Pocket Gamer's board game retrospective - Blood Bowl
Worth a second look?
I sort of grew up with the board game version of Blood Bowl. I remember the feel of the polystyrene board, the cardboard inserts you could slide into the end zones to change which teams were playing. I even painted some of the miniatures.
Which is why the console and PC version of Blood Bowl was a bit of a heartbreaker for me. It was buggy, clumsy, and didn't manage to capture the thrill of the nonsensical mash up of American Football and hyper-violence.
But here's the thing. If you want to play a digital version of Blood Bowl, then buying the mobile version is definitely your best bet. Even now, a couple of years after its release, it stands as the best port of the game.
A lot of the bugs were ironed out before this one hit the App Store, and that means there's a lot less to get frustrated about.
It's still not perfect, not by any means, but the beautiful, maddening game at the heart of all of it manages to shine through.
This isn't the place to start your Blood Bowl adventure - there's a sequel for consoles and PC that's a good deal better, and well, the board game is incredible - but that doesn't mean that it deserves ignoring completely.
If you're looking for a quick and easy fix of this crushingly violent and often hilarious fantasy sport, and you already know what you're doing, then this is well worth the asking price.
