Article by Pietro Gualano
Blood Bowl 2 offers an interesting mix of sports, fantasy and strategy, it is a title based on the board game created by Jervis Johnson for Games Workshop and is proposed as a sequel to the video game dedicated to the Blood Bowl released in 2009. The developer Cyanide Studios has tried to take the best from the first chapter by correcting the imperfections that have emerged in recent years and introducing some delicious novelties.
But does this title live up to the name it bears? Here is our review of Blood Bowl 2.
Beat and strategy
Blood Bowl 2 it is essentially a turn-based strategic game, two teams face each other on a field divided into squares with the aim of bringing the ball into the opponent's touchdown area and have the possibility to also make forward passes. The basic idea, therefore, is to propose a title that broadly incorporates the rules of American football but introduces some elements that end up making the games completely unique and different from those we can see in the NFL. What makes Blood Bowl an original sport and different from all the others? To answer this question we could emphasize the fact that the death of a player on the pitch is just an unpleasant inconvenience, or we could focus on the fact that it is perfectly permissible to violently beat an opponent for no apparent reason. What matters, however, is that Blood Bowl 2 manages to entertain with its high rate of violence, its over the top characters (starting with the commentators), its stadiums full of bloodthirsty spectators and its strange referees.
At this point you might think that a Blood Bowl game is a simple fist fight in which whoever hits the hardest wins, but don't be fooled. In this game, cunning, positioning skills and managing your men are far more important than mere brute strength. The title offers a more than satisfactory level of challenge, putting the player to the test and forcing him to evaluate the risks associated with a certain action. All this is possible thanks to a much improved artificial intelligence compared to the past that constantly tries to obtain advantageous positions: the enemy teams are not perfect and it can happen to see them make mistakes, but this possibility is quite rare and generally the AI behaves more than worthy.
At the beginning of the game the arbiter tosses a coin and, in the event of a favorable result, we have the possibility to choose whether to start in attack or defense. At this point we just have to deploy our "men" in the best possible way and start the dances: in case you have never played Blood Bowl you may have some difficulty understanding the various mechanisms, but fortunately the first games of the campaign excellently do the job of teaching the basics to the player. Victory in a physical fight is decided by the roll of the dice, to increase our chances we must evaluate the statistics of the player with whom we are attacking and optimally position the other members of the team (for example by surrounding the opposing player). Actions such as passing, running through enemy lines or receiving, on the other hand, are not decided by a roll of the dice, the success rates vary depending on the player used and the situation in which we find ourselves. Knowing how to choose if and when to risk a certain action is fundamental since if we fail, our turn will end instantly and the initiative will pass to our opponent.
Each individual member of the two teams has certain statistics that indicate his ability to hurt the opponent, take hits and more: taking these numbers into account is important because it allows us to put the right man in the right place.
In this game you don't just need skill: you need a good dose of luck to get out of certain situations unscathed and be successful in certain actions, but it's also true that the title wouldn't be so good if it wasn't a little unpredictable. The other side of the coin, however, is the frustration that emerges from seeing well-constructed and reasoned actions ruined by a simple unfortunate roll of the dice: when you play against the AI it is easy to think that this is "cheating" but, after a more careful analysis, one soon realizes that often our opponent is able to put himself in the best position to win, he is simply not lucky. To sum up, we could say that having luck on your side is important, but knowing how to manage your team properly is definitely more decisive for the final result.
The climb to success
In Blood Bowl 2 we find three main game modes: the classic friendly match, “play in a league” and the campaign. Among the various contents offered by the title, the story mode was the one that initially intrigued us the most and we were not disappointed. The player finds himself having to manage a team in disarray and has the task of bringing it to glory and victory, overcoming opponents and difficulties of all kinds. The first few games are a great tutorial as mentioned above, but things get really interesting when the various beginner aids are turned off and we can test ourselves against opponents of all races. Furthermore, during the matches in campaign mode, some absolutely unique events may occur (which we do not intend to anticipate) that can make the matches interesting and special. The longevity of this mode is in our opinion more than enough and we believe that players will have fun facing their "career".
The "play in a league" mode is probably the most interesting of the game: thanks to it we have the possibility to create our own team from scratch choosing between the various races and we can face opponents controlled by AI or humans. There are not many tournaments to play in single-player and we believe that "play in a league" manages to make the most of its potential when you throw yourself into online multiplayer, signing up for one of the leagues present and challenging the teams. created by other users. But that's not all: in "play in a league" our team will grow victory after victory, individual players will level up and get special skills, we will be able to buy new players or sell those already in our possession on the market and we will find ourselves managing the sponsors and the stadium. In this mode we can build the team of our dreams step by step and this is extremely stimulating and pushes the player to improve more and more to be competitive.
In Blood Bowl 2 we are also given the opportunity to buy some bonuses to be exploited in the game, such as a healer to rescue injured players or the very useful re-rolls, which allow us to repeat a limited number of times a roll of the dice or an action that is bankruptcy.
In the title there are eight playable races (orcs, skaven, dwarves, chaos, three races of elves and the Bretonnians), unfortunately the Lizardmen and Wood Elves have been included in the form of pre-order bonuses and are not available to everyone: we do not share this decision and we believe that including them in the base game would have offered more possibilities for players.
The variety proposed in Blood Bowl 2 is more than good, each race has specific strengths and weaknesses and boasts absolutely unique players (not only from an aesthetic point of view). The best work, in our opinion, has been done with the dwarves: cheerful beer drinkers with really good characteristics, always ready to beat the first opponent who comes within range.
We now come to one of the aspects that convinced us most in Blood Bowl 2: team personalization. In the game we have the possibility to rename all the members of the team, choose our motto, the color of the uniform, the name of the stadium, the schemes and we can even decide the haircut and appearance of our players. Cyanide Studios has done a good job in this regard, the player is naturally inclined to become attached to him and it is really depressing to see one of your men die after an action or maybe retire after years of honorable career.
In addition to being renamed, the stadium can also be updated and enhanced: game after game, upgrade after upgrade, we find ourselves playing in an arena that we really feel like ours even if the various updates have a considerable cost.
What a style!
Blood Bowl 2 he never takes himself too seriously, the title is ironic and funny and manages to surprise the player several times. Jim and Bob, the two presenters of the official TV dedicated to the Blood Bowl, are well made and accompany the player before, during and after the game. In campaign mode their role becomes even more important: they are the ones who explain to us the story told in the game without ever being trivial and often among their over-the-top sentences we can also find some suggestions on what actions to take.
From a technical point of view, we cannot complain: the graphic style of the title is perfectly suited to the context, the stadiums are well made and full of life and compared to the first Blood Bowl, great strides have been made. We are not talking about a technically perfect game: during our test we ran into several minor bugs but we are convinced that these will be corrected quickly with a series of updates.
The sound is also more than good, with music and effects that remain in the player's head. Unfortunately the title is neither dubbed nor subtitled in español and requires a good knowledge of English, we invite you to take this aspect into account before buying it: over the next few weeks a translation could arrive from the community, but until then the game it is not recommended for those who know little or bad English.
Conclusion
Blood Bowl 2 is an interesting, fun and challenging title that manages to challenge the player. Sometimes it can be a bit frustrating but we are still talking about a quality product, among the negative notes we have to point out the lack of the española language and the decision to include the Lizardmen and Wood Elves as a pre-order bonus. The ironic style of the game, the new campaign and the "play in a league" mode allow the title to surpass its predecessor and we are sure that fans of this particular "sport" will spend hours and hours trying to create the perfect team.
