Blood Bowl, the Halflings

There's no more apt description of the underdog, as least in Blood Bowl, than the Halfling team.  They are smaller and weaker than most other teams, but they're also faster and really good at handling the ball.  For blocks and tackles, the Halfling team fields treemen players.  These hulking giants are placed right on the line of scrimmage and provide a nice defensive line for a ball carrier.  They are very slow, not that great with ball handling, and will sometimes root in one spot.  They are also very resilient, being able to take hits from multiple opponents with their Stand Firm skill.  The next two story matches would definitely be interesting.

The first was against a Skaven team, and as usual the goal was not to win but complete a particular objective.  This time it was two successful passes, which sounded easy enough, especially since Halflings have such high agility.  We kicked off first, they received and quickly rammed it down our throat.  The rats were really good at dodging and rolling out of tackles, around my defenders and scoring a touchdown on their first possession.  Now it was our turn for possession, so after receiving the kick off I immediately tried for a close pass with little risk.  It was successful, but the receiver got knocked down attempting to dodge an ogre.  They picked up the ball on the turnover and scored again.  Thankfully I needed only one more good pass to complete the goal, no matter how bad the scoreboard looked.  I think it's interesting they were running the ball instead of passing.  The Skaven obviously have good agility, passing should be a natural part of their offense.  I guess the computer was playing it safe, though I'm not sure why.  We still hadn't managed to score, and even if we did it certainly wouldn't have made any difference.

Another kick off and another successful pass and I could now rest easy.  The rats scored again on their possession, taking their lead to 5-0.  At this point all I had to do was wait until the match was over, but I felt I owed it to my portly team to at least try and score one touchdown.  Sadly we just couldn't make it happen, as every time we'd get the ball we'd either fumble or get knocked down for another turnover.  I honestly think the dice were working against me here.  The Skaven players would move in and surround whoever recovered, and it's easy to guess what happened next.  The game ended pretty quickly after one more touchdown, then I was able to move on to the next match.  This put us up against an Ogre team, which initially had me rolling my eyes.  I wondered how on earth the Halflings could stand a chance against such a strong, offensive team.  To my surprise, they held their own quite well.

 

The Ogres consist of not only the brutes themselves, but also small greenskins called snottlings.  They are very fast and good with the ball, which complements their bigger teammates quite nicely.  The trademark of this team is their ability to toss a snottling, with the ball, down the field and into the end zone.  I kept waiting for this to happen, as they had several opportunities, but they never even tried.  This time the goal was not only to complete two passes, but also dodge successfully ten times.  That wasn't a problem, as I already knew how good stunty players are at blowing right through a tackle zone.  We kicked off first, and I tried to put it as far down the pitch as possible.  It really didn't matter, as a snottling snatched it up quick, with his ogre teammates then surrounding him for protection.

 

Ball in hand, they marched down the field, pausing only to knock each of my defenders out of the way.  A touchdown seemed imminent, but luckily their snottling fumbled the ball right at the end zone.  One of my players was close by, so I moved him in for a quick.  At least three ogres were close enough to reach him next turn, so I took a chance and passed to another player down field.  That high agility score came through with a perfect pass, and luckily a perfect catch to go with it.  With most of their players on the opposite side of the pitch, I easily ran into the end zone and scored.

Somehow we were now in the lead 1-0, but the game wasn't over yet.  I had completed the ten dodges and two passes, so winning at this point really didn't matter, but I was emboldend by my first touchdown.  We kicked off with the rats running the same offense as before.  This time they didn't manage to get very far before I was able to use my treemen to tear down their defense.  An ogre fumbled the ball while trying to break out of our tackle zone, but of course we also fumbled trying to pick it up.  That turnover was all they needed; a snottling grabbed the ball and scored a touchdown just before the game ended.

We didn't win, but a tie is better than a loss, especially with the Halflings.  Given my limited experience with the game, I felt like I had really accomplished something.  It was pretty obvious after reading the post-match news that we wern't even expected to score, let alone tie.  Maybe the Halflings aren't such underdogs after all?  Regardless, my tenure as their coach was complete.  After my success I was offered the chance to coach two different elf teams for their next match: regular run of the mill Elves, or their distant Wood Elf cousins.

Read Dead Redemption : Undead Nightmare

Read Dead Redemption has to be one of the best open-world GTA style games I've ever played.  It's almost the end of the year, and it's still by far the best of 2010 for me.  I finished the story line months ago, but still have plenty of challenges left to do in single player as well as 20 more levels for my character in multiplayer.  With as many hours as I've put into it, I would imagine the cost per hour has to be well below a dollar.  Where else can you get value like that, plus get to shoot people at the same time?  Rockstar released a few different DLC packs, only one of which I downloaded and that's because it's free.  The others were paid DLC, and the content provided didn't interest me enough to pick any of them up.  Undead Nightmare, on the other hand, had my interest since the moment I heard about it.  I imagined John Marsten's rugged southwest, drenched in fresh blood from a zombie outbreak.  I never really gave the idea of cowboys and zombies much thought, but after playing this DLC I think I'm hooked.  I'm a sucker for all things undead anyway; when you throw in an open world and the Old West it's just icing on the cake.

The single player story takes place near the end of the main story line, with John Marsten arriving home from Blackwater just as a strange storm rolls in.  He enters the house and gets one last quiet evening with his family, Abigail and Jack.  Uncle, the remaining family member, hasn't returned from the fields which has John concerned but not overly worried.  The next morning starts normal enough, but Uncle of course returns very much undead with an insatiable hunger for human flesh.  I think it's interesting how they handle character reactions, as neither John nor Abby know what a zombie is.  She tries to run over and help him, only to be bitten on the neck and turned before John's very eyes.  He calls for his son Jack to come out and help while he deals with Uncle.  Jack is bitten and turns as well, just as John manages to finish off Uncle.  He's not sure what to do with them, thinking they are sick and need help.  The very first mission of Undead Nightmare requires you to lasso and hogtie your family before setting off to Blackwater in search of a cure.  John takes them into the house and barricades the door from the outside.

Of course zombie enthusiasts know that even though it's implied, there is never a cure.  Luckily John's horse manged to escape the infection, so I hopped up on his back and headed for town.  During the normal game, roads are usually busy with travelers going this way or that.  In Unead Nightmare, the road from John's ranch at Beecher's Hope into Blackwater was dead, no pun intended.  There's an eery silence everywhere, and the sky is an overcast gray.  The sun is nowhere to be seen, and as I come into town I notice I still haven't seen a single person.  Blackwater is the biggest city in the game, yet it's completely deserted.  It's not long before I start running into other survivors, including some familiar characters from the main story.  It's interesting to try and make predictions on who will make it and who won't.

After a couple missions in Blackwater, the undead horde attacks in full force and John is tasked with helping defend the town.  In these types of battles, I've learned that the roof is the safest place to be.  Zombies can't climb, thankfully, so staying up high is the best way to stay alive.  Once you clear the first town, things open up and you can then do the same for all of the others.  Each time I would first ride in, a mission would start where I would need to help defend against an ever increasing onslaught of undead.  The farther I got into the game, the harder things became.  I manged to get all the way down to Armadillo, which is roughly in the middle of the map, and it was definitely the most difficult.  Once you defend a town, it becomes safe which allows you to save the game and search buildings for precious ammo.  There aren't any stores open, so the only ammo and weapons you have are what you find.  Towns don't stay safe for long, as sooner or later the undead attack again.  When that happens, you're called again to help defend.

There's also a whole new set of new challenges, stranger missions, and random events that fit right in with the zombie apocalypse theme.  I've seen survivors on the road being attacked by zombies, a poor woman who was bitten and turned just as I had gotten off my horse to help her, and a man trying to take a woman's gun for himself.  The stranger tasks, at least so far, have all involved major characters from the main story.  Some that I didn't like ended up zombified, which made killing them fun.  Other good characters also didn't make it, and the game forces you to deal with them accordingly.

I haven't made it down to Mexico yet, as I switched out this past weekend and started multiplayer.  It's still just as fun as before, with Friendly Free Roam being a nice addition.  Before it could be a pain to try and gain experience as eventually there would always be some idiot show up shooting everything in sight.  With this new Free Roam that's no long a problem, and I was able to run several gang hideouts with no interruptions and dare I say actual cooperation from another players.  I noticed several new gang hideouts that are apparently part of previous DLC packs, so I guess I'm going to have to get them all eventually.

Undead Overrun is one of the new multiplayer modes that comes with this DLC, and for my money it's by far the best.  It takes one of several different set pieces from the main game, with four players fending off progressively harder waves of zombies.  Before a match begins you have to choose a weapon load out, each being suited to a different play style.  Once things get started it's all about killing zombies and staying alive as the clock slowly ticks down.  Coffins appear during each wave and if a player opens one the entire team gets additional ammo and time on the clock.  I had a match where one player dropped out just before we started, then another climbs up onto a building just as the first wave starts.  This left myself and the last player to run for the coffins and cover each other.  It didn't become a problem until after several waves, then things start to get really crazy and working together as a team is the only hope for survival.  Unfortunately the one player never came down, and could only hit zombies that were close.  I was surprised when he didn't even come to heal either of us after we had both been knocked out.  The clock ran out and the match ran into overtime, but I'm not really sure what that meant as I didn't stick around.  I did eventually get into one game with three players that were very good.  We worked well as a team and made it to wave 11 before running out of time.  I don't think I stopped moving that entire wave.

Blood Bowl : Legendary Edition

Blood Bowl combines the Warhammer fantasy world with American football, the result being the most violent and bloody sport ever.  Two teams square off on a pitch surrounded by screaming fans, and just about anything goes.  The Chaos team I played wasn't very good at handling the ball, but they were really good at beating the opposing players into unconsciousness.  You really don't need an offensive strategy if most of the opposing team is either dead or knocked out.

The original version came out last year, complete with 8 teams and a campaign mode where you could play an entire season from start to finish, even the Blood Bowl itself if you're team made it that far.  Shortly after, a new edition was released with Dark Elves as an added team.  Last week, the Legendary Edition came out and now I think all but one of the official teams is playable.  It retains the campaign from last year's version, as well as a new story mode.  When playing the original, I opted to let the computer handle all of the rules and dice rolls for me by playing the game in real-time mode.  Any true Blood Bowl player will tell you that is sacrilege, as at it's core it's a turn-based board game.  For the LE, I've only been playing in turn-based and it makes a world of a difference.  So much is hidden to you in real-time, it doesn't even feel like the same game.

I've finished the first two matches in story mode, mainly just to get a feel for the rules. It seems interesting, but I'm already getting the itch to create my own team and jump into a campaign.  I'm not sure that would work, as the first two matches are pre-set with specific goals.  Luckily I was able to meet those goals, but I still don't understand the game enough to formulate tactics or strategy.

The first match pits Orcs against Dwarves and starts just as half-time is ending. I picked Orcs, and the game started with my team leading 1-0. The dwarves had the ball, so I tried to set up a good defense with every open square covered by a tackle zone. The dwarf team would always cage the ball carrier, then start moving towards the line of scrimmage. They downed both of my black orcs and linemen quick, but luckily they turned the ball over fairly quick. One dwarf player was ejected for kicking a downed Orc, two others were knocked off the pitch and beaten into unconsciousness by the crowd. After that I had the numbers advantage, so it was a matter of dismantling the cage he had around the ball carrier while keeping them away from the end zone.

The second match was as Goblins against Humans, and man did that seem like a lopsided match-up. We started down by 4 I think, but luckily the goal wasn't to score but throw 2 goblins. Not as easy as it may sound, but I did manage to get it done. I had one troll throw a goblin at the human ball carrier, only to miss horribly and smash him into the ground. Needless to say he didn't make it, but my next attempt was more successful. They kept the ball almost the entire game, except after their two touchdowns. We had the ball once, but fumbled it quick and the Humans recovered. The one other possession we had was when they kicked off and one of my goblins managed to get a hold of it. I didn't waste any time, marched him down the field, then grabbed and threw him with troll. I thought maybe I could land him far enough down field to get at least one touchdown, but of course he face-planted too. At least the throw was good, so the goal was complete and I moved on.

The last match had me play the Halflings against the Skaven I think, but the game crashed as it was loading so I'm not sure what the specific goal for that match is yet.  I really hope it's not to win. From what I've read, Halflings are only for the more experienced players, and that is definitely not me.