A couple of years back a game called Chaos Leauge was released on PC, it was something a bit different that landed it's makers in trouble with Games Workshop. The reason for this problem was that it resembled thier Blood Bowl Table-top game a bit too much for thier liking. So they offered Digital Jesters a way out "We won't sue you if you make Blood Bowl for us" very sensibly they took this opportunity and here we have Blood Bowl. (Available on PC,360,DS and PSP)

Blood Bowl has two modes on offer, the first is a real-time sports game just as you would expect, however just like Chaos League it also offers a turn based mode. In Chaos League this was pretty much the same as the RT experience just you had time to tell your players what to do. Being based on a board game Blood Bowl uses version 5 of the board game rules, this means it includes tackle zones and the dangers that come with them.

So far I am in my third championship with my Human team (turn based mode) and I have one win to my name which I won one touchdown to nothing, I find dealing with the tackle zones a bit to difficult, and because of not winning I don't have that much money.

There are some nice touches to the game though, firstly when you enter a championship you have to negotiate a contract and set some goals, the money you get paid by your sponsors varies depending on these, obviously the more ambitious you are the more money offered.
When shopping for players you have a choice between brand new players or a range of current players of different levels, However for these be prepared to spend big money I think for one of my players I had to pay nearly twice the going rate and then in the second game he played in, he died.

This is something else I like but that annoys me to no end at the same time, if players are tackled particularly hard they can die, this gets rid of them and thier equipment (I suppose this is self explanetory) it keeps it believable but I still can't help feeling such a waste when a player dies.

Matches in turn based can take a very long time my turns are set for 4 minutes each so 1 match can last upto 2 hours if you and the computer use all four minutes for every turn, in my experience the computer generally uses 2 minutes and I generally use the same so it takes about an hour per match which means for the championships i'm in you can expect to be there a good 3 1/2+ hours.

Graphically if you've played Chaos Leauge it looks pretty much the same just instead of being in dark places most of the matches are in light areas (don't know if this has anything to do with me being human though) compared to a lot of games it really isn't much to look at, but for most of the people i'd expect to be playing this game i don't think that will rank highly on thier list.

If your good at the board game then you will probably love the turn based mode from my memories it plays exactly like the game, which is good since it's based on the living rule book, if however your not good at the board game you might be better off with the real time mode, I played the real time and hammered the first team I played by six touchdowns, pretty good considering in turn based I can't win.

Overall: The game does what it set out to do, which was to be a computer representation of a classic game, It won't push your computer to much which is a benefit and if your only vaugely interested in the game it should give you a few hours of enjoyment, despite only a few wins i've managed 6 hours out of it so far an I know i'll get a few more. If your looking for a sports game with a difference you might want to pick this up when it gets below £5 that way if you don't know Blood Bowl and then hate the game at least it hasn't cost you too much.