Blood Bowl trailer everything but a blood bath

by David Hinkle { Jun 19th 2009 at 4:00AM }

We haven't seen any gameplay of Blood Bowl yet, and, sadly, this trailer is no different. It does provide us with a taste of the color commentary that will frame the many conflicts taking place in the soon-to-be-bloody bowls, though. There's even a brief look at the many different races and squads that will take to the field in this most literal fantasy football title. In terms of quantity, it looks like the amount of teams will be somewhere between a lot and a whole freakin' lot.

Tags: blood-bowl, cyanide-studios, fantasy, fantasy-football, sports

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Pasz @ Jun 19th 2009 4:09AM

who put my WoW in my Madden?

Iroquois @ Jun 19th 2009 4:51AM

Yeah I did look like there were WoW trolls in there.
Though I'm sure it's some little known Warhammer Classic race.

Robert Maynard @ Jun 19th 2009 4:51AM

"More like World of Warhammer. Online. Craft."

Blood Bowl is older than WoW and Madden. :)

Ihavepants @ Jun 19th 2009 6:13AM

So what are the Warhammer version of Tauren called?

jsut @ Jun 19th 2009 7:56AM

Uhm, minotaurs. See also: Greek mythology.

Ihavepants @ Jun 19th 2009 8:56AM

... I wasn't trolling, that was a genuine question because I saw a race in that trailer which is visually very similar to Warcrafts Tauren, and was just curious to know their name...And yes I know Blizzard is often very um, inspired by the Warhammer licences but I don't care about that either way I still love them.

Aren't Minotaurs human from the waist down though?

Ihavepants @ Jun 19th 2009 9:01AM

Note I'm talking about the creature 58 seconds into the trailer and uh yeah, traditionally Minotaurs are mostly human with a bulls head.

OLDMIKE @ Jun 19th 2009 12:08PM

in warhammer there a large group of beastmen

redjack @ Jun 19th 2009 12:17PM

Its a minotaur. Chaos Minotaur too it looks like. Was heavier into Warhammer, 40,000 and Space Hulk than Blood Bowl. And it all depends on the artists depiction on whether they're human from the waist down or not. They aren't for Games Workshop. And they look bad ass that way too imo.

And "um, inspired" is probably the best way to put Blizzards use of Warhammer and 40,000 concepts in their work. My jaw dropped when I saw steam tanks and gyrocopters in Warcraft. I mean, come on.

warlock7 @ Jun 19th 2009 12:34PM

@ihavepants
Blood Bowl pre-dates WOW by 17 years. If anything happened, WOW modeled their Tauren after the Blood Bowl minotaur rather than the other way around.

Ihavepants @ Jun 19th 2009 12:42PM

Redjack, well the original Minotaur was a mans body with a bulls tail and head. It's sought of like saying a Gryphon doesn't need the bottom half of its body to be a lion- it's what makes it that particular creature. But if that's what they called it... ok. Just don't go all "jsut" on me and cite Greek mythology.

Warlock, I'm not suggesting Blood Bowl copied anything off Blizzard because I know how long Warhammer has been around, I clarified this up there ^.

Toastix @ Jun 19th 2009 1:54PM

@ihavepants If you look back in mythology specifically at black and red figure vase painting there is no one way a Minotaur is portrayed typically though they just had a bulls head so yes you are right, and defeating it was one of the great feats of Heracles. What we see in the trailer are Beastmen.

Toastix @ Jun 19th 2009 1:59PM

grrr i meant Theseus not Heracles

redjack @ Jun 19th 2009 2:32PM

Aside from taking Greek mythology in college I was an avid reader of Greek mythology when I was young. So I'm well aware of the classical interpretation of the Minotaur. But as I said artistic license was taken. And honestly, just because most Greek art and historians will go on about it being a man with the head of a bull the part of the myth describing the Minotaur does say its half man and half bull and not the body of a man and the head of a bull. That is just how it is depicted in ancient art and historians tend to follow suit. How that is interpreted really depends on who is reading it and the idea they come up with of it.

If you look at ancient interpretations of werebeasts you will notice that they are pretty basic in their interpretation and don't even come close to our modern conception of how something like a werewolf should look like. Did you see the chimera in the God of War 3 trailer? Doesn't that go against classical interpretation of that creature as well? And yet I enjoy the artist's different take on the three heads. I don't think I've ever seen it done that way and I think it works quite nicely.

So if you're resistant to a different artistic interpretation and think everything should be by the book classical interpretation then that's your preference. I, on the other hand, have always and will always enjoy new takes on the beasts of legend.

redjack @ Jun 19th 2009 2:55PM

"@ihavepants If you look back in mythology specifically at black and red figure vase painting there is no one way a Minotaur is portrayed typically though they just had a bulls head so yes you are right, and defeating it was one of the great feats of Heracles. What we see in the trailer are Beastmen."

While I understand that Games Workshop reappropriated the Minotaurs to the Beastmen Army one of the last times they reorganized everything I'm pretty sure they're still called Minotaurs.

Godmars @ Jun 19th 2009 4:36AM

Thought this was 360/PC only?

Wil Bill @ Jun 19th 2009 5:26AM

There's a psp version as well, hence the playstation tag

Christian @ Jun 19th 2009 1:18PM

This made me think that if we can put spore to some good use and implement our own species, it would make this pretty damn cool.

Dance Mofo @ Jun 19th 2009 6:14AM

cool.

8-bit.artist @ Jun 19th 2009 6:59AM

mutant league football, part 2.

Kevin @ Jun 19th 2009 8:08AM

As long as I can bribe the ref, eveything will be all right.

frips @ Jun 19th 2009 8:29AM

I loved Mutant League football, and to some extent, munant league hockey. I miss the days of dodging land mines and holes in the field. I can still hear EA's monster jibberish as they taunt the other team and laugh.

Ravnos @ Jun 19th 2009 11:05AM

I preferred Mutant League Hockey, but both were great and they're really begging for a current-generation update. This will have to hold me over until EA pull their heads out of their asses.

UNC_Samurai @ Jun 19th 2009 7:30AM

Ah, Blood Bowl, where even picking up the ball has a 1 in 6 chance of failing and ending your turn.

The game was always a great premise, but some of the rules Jervis wrote made my head spin.

Biggie @ Jun 19th 2009 10:20AM

I hope this game will let you select your rule set. The 2nd rule set seemed to work out well for me and my bro when we played. Though I never tried first or third gen rules. Still I'm excited for this game, now all we need is a new Space Hulk game.

UNC_Samurai @ Jun 19th 2009 3:34PM

I'm still waiting for an update to Final Liberation. I like the Dawn of War Series, but it doesn't capture the essence of Epic very well.

jsut @ Jun 19th 2009 8:17AM

I am so looking forward to this game. I loved Blood Bowl, but don't know anyone else who plays these days. It'll be fun to dust of my Goffic Spiders orc team in digital form.

I'm also extremely curious about the DS version. A portable BB would be ace.

Storm Eagle @ Jun 19th 2009 11:05AM

This game looks sweet. I'm looking forward to digging my giant spiked cleats into someones face as I race for the endzone.

Devin @ Jun 19th 2009 11:39AM

WTF is the target audience of this? I don't want to over generalize but... How many WoW player watch football?

Squid @ Jun 19th 2009 12:20PM

Ugh, all that grass and terrible bloom lighting. Looks like that Kameo teaser footage from four years ago.

steesefactor @ Jun 19th 2009 1:30PM

I worry about this game because it is such a faithful recreation of the board game. Unless the tutorial (which wasn't in the beta) is amazing, you'll need to read through the rules of the board game in order to understand what you're doing. And I think that's going to turn a lot of people off.

And as for not showing anybody playing football in the trailer, well, a bunch of guys standing around on a grid isn't very exciting, so I can see why the trailer focused on the cinematics.

I'd like to see this game do well, I just don't think it will.

And yeesh, they're selling it for full price. That's surprising for a game that's also coming out on portables and xbla (I think).

Carrie @ Jun 19th 2009 1:33PM

It's a shame that I despise everything about football, cause this looks hilarious.

Pdriver @ Jun 19th 2009 2:16PM

I hope it comes out on the PS3. I didn't see the PS3 logo, just the PSP one, at the end of the trailer.

derek.masino @ Jun 19th 2009 3:47PM

I think I first saw a trailer for this at '92 Games Day.

DrunkenPandaren @ Jun 19th 2009 5:10PM

If you're worried about this game go look at cyanide's last game, Chaos League. Which is basically a Blood Bowl rip off because at the time they didn't have the GW license to use Blood Bowl.

Havok @ Jun 19th 2009 8:22PM

I don't remember sports announcers being this annoying.

...But then I only really remember the guy who goes GOOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLL*infinity.

pika_iota @ Jun 19th 2009 9:13PM

I just read that the game studio that is making blood bowl has also licensed George R R Martin's a song of ice and fire and is planning an RPG and RTS. I'm not real familiar with the studio but if those games are half as good as the books I can't wait.