when Joe shows clips from rugby and football and what band?
Funny, I just saw Blood Bowl at GameStop the other day. I couldn’t believe they wanted to sell a game like that at $40.
It’s a shame. I wanted to like this game. I had a lot of fun with the board game when I was younger, and this is actually *much* cheaper than playing the board game. Unfortunately, the more I dug the worse it got.
All of the pc versions use SecuRom. This includes the Steam release, which seems redundant. I haven’t heard any horror stories about this particular version of SecuRom, but it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
As an aside, the Blood Bowl community itself has taken a pretty bad beating from Games Workshop’s legal department over the last few months. I’m not sure if it’s related to the computer game’s release or just that the Blood Bowl trademark was up for renewal. Whatever the case, many sites got served with cease and desist letters. I can understand some of the letters from a business standpoint (fumbll could hurt their sales), but I don’t understand the logic behind angering the community that literally helped write the rules that the video game uses. It’s not like the video game has a wide target audience.
I guess it could be worse. They could have taken a page from Wizards of the Coast’s playbook and made you buy each team member at an online store for the same price as the mini. Ultimately, I would have preferred a legitimate version JavaBBowl (the app used on fumbbl) – something light weight that the community could mod for special tourneys etc. Games Workshop might have even been able to coax out some extra cash with “official tournaments”. Then again, maybe that model wouldn’t work. It’s not like I’m business savy or anything.
when you said 42 colours to paint your miniatures, did you mean Warhammer 40k? if not, you suck 🙂
40 fuggin’ dollars?! WTF Cyanide Studios! Angry Joe! Kill the president of Cyanide Studios!
joe you forgot to tell first cyanide made an unofficial Blood Bowl version called Chaos League (that made me first think of Mutant League) and GW contact them to make the official Blood Bowl game. I was so young when i got the first edition of blood bowl, the sense of humour was wicked, like a troll grabbing a goblin and throw him throw the field for the touch down ^^, that would be so cool an mutant league like blood bowl with real time action. to me the pc version deserves a 7 out of 10.
I think you meant to say that Cyanide Studio made Chaos League which infringed on GW’s copyrights with many of its images at which point GW sued them and the two companies settled out of court – GW got full rights to the chaos league franchise (which was then tanked) and a heap of cash, and Cyanide got the right to make the Blood Bowl video game.
So, stealing from people is in Cyanide Studio’s blood – don’t be shocked that they’re trying to make off with your wallet in exchange for a below-average game. Likewise, keep in mind that Cyanide didn’t originally WANT to make the game, they settled for it when their own game (one that was moderately popular within the genre) was lost in the legal battle.
As always, excelant reveiw joe. I understand your affinity with the ol board game, but i don’t think I’ll be rentin this one for anything. Off hand question, will you be reviewing the force unleashed two? I favorited your reveiw site a few months ago and so far you aint let me down. just hope you review one of my favorite seires.
Hi All,
The review was pretty on the money except for a few things:
1. It is not 100% faithful to the TT game but close enough
2. The PC version also gets Dark Elves
3. You can play PC leagues using the awesome League Application found at http://www.bloodbowldigital.com independantly of the shithouse Cyanide servers and teamcheatingfucktards that lurk there. There is also a massive modding community workig on new races and game improvements so come look us up.
But he right in that the X360 is a dismal port… do not buy it
We get it already it’s a Bored Game!
PC is slightly better though I know that thanks to my Nerdy friend who buys everything Warhammer.
Thanks for the double slap in my face, Joe. Heh!
Yeah I bought this game on the 360, and I regret it every day since. The only good thing about it that I encountered with this game. Able to play with a friend split-screen. But it still won’t keep that edge for long. Agree completely with the review man.
Me! I’m just going to look into the wall, be ashamed that I even spent my money on this piece of crap.
Dude, I laughed my fucking arse off at this review, made my day 🙂
Joe if you like this kind of games than get “Chaos League” it’s better than blood bawl even though it’s older :P.
(Weird fact) it’s made by Cyanide too…
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s renowned line in The Terminator “I’ll be back” was initially in the script as “I’ll come back”.
great post. I will add it as favorite! Regards
fantastic entry. I will bookmark it! Thanks
look at the top of the video at the beginning (around russia) you can see some of the green screen. now no offence joe but is it supposed to be there or is it just a stupid glitch or is it just out of lighting?
hey angryjoe, pass the foot ball im open! ….. (bam) OW!!! IT HIT MY EYE! I THINK IT IS BLEEDING. awesome review though dude
Honestly, whenever I hear about Games Workshop and computer games, I think Chads. It was a good game and everything, but I never did figure out what “Chads” had to do with “the battle of wizards.” I mean, did Chad start this battle, making it “Chad’s Battle of Wizards?” Or are the wizards just CALLED Chads in that game. Seriously, that was so weird.
sorry to say this but HELL YES first time i’ve seen console get the asshole end of a port i’m glad pc isn’t the only 1.
JOEY! whats songs are when you show that football clips ? that band is awesome! SAUCE plox
Crossbreed – Seasons
wow i play warhammer 40k myself and ive heard alot of bloodbowl before in my local hobby store.
i should give it a try, it sounds like fun ( the boardgame i mean )
Anyways good review Joe, games like that are meant to play with other people,
its just not so fun on your own. So why leave the multiplayer out ? :s
Oh and dont feel too bad. Compared to the UK release yours Was a budget title. It was a full £40 release here (i think thats like your big $60 titles.)
Try seeing this piece of crap on the Xbox stand right alongside games like Modern Warfare 2, Assasins Creed 2 and Borderlands for the same price.
I took mine back and did a like for like trade for DragonAge.
Actually there was a rules update for BB not too long ago. Its free online too under GW Specialist Games. Infact i think all the Specialist Games are free online these days. Battlefleet Gothic isnt bad either.
Check out Fumbbl.com. Its a Java client version of Bloodbowl. Its just a top down version and no fancy graphics but it has the core of the game and you can customize what you see on the board with a little know how.
Did you really expect anything different from GW joe? There models are way to fucking over priced now, they haven’t actually done a rules update for blood bowl since the 90s, and they recently seem way to preoccupied with making money quickly. Out of all the videogames that they have licensed, 2 franchises have been successful; dawn of war and warhammer online. GW has fucked over they older fans so they can attract more 13yrlds to all there games. I’d say I was hopping for them to make a necromuda port, but…fuck if Relic doesn’t make it, I’m sure as shit not foinf to buy it.
I’ll stick with Crush! Deluxe thanks!
That’s unusual it’s usually the PC that gets the crappy X-box port!
What name at a song which plays the end of each video?
Callenish Circle – Suffer My Disbelief
Remind sme of battletecn or Mechwarrior for some reason.
This is why they don’t do exact copies of the main Warhammer and 40k lines for the game versions. What makes a good board game or tabletop game just doesn’t translate to a video game.
Whoa. I just came home from Gamestop amd saw Blood Bowl for the 360 on the shelf, only to come home and see a new review for it.
Oh man, I remember playing this board game. I think I still have it buried beneath all of my old Warhammer 40K pieces and rule books. Ahhh… my misspent childhood…lol.
You’re just full of surprises, Joe. I didn’t try the XBox version, but I found the PC version all right. I can’t imagine why they would trim down the console release so much. Playing an online league is the most fun you’re gonna have on this game.
At least the tabletop game makes football interesting. XD Oh well. I have been waiting to hear how this VG version of the tabletop game was. Thanks Joe!
I salute the Angry Joe Army!
At first i thought this game would be a 9/10 for all the excitement putt on the start of the review.
And OMG!! this is one of the worst games ever.
Stick it to them Joe!!
Now you have 2 xbox’s 360 what you are going to do?
Warhammer 40K is much better, than the fantasy or this Blood Bowl.
Joe, you should review Warhammer 40K Dawn of War 2 :Chaos Rising (wow, long name).
i was gonna buy that. im glad that they didnt release ps3 port. that would kill ps3 sales.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/landing.jsp?catId=cat410008&rootCatGameStyle=specialist-games
Here’s a link to the Games Workshop site, just click Blood Bowl for more info. Of course, you should support your Local Game Store if they can get it for you!
Hopefully when you say LGS you aren’t including Games Workshop’s stores, because Games Workshop can’t run a store worth SHIT. I mean, you can get banned from the store for talk about other games? WTF!
I just want to add to your comment that the game is upwards of $80 US for the basic starter game, which includes two teams and the rules. Anyone interested better be ready to invest some serious cash into it (probably still less than Warhammer 40k, though)
nice revew makes me want 2 play the acutal board game where itst supposed to be played
what about the Blood Bowl (1995 video game) for DOS? I loved that game as a child! have you played that one?
i cant hear no sound :/
Nice review Joe! When are you gonna do the Q&A with rebellion btw?