In the worst comedy in the world " NOTTOCH CINEE »There is exactly one remarkable episode, as if illustrating the essence of American football: two dozen athletes are pounced on a skinny loser with the ball, cheerfully tearing it in half, take the ball and run away with a hood.

How Orcs played in American football

For Americans, football invented by them is an object of national pride, the most rating show on TV, and even a symbol of family well -being. With the eyes of an ordinary Russian person, brought up in completely different sports, American football looks something like this: wild gorillas in helmets rush at each other and crush, crush, crush. That is natural Blood Bowl. Foreign journalists describe this game as “American football meets Warhammer ". We confidently agree, adding "… and makes ourselves an injection of adrenaline". Because Blood Bowl is a fantasy American football, which broke the roof. Captain Marlin sister sites At the very beginning, we are shown an introductory video in which a fierce orc pushes the running husk with powerful shoulders and throws a frightened goblin into a bigboard. This is an exhaustive description of what we have to do.

The universe of Blood Bowl is not at all new: in the distant 1987, a board game of the same name was released from Games Workshop , And in 1995, a computer strategy-symbol for motives arrived in time. Nevertheless, we received a full -fledged remake only thanks to the initiative of the French from Cyanide Studio , in 2004 released their Chaos League , almost literally repeating concept of the ancestor. The copyright holders from Games Workshop were initially deeply indignant, started a lawsuit, but soon agreed with the Cyanide Studio to develop a game according to real rules. Therefore, for fans of the series (if the like survived), a step -by -step mode is left, repeating the rules of the fifth version of the table. For the rest, the expanded Blitz mode is in store, in which the developers combined the classics with their own developments.

Everything begins in very civilized: we choose a race. There are only eight of them: people, gnomes, orcs, goblins, forest elves, chaosites, lizards and Scavens (eraseing rats). Each has their own pros and cons: people do not shine with anything special, but they have no obvious shortcomings; orcs rod ahead; Goblins are weak, but resourceful; And forest elves quickly run and strong in magic. Each race has its own characteristics of the personnel, but most importantly – there is its own star, a huge evil strong man. What the strongman is doing in such a game – it is easy to guess.

Then we choose a mode (step -by -step or in real time) and create a team for the game in the championship or a single match. We look after a logo, a combat cry, buy up to 16 players in the team (budget – a million), choose a sponsor, hire the girls to support, a medic … and into battle.

This cruel, cruel American football

“Either the players will change the rules, or we will ban football in general. Cruelty and dishonest game should be punishable. Change the game or refuse it, ”American President Theodor Roosevelt said angry in 1905, when an article on 15 killed and 159 wounded players in American football was published in the Chicago Tribun newspaper in the newspaper. In fact, in 1905 32 players died. Only then new rules were introduced, prohibitions and protective clothing were defined.

But before that they played even without helmets! Imagine how exhausted players left the field when they were thrown on them at once from several sides. However, even today, American football remains one of the most brutal sports: here you can grab the player by the legs and tie to the ground, stick on him in a skew and much more. Over each season, the NFL is injured by more than 50 players, an average of 18 athletes in each of the 28 league clubs. Many American football players leave the field crippled. So, the 120-kilogram giant Tonis Berd broke the spine, the defender Willy White was torn off two phalanx of the index finger. Bernard Tong, after a severe concussion, sits at home alone, and when trying to read the book, his head is split from wild pain. However, the leadership of the NFL does not consider such people injured-they can play something!

They can kill – the former NFL star about. Jay Simpson was sentenced a year ago for the armed robbery, beating and kidnapping of people by 18 years in prison. Before that, in 1994 they accused the murder of his wife and lover, but justified.

“American football is not for weakly playing. She is for modern gladiators, ”said the head of the press service of the NFL PIT Abitants. Perhaps that is why the final of the playoffs Super Bowl shows almost every second citizen to the US TVs, and the National Football League itself is the richest sports organization of all now living.

Brotherhood with spitsting slippers

The purpose of each match is traditional: grab the ball, run into the glass zone – Tachdown! Who will gain more points – he won. The matter is sharply changed by the fact that we are not fighting with pumped youths, but with crazy evil spirits, for which all funds are good, except honest.

For example, you can bribe a judge to turn a blind eye to violations, drink pots potions, hire bandits that will run out onto the field and lay down the wrong. The most important thing is that you can beat. Fist on the jaw or legs in the stomach. However, if you suddenly thought that we were waiting for some unbridled quasi-day simulator, then die an ardor, Blood Bowl is a fighting strategy, densely mixed with a role-playing game and management.

Each match looks something like this: we put the players around the field, throw a coin and, if you are lucky, choose what we will do – catch the ball or bury it with its enemies. After a judge shout “The ball in the field!»The following begins. The enemy saturates the fog for worst visibility, we rush to the ball, the players, seeing each other, begin to joyfully grind the faces, we grab the ball, running up two goblins kick us on the kidneys and take the ball, we send other players, indignantly beat them and take the ball again We graze. In general, in Real-Time, the main thing here is not to get lost and get to the point of the point. In step -by -step mode, everything is more difficult – you need to think through the moves in advance, trying not to fall under the distribution.

After time, the result is summarized, taking into account the entertainment of the match and the number of spectators, in a successful situation, the sponsor dumps a tidy sum in our pocket. It can be spent on buying new players or, for example, dishonest techniques. There is a particle of RPG – with each match you can slightly change the equipment of the fighters and pump the most active characters. There are many skills, some affect speed and health, but there are skills like mutations, “madness” and “struggle”. After several victories, you can grow your professional quoterbek in snacking tattoos.

But no very difficult tactics are expected, because races are playing, which in which it is written right in the biography that they are stupid. Hence the behavior. For example, goblins love, standing with the ball, bewildered to shrug, and the dwarf who ran up to the border of the point zone can turn to the attacker and start a face, completely forgetting about the ball. This, of course, is not always, but it happens.

* * *

Meanwhile, Blood Bowl is not the only cruel simulator of American football in the world. In the nineties on the "dandy" bloomed fun Mutant League Football And Brutal Sport Football , More recently on Xbox 360 The gloomy meat grinder came out Blitz: The League 2 , in which it was allowed to break the ribs and pump up the hero with drugs.

But from all these games, Blood Bowl is fundamentally different. The spirit of not concentrated cruelty reigns here, but some kind of fairy-tale booth-even the blood falls on the ground with juicy ointments, and instead of torn legs over the defeated fighters, round dance of stars are circling. In this regard, the Chaos League was significantly angry-even there the match began with a blow to the frowning boar-suicide bomber on which the ball was attached.

The meaning of life according to Blood Bowl is in another – courage, crazy jokes of commentators, crazy characters and trifles like "A crowd of fans beats behind the player's field". Of course, there are shortcomings: far from perfect AI, monotonous animation, skipping software errors, in some places a shameless copy of Chaos League … another thing is that there is much more pleasures here. Funny and at the same time sanely played matches, detailed management, a bunch of little things like training players. Well, fun, of course.

Reigracy – yes

Cool plot – no

Originality – no

Easy to master – yes

Evidence of expectations: 80%

Gameplay: 8

Graphics: 7

Sound and music: 7

Interface and management: 6

Waited? Monsters play American football. Cute remake of a desktop game about boring for each other. From the authors of Chaos League.

Mania rating: 7.5

"Fine"